Proliant ML110 G4 Very, Very, Very Slow !

[Kelvin Lee_2]

I have 2 sites with ML110 G4 servers that are running incredibly slow and would like some suggestions as to why this might be the case. Both servers are the stock ML110 G4 SBS 2003 Std Bundle (Dual Core 3Ghz Pentium, 2 x 160GB SATA HDD, RAM upgraded to 2GB from the standard 1GB).

At site 1, they have a total of 4 users only. The hard disks are configured as Mirrored using SBS's own mirroring capability. This site users are really light users (storing the occasional Word and Excel documents, running MYOB Premier accounting), and moderate e-mail use. The hard disk light is almost always on and the slowness is very obvious when running MYOB and Outlook (accounting transactions, e-mails take a long time to open up on screen).

At site 2, with an identical server except the hard disks are kept separate (ie. drive 1 = OS, Exchange, etc. and drive 2 = all users data files). This site has 6 total users with 4 concurrent at maximum. This server also suffers the same sort of slowness as site 1, and again the hard disk light appears to be on nearly all the time.

This is extremely disturbing, particularly when compared to other sites running the older ML110 G3 SBS Std bundle (Pentium 4 2.8Ghz, 1GB RAM 2 x 80 GB SATA hard disks in RAID 1 - Mirrored) with nearly 15 concurrent users each site and the server still could run rings around the newer servers that only have 4 users !

Help !

[Brian_Murdoch]

Kelvin,

Try this to see if it makes any noticeable difference.

Computer Management ->Device Manager ->[select the disk drive] ->Properties ->Policies (select Drive Write Cache)
Note: This setting is temporary and must be reselected after the server is rebooted

Be aware that with this value set, you should be using a UPS to ensure power is applied until the server gracefully shuts down (and flushes the cache) if there is a mains power failure.

Brian