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How long will my initial backup take?

Overview

How long your initial backup will take depends on several factors, including:

• Amount of data to backup
  
• Number of files to backup
  
• Upload bandwidth (speed) of your Internet connection
  
• Latency (delay) of your Internet connection
  

This article will help you estimate how long your initial backup will take based on these factors.

Upload Speed Test

To accurately estimate how long it will take you to upload your data, you should first test to see how fast you can upload data to the Internet. (For some connections, such as broadband connections, your upload speed is usually less than the download speed advertised by your ISP.)

To test your upload connection speed, please click here.

Estimation by Total Amount of Data

You can use the Visualize feature on the Folders page to determine how much data needs to be backed up to the server. (After you open Visualize watch the textbox below the folder list at the bottom of the dialog. Look for a line of text that says "Amount to backup in all folders:")

The following table can help you estimate how long it will take to backup your data, based on the total amount of data to backup and your Internet upload speed. If the estimated time is unacceptable then you should consider using a USB disk to perform the initial backup. (Please see this article for more information.)

This table also assumes that your bandwidth settings (Options page, Bandwidth tab) are set to Max for both business hours and off hours. Many businesses will need to use a lower bandwidth speed during business hours. We recommend that you set the business hours bandwidth setting to half of your measured upload rate. If you choose to do this, then it will take 33% longer than the times in the table above.

The T3/DS3 Connection speed in the table above is a (slightly low) estimate on the speed you would achieve using the backup to USB disk feature (depending on the speed of your processor).

Estimation by Number of Files

Another consideration is how many files need to be backed up. If you are backing up mostly small files (for typical connection speeds, files that are 8 KB or less in size) then the total amount of time to perform the initial backup will mostly be determined by the number of files you are backing up and the network latency to the remote server. The following table can be used to estimate the initial backup duration:

Note that the above table factors in a pessimistic estimate on the amount of time it takes the server to safely commit one file to the data repository. Depending on the server load, the server may process the request more quickly, and the backup would take less time than estimated above.

Summary

Your initial backup duration depends both on the total amount of data to upload and the number of files that must be uploaded. This article has described how to estimate the initial backup duration based on each factor. You should take the longer duration of the two estimates as the most accurate estimate for the initial upload duration.

If the estimated initial backup duration is unacceptable then you should consider performing the initial backup to a USB disk. For more information, see this article.