Presumably this is only the SQL backup? (you can backup almost everything else using a regular backup system) 20 minutes seems really long for running an SQL b

Presumably this is only the SQL backup? (you can backup almost everything else using a regular backup system) 20 minutes seems really long for running an SQL backup. How big is the database? Is the disk/storage fast? Have you tried replicating the database and running the backup off the secondary server? Restarts are annoying though, and fairly slow (2-3 minutes?), but less than once per week?