Synametrics Technologies

We have a machine that we are trying to backup. This machine is running VMware (Windows 10) from mac OS.

Here is the problem I am having the customer has the client installed on the mac OS, it is taking forever to backup his files. This is a laptop so it needs to be quick backups. The goal is we want to be able to restore from a backup with his whole VM intact, so we can not backup just the windows files (run the client in windows). There is two quick options I thought of and not sure what is the best way to go here, or if they are possiable. By the way this backup is getting pushed over the internet to our datacenter where the backup server is at. The VM file that it is looking at is over 40GB if that helps anyone also (raw not changed data).

1) Can we have a local client (server) on his network that he normally uses so his backups can complete at gigabit speed to this client which can then upload them to our server. They have not the best internet connection there 10MB upload speed, these backups without his doing windows updates are averaging 2-3GB and when windows updates they are 5-8GB. I think this would solve alot of problems, but I would have to be able to sync just his files back to the server that way?

2) If #1 does not work cleanly I can think off a way to "hack" it to make it work. We could use the client to connect to a "server" that is on his client network. I am thinking just a headless unit with some disk space, I know it will need processing power and memory to handle the backups quickly. Then we could use that machine as a client to our "real" server, meaning we would backup the backup directory on the machine that is sitting in the network he normally ueses. Is this a recomended way of doing things? Has anyone ever tried this before? What type of specs would I need on the machine that I would put there. Can I use a Raspberry PI? Do I need something like a Intel NUC? With the PI I assume IO from usb would be my problem, maybe processing power or memory? My server that we use for backups does not seam to take much memory, I have not checked on the processor too much. With a NUC box from Intel I could put a SSD in which should be fine for IO. I would expect this box to run liniux, both for matiance reasons, and reliability. We have VPN access to that site so we would manage over SSH.

Am I totaly on the wrong track here or is the path I am heding down make sense?

I would like to do this for minimal costs if possiable, so if a PI would work fine let me know that please, or maybe I am heading down the right path and I need to test I understand that answer also, I just do not want to get into going down the wrong path here and there be something flawed with my thinking. I expect that if I can speed backups up to line rate (computer would connect at 100MB or 1GB depending on "server" that would be local to the client), I understand theoretical speed VS reality, but it would help that it is not going over a internet connection which in reality we really have no controll over the true speed.

Lastly how long should it take for that backup to complete (40GB set, on average 4-5GB changed data that needs to be sent). I know this is a loaded question as there is client IO involved etc but looking for a ball park answer here to see what time I should be looking at. 

Sorry for the long post here just trying to get all the facts out so that someone understands what we are up against, as well as possiably help others in the same boat.

James,

VHD files typically take very long to backup. Check http://web.synametrics.com/syncrify-vhd-files.htm for details. Use Simple Copy instead of DeltaCopy if the destination is on a fast network.