PROLIANT ML350 RAID problem

[Ronald Postma]

Hi all,
We have a PROLIANT ML350T05 X/5120 server, we put 3GB Ram and 2x 500GB SATA 7200RPM disks in it with a RAID1 configuration.

The server does not perform very well, writing to the server goes rather slow, reading from it goes rather well. I checked the controllersettings in the arraymanager and the cash is set to 100% read and 0% write. I can not adjust this setting.

I guess this is the problem, is there anyway to configure this? We are runneng some test VM-ware XP machines on the unit for testing and we need a bit more performance. The CPU and Memory do not seem the bottleneck CPU does not do much and the memory that is used never exeeded 2.5GB

The controller in the unit is an Smart Aray E200I. Driver version is 5.10.0.32 There is a newer verion, but the only thing changed in that package is that it support another array. this version should fix performance problems, but I am not very glad with the performance.
I guess I should have got a server with faster disks, but even a simple DX2000 with a lot of RAM performce better with writing, then this machine.

Hope you can give me some ideas, to boost the performance.

Have a nice day,
Regards, Ronald

[Marek Nelec · Accepted solution]

Hi
I guess you cannot change the read/write cache ratio, because the controller doesn't have BBWC (Battery Backed Write Cache). You probably have E200i with 64MB of cache memory. You can consider buying BBWC module with additional 64MB of cache, so you'll end up with E200i with 128MB of Battery Backed Write Cache. You can even consider upgrading to P400 controller with 512MB of BBWC. But if you want high disk performance, you need 15000 RPM SAS HDDs instead of SATA drives. And the more drives you have in your array, the better the performance will be.

[Mauro Rusignuolo]

Hi Ronald,

two more questions:
which OS is running like Host?

How many RAM do you have reserved for the XP Virtual Machine?

do you reserved one or two processor for the virtual machine?

for sure, SATA HD are not so fast VS SAS.
also, in Raid 1, usually writing it's slower than reading.

let me know.

Bye..

TJK

[Ronald Postma]

Hi again,
I do not have the extra 64mb write cash and that sounds like a good idea.
the machine was not supposed to be a mean machine with top of the bill performance, but I quess you do not need 15k disks to run 2 or 3 XP virtual machines. If you run only one the performance of the machine is quite good. but the second takes the performance down quite a lot and I did not even tried a third,also they do not have a dedicated processor from the hostmachine. (Host machine only has one CPU that sometimes peak to 40%)
The XP VM machines run under 600MB of RAM, tho HOST OS is 2003 standard server.
The host OS also runs SQL2000, the VM machines connect to databases on the Host machine.

Thanx again for responding,
Regards, Ronald

PS. I will get back to reward with some points as soon if I get a complete picture.

[Mauro Rusignuolo]

Hi Ronald,

I can say to you only what I have directly experienced.

after many tests, right now, I'm working(in tis moment, I mean) with a Prolinat ML150 G3 with this configuration:

2 quad core E5320;
8 GB RAM
2 HD SAS 15k rpm raid 0 for the system
4 HD SAS 15k RPM each one dedicated for 4 different virtual machine.

the hos OS is Vista Ultimate.
the 4 virtualmachine running are: XP Pro, Vista Ultimate, 2003 Server SBS Premium, Win 2000.

for the XP Pro I've reserved 1,2 GB of Ram.

Ive seen tha reserving a different phisycal HD for the virtual machine the performance are much more higher than working on the same HD where the Host OS is installed.

also, I find that the performance of SAS 15K are double VS the performance of WD Raptor SATA II.

bye.

TJK.

[Ronald Postma]

Hi again,
I ordered the BBWC controller, lets hope it works, Hopefully it uses the same driver, , saves a lot of work.

Tnx again,
Regards, Ronald

[KarloChacon]

hi The Jackal welcome back

by the way cool environment you have XP, Vista, ... jeje
test purpose? I suppose?

regards

[KarloChacon]

sorry

according to the topic

yes BBWC can help and a dedicated environment The Jackal's example is a very good option for good performance

regards

[George Mason (Xoom)]

Hi Ronald,

I have a server that is experiencing a similar issue. It's an ML350 G5 with 5 SATA disks, as follows:

2GB RAM
2 x SATA RAID1 (Windows 2003 binaries and Exchange logs)
3 x SATA RAID5 (Exchange DB)

The server is running Windows Small Business Server. Whenever I attempt a large file copy, the pages/sec counter goes through the roof and the server runs very slow. I am not sure whether the issue is the amount of write cache or some other memory related problem. At one point today I saw over 15000 pages/sec.

I would be interested in any comments you mgiht have, and how you solved this issue if indeed you did.

Thanks in advance.

George Mason