Changing Physical Drive Write Cache State to improve performance?

[Server-Support]

People,

I'm having a problem with disk performance in my RAID 5 LUNs below when copying large VM backup files:

 Slow Copy process

Upon investigating further in SSA, I can see the Physical Drive Write Cache State in all of the Smart Array Controller is not enabled:

[Edwin Eppel]

What model server (model and generation)?
Which raid controller card? Firmware version number?
Is the cache module installed on the controller? What size memory?

[Dennis Handly]

Typically if you don't have those disks on a UPS, if the power goes out, the data in each disk cache is gone.

[Server-Support]

Hi Dennis,

Yes, there is a redundant Power for the DAE and the server.

Does it will improve the transfer speed when I enable it ?

Is there any outage if I enable the option during the business hours ?

[Server-Support]

Hi @Edwin Eppel, the Server is HP DL 385 G7, Storage Controller is P411 with battery.

[Dennis Handly]

> will it improve the transfer speed when I enable it?

>Is there any outage if I enable the option during the business hours?

It should improve the speed until you fill up all the caches, then no benefit.

Since you're copying TB of data, it won't speed it up. Enabling it shouldn't have an outages.

>Storage Controller is P411 with battery.

This battery is only for the cache in the controller, not the disks.

[Server-Support]

@Dennis Handly thanks for the confirmation.

I will enable it now since it is busines hours I can monitor it.