Details:
Excessive drive fragmentation can adversely affect system performance, increase the amount of time it takes to run a backup, and cause Backup Exec (tm) agents, such as the Advanced Open File Option or Granular Recovery Technology (GRT) Feature, to potentially fail when a backup job is launched. It may also be observed that incremental backup performance is affected more severely than regular full or differential backup performance.


To defragment a Windows Server Disk Partition with the built-in defrag utility, perform the following steps:

1. Double-click My Computer  

2. Right-click on the hard disk partition and select Properties

3. Click on the Tools tab, and then click Defragment Now (Figure 1)

Figure 1

4. Select the drive partition that is being defragmented, and then click Defragment (Figure 2)

Figure 2

5. After the defragmentation is completed, click Check Now to check the partition for errors (Figure 3)

Figure 3


If the partition has excessive errors, a prompt will occur, which states that the drive must be scanned for errors prior to running the defragmentation utility.

Please note:  Other third party disk defragmentation applications can also be used.

Related Documents:

199542: Backups fail to get double the amount of the native capacity recorded to a media, even when hardware compression is being utilized, or the total byte count in the job log is higher than the maximum possible compression rate of the tape media.
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/199542


231488: Reasons why the data throughput rate can be slower than the theoretical maximum when backing up to or restoring from tape media or disk (B2D) & how to troubleshoot or improve backup performance
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/231488


237404: "Event ID 2013. The disk is at or near capacity. You may need to delete some files." is found in the Windows System Event Viewer log after running a backup operation with Backup Exec for Windows Servers.
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/237404


320694: SQL database backups fail with the error "V-79-10000-10896 - SQL Prepare for Freeze failed for snapshot"
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/320694


241858: Slow backup performance occurs when backing up Microsoft Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 servers between 1:00 am and 5:00 am.
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/241858


245177: How do the "verify" and "write checksums to media" processes work and why are they necessary?
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/245177


252162: Backup throughput for Oracle agent, UNIX agent, Macintosh agent, or Windows 95/98 Agent, is very slow while backups with any other agent run at normal speed.
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/252162


258341: A backup job, in Backup Exec 9.x and above, fails with the error: "Unable to get minimum quiet time window for physical volume" and / or "The semaphore timeout period has expired" when Advanced Open File Option is used.
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/258341


267554: The error message "Difference encountered in file data" (a000fe34 or e000fe34 or 00000000) is reported in a Backup Exec verify job operation
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/267554


268416: Advanced Open File Option backups fail because of an I/O device error.
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/268416


271438: How hard disk compression can affect backup and restore jobs on a Windows NT (NTFS) File System Partition
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/271438


289271: Slow backup performance or the error "Access is denied" occurs during a Granular Restore Technology (GRT) enabled Exchange or other GRT Agent backup to a Backup to Disk (B2D) folder
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/289271


292968: After installing BESR 7 and an attempting to create an image, "Error E7B70005: Snapshot error 1450 at 5%" occurs.
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/292968


293025: After installing Backup Exec System Recovery Server Edition 7.0, the server cannot be restarted until the power is cycled (unsafe shutdown and restart)
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/293025


294036: Best Practices for using Restore Anyware Option(RAO)
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/294036


294502: A backup job hangs without generating any error messages.
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/294502


296564: Backups using the Advanced Open File Option (AOFO) with the Symantec Volume Snapshot Provider (VSP) as the snapshot provider may fail to complete when backing up a Windows 2003 Server
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/296564


297046: "One or more arguments are invalid" error occurs when attempting to create a Backup-to-Disk (B2D) Folder on the Backup Exec Devices Tab
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/297046


297456: Unable to mount recovery point image, "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/297456


303792: "Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Device\HarddiskVolume1\Docume~1\Ad mini~.CLA\Locals~1\Temp\Sql.log. The data has been lost .This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere'' pop up occurs randomly
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/303792


308575: AOFO (Advanced Open File Option) enabled backup fails with error stating "e0009413 - An error occurred during the snapshot cleanup, or could not locate a snapped volume from which to back up"
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/308575


315284: How to use NTBackup to test Exchange 2003 backups/restores on Windows 2003 to compare the backup performance with Backup Exec for Windows Servers
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/315284


316448: Reasons why performance issues can occur with Teaming Network Adapters
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/316448


318298: ec8f03ea cannot create virtual volume image of selected drive. e0020002 device \\?\symantecsnapshot0 cannot be opened. ebab03f1 request could not be performed because of an I/O Error
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/318298


324168: List of backup or restore Performance TechNotes (troubleshooting slow throughput backups and restores) for Backup Exec Products
 http://support.veritas.com/docs/324168

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