We run a number of web apps that store a lot of local data in small xml files. One part of our backup / recovery strategy is to produce a local mirror of the file system via a VPN to the hosting centre.

The VPN connection is only via a 12Mbps ADSL and whilst there are a lot of files and directories, the actual number of files that changes is quite small.

Although the bandwidth is probably an issue, I'm seeing results such as the output below. The robocopy /MIR took 5 hours to run yet only 30 mins to actually perform the copy.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to ways to improve this. The 5 hours is now bordering on too slow and if we can't find a way to speed this up then we're going to have to come up with a completely different solution.

            Total    Copied   Skipped  Mismatch    FAILED    Extras
 Dirs :     17625      6618     11007         0         0         0
Files :   1112430      1223   1111207         0         0         0
Bytes :  57.451 g  192.25 m  57.263 g         0         0         0
Times :   5:01:23   0:35:55                       0:00:00   4:25:27

Speed :               93509 Bytes/sec.
Speed :               5.350 MegaBytes/min.

Ended : Fri Apr 16 05:54:23 2010