Performance slower on SBS vs. Novell 3.2

[Richard Darling]

I have noticed that files open considerably slower on the SBS. I have opened the same file on the SBS and on the Novell server (have both runnning) and have noticed that the SBS is much slower. The SBS has an 800 mhz Pentium III processor and 512mb ram...any thoughts...

[Roger Faucher]

Richard:

Check out this article re: Service Packs:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/bosi/spcompat.asp

I can't find anything else. Sorry.

[Alvaro Santos]

Hi,

Compare the disk controlers memory.
On Server that do file sharing this is the most important.

Alvaro

[Joseph T. Wyckoff]

There could be all sorts of reasons, depending on how you are testing things, for example

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q279/2/82.ASP

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q223/1/40.ASP

I think I would start by checking out service packs. Read the fine print, because some fixes require you to make registry changes.

NT can be tuned a bit for application performance vs file services performance. I suspect this is true of SBS but I don't know.

If the server is ONLY a file server, you can probably improve things a bit. "Maximize memory for file sharing" (If it was, why would you use SBS?)

http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/host/hisdoc/appint/comti_optimizing_network_throughput.htm

Other than than - take a look at the memory usage for SQL and Exchange, etc, they may be grabbing too much memory. Perhaps fiddle with the Exchange optimizer and whatever the Sequel Enterprise manager is called in SBS.

http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/sql/manuals/diag/part1/75528c05.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/exchange/technote/perfopt.asp

If you have services you are not using (SQL / Exchange?) perhaps they can be shut down?

Perhaps other issues (such as SWAPPING) are slowing you down. If you have several hard drives, consider moving your SWAP / VIRTUAL MEMORY off of the C: drive into a lightly used drive.

Are you using Exchange or SQL heavily? Perhaps it is worthwhile to move those to a separate drive or drives.

Do you have antivirus software or compression turned on? Those both might slow things down.

Sadly, 512MB of memory is not that much memory any more. Your easiest fix might be more memory.

Good Luck.

[Joseph T. Wyckoff]

Silly question - are the hard drives of comparable speed?

On the few Netware boxes I have worked on, the hard drives were good drives, SCSI, and mirrored.

On a typical PC, or on many servers just out of the box - the hard drive is a single IDE drive. Is your box a PC, or a server?

Do you have multiple hard drives? If not, you probably should.

So, are your really comparing similar systems?

Take a look at the resource kits - there is lots of information about tuning, perfmon, and so forth.

[Joseph T. Wyckoff]

You mention netware 3.1 - so there is a good chance you are using the IPX protocol, not TCP.

On NT you are likely to use TCP, and and IPX.

Binding order matters here. Connections are tried first on the primary protocol, then the second, and so forth.

You may find things speed up a bit if you ccan eliminate 'extra' protocols (IPX/SPX.)

Also - I found that one of my test boxes frankly stinks after adding the Netware client. I don't know if that is Microsoft's problem, Novell's problem, or mine. It is a test box - I have ignored the issue.

But that may be your issue.

I suppose the 'extra' protocol might be TCP - if you don't need internet functionality.

Are you running 'gateway services for netware' - that introduces overhead as well.

Good Luck.

[Joseph T. Wyckoff]

Benchmark it. At the console on the SBS box, open 10 files or somesuch in a batch file

time /t >elapsed.txt
type *.* >null
time /t >>elapsed.txt

This will tell you how fast the filesystem performance is.

Then run the same batch file over the wire...
the difference is attributable to network protocol things.

[Joseph T. Wyckoff]

Look in the system logs (event view) - you may have an error message there that would help you.

[Richard Darling]

Joe, thanks for all your suggestions. I have been tied up working on a project for our largest customer, so I haven't had a lot of time.
I am also thinking that my 7 year old hubs might be part of the problem. I note that when the files are first opened the cursor shakes in a cyclical way...also I noticed that on some users, when they are logged into our UNIX box through a terminal emulator, if I run the ll command in a large directory the listing will go for about 30 lines, pause, and repeat that until the end of listing. That is why I am leaning toward a hardware problem...but, you know, I don't get that curosr flickering when opening a file on the Novell server...I'll try some of your ideas this weekend...thanks...