At 10:28 PM 1/03/2006, you wrote:

>Hi!
>
>We experienced a strange behaviour:
>
>calling gbak via cron or commandline our backup of a 35 gigabyte database
>lasts around 4 hours. During this time we neither see cpu load nor heavy I/O
>load on the server.
>
>If we use IBExpert, Flamerobin, IBConsole or any other tool to start the
>backup job it is completed after less then 45 minutes! (Only limited by I/O
>capacity of the server).
>
>We tested with 2 gentoo servers - 1 with NTPL enabled, 1 without and using
>the firebird ebuild.
>Same results with ubuntu and 1.5.1 apt-package.
>
>With Firebird 1.5.3 running on a Windows XP workstation the results are
>similar but not this extreme..
>
>
>I couldn't find anything in Helen's Book (p.813ff) regarding this and google
>wasn't that helpful either.
>
>Maybe someone here knows why a local gbak is so slow and if there is a
>possibility to speed up the backup process?

I can't guess the cause of the performance difference between local
backup and service manager doing it for you (which is what the third
party tools use).

But you can (and probably should anyway) use the service manager in
your cron job. See Helen's book, pp. 828-onwards. Note that, if
you've got an older copy of the book, it will be a good idea to go
the Apress site and print out the latest Errata, since there were
(alas) some errata in this particular section.
http://www.apress.com/book/errataDisplay.html?bID=301&sID=3086

./heLen