ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL)
1748032 Members
5082 Online
108757 Solutions
New Discussion

Re: Slow file access - please assist :(

 
Duane Putnam
New Member

Re: Slow file access - please assist :(

Martin,

Did you ever manage to get this resolved? If so, how? TIA
Martin Dettbarn
Advisor

Re: Slow file access - please assist :(

I did get it resolved in fact. Sorry for not posting it here when I found the solution. I was simply so elated that I went out on a large bender that weekend and my short term memory was destroyed.

The problem was with the OS itself in fact, though it may have been due to the in-place upgrade. I'm not 100% certain to this day of the cause, I have a few other 2003 machines that never exhibited this problem.

To fix it I had to change a registry key from the default value of '2' to '1' and it fixed it. Now this key defaults to 2 and to change it you actually have to add it and then change the value to a 1 (reboot required)

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=328890

highlights here:

Subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\
Entry: TcpAckFrequency
Value Type: REG_DWORD, number
Valid Range: 0-255
Default: 2
Description: Specifies the number of ACKs that will be outstanding before the delayed ACK timer is ignored. Microsoft does not recommend changing the default value without careful study of the environment. For more information, visit the following
----

Another article here mentions that changing this key may not actually do anything unless you first apply a hot fix:

Changing the TcpAckFrequency Value to 1 Does Not Have Any Effect
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=815230
----

Thankfully in our case we didn't have to apply any fixes first. We just added the key, changed the value to a 1 and low and behold the server started to function like a 10k server should :)

As a side note, we've had no negative fallout from changing the value from a 2 to 1 and it's been running great now for the last month or so.

Regards,

Martin