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Bandwidth Throttling

Control upload speeds with Mbps limits, time-based rules, and active-hours scheduling.

Why Throttle Bandwidth?

Backup uploads can consume significant network bandwidth, especially during the initial full backup or after large file changes. Bandwidth throttling ensures that backups do not interfere with your regular internet usage, video calls, or other network-dependent applications.

BackupEngine provides fine-grained control over upload speeds so you can balance backup performance against network availability throughout the day.

Setting a Global Throttle

The simplest configuration is a global upload speed limit that applies at all times. Open Settings in the desktop agent, navigate to Network, and use the bandwidth slider to set your limit.

  • •The slider ranges from 1 Mbps to Unlimited.
  • •Common settings: 5 Mbps for light usage, 10 Mbps for moderate, 25 Mbps for fast connections.
  • •The limit applies to total BackupEngine upload traffic, shared across all active backup sets.
  • •Changes take effect immediately — no need to restart the agent or current backups.
Set a global throttle via CLI
# Set upload limit to 10 Mbps
backupengine config set network.throttle 10

# Set to unlimited
backupengine config set network.throttle 0

# View current setting
backupengine config get network.throttle

Per-Set Bandwidth Override (v1.20.0)

v1.20.0 added per-set bandwidth control on top of the global limit. Useful when one backup set has very different traffic shaping needs than the rest — for example, a Hyper-V VM backup that should run flat-out while a daytime documents backup gets throttled to 1 Mbps to keep video calls responsive.

Precedence: per-set kbps (if non-zero) wins; otherwise global Mbps applies; otherwise unlimited. The two knobs are stored in distinct units (kbps for per-set, Mbps for global) so a customer can have "0 Mbps global" + "256 kbps for one slow link" without ambiguity. Implemented as a token bucket with 1 second of burst capacity, applied to upload PUTs (S3, Azure, local-NAS-over-network) — restore downloads are NOT throttled because disaster recovery should be as fast as the network allows.

  • •Open the Backup tab → Edit on the set you want to throttle.
  • •Find the Bandwidth field in the set's settings panel.
  • •Enter a value in kbps (e.g. 1024 for 1 Mbps, 256 for slow-link shaping).
  • •Save. The next run honours the new limit; in-flight runs do not.

ℹ Note

Per-set bandwidth is part of the cross-device sync: change the limit on PC1, the next sync (within seconds when both are online, or 30 minutes via the periodic timer) propagates the new value to PC2. Each device enforces the limit locally for runs it executes; the limit is metadata, not a server-side throttle.

Time-Based Rules

Time-based rules let you define different speed limits for different times of day. This is the recommended approach for most users: throttle during work hours and run at full speed overnight.

  • •Create multiple rules, each with a time range, days of the week, and speed limit.
  • •Rules are evaluated in priority order. The first matching rule wins.
  • •If no rule matches the current time, the global throttle applies.
  • •Example: 5 Mbps on weekdays 08:00-18:00, unlimited all other times.
Configure time-based rules via CLI
# Add a work-hours throttle rule
backupengine config throttle-rule add \
  --name "Work Hours" \
  --days mon,tue,wed,thu,fri \
  --start 08:00 --end 18:00 \
  --limit 5

# Add an overnight unlimited rule
backupengine config throttle-rule add \
  --name "Overnight" \
  --days mon,tue,wed,thu,fri \
  --start 18:00 --end 08:00 \
  --limit 0

# List all rules
backupengine config throttle-rule list

💡 Tip

If you use Continuous Data Protection (CDP), time-based throttling is especially valuable. CDP runs frequently, so throttling during active hours ensures minimal disruption while still protecting your files in near-real-time.

Monitoring Network Usage

The desktop agent displays real-time network usage in the status bar. You can also view historical bandwidth consumption in the Activity tab.

  • •Current upload speed is shown in the system tray and on the agent's main screen.
  • •The Activity tab shows a graph of upload speed over time for each backup run.
  • •If the throttle is active, the agent displays the current limit alongside actual speed.
  • •Network usage statistics are also available in the Customer Portal for team-wide visibility.

ℹ Note

BackupEngine only throttles upload (outbound) traffic. Download traffic during restores is not throttled by default, but you can set a separate download limit in Settings if needed.
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