topic Poor Disk Performance on ML330 in ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL)

Poor Disk Performance on ML330

Tommy Hansen — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 13:52:20 GMT

I have a ProLiant ML330 dual CPU, 2+Gb memory. The system is equipped with a CSB-6 Ultra Ata-100 IDE RAID controller and a single disk, a 40G Maxtor. System is Windows 2003 Server Std. Ed.

Disk performance is bad, in particular writes. I only really have evidence on writes because my tests consists of loading a lot of data in SQL Server 2K. The HP is outperformed by a virtual machine running on my laptop!

So far I haven't gotten anywhere with HP support. All hardware checks out OK. I know nothing about RAID configuration so it could be a very basic problem. I see cache setting issues mentioned in other performance related postings but haven't found a setting anywhere on my system.

Hope somebody has an answer before the system is returned...

Re: Poor Disk Performance on ML330

Oliver Antwerpen — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 13:59:10 GMT

Take a look at the settings in the controller's BIOS (F8). Under settings (F7) you have to enable the write back cache, it is disabled by default.

Oliver

Re: Poor Disk Performance on ML330

Tommy Hansen — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 13:59:45 GMT

Hm. Sometimes I guess you have to do something stupid to get help. Like post a question without looking for the answer first.

I just found this:

"Same issues here...This helps a little:
Hit F8 and go into the RAID setup... Hit F7 and turn on the cache. It's off by default from what I understand. "

To HP support, thanks for nothing.

Re: Poor Disk Performance on ML330

Oliver Antwerpen — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:10:21 GMT

Funnyly you found the answer 35 seconds after my post...