windows storage server tuning

[Andrea Rossi]

Hi all
my nas dl110 (sata) experiences performance problems: read access is quite slow and cpu usage is 40-50% average (system process).
Is there any tool, document, or anything else to follow in order to tune it?
thanks

[Vincent Fleming]

There's not much you can do to tune windows; in my experience, the best you can do is throw more hardware on it - ie: get a bigger server.

The dl100 and ml110 are a workgroup solution - one processor (celeron or P4, depending on capacity) and just a few (4) high-capacity SATA drives. It's not intended to be a high-performance solution - it's intended to be a small-form-factor, easily deployable appliance.

Now, that said, you can add memory to it, and it may help performance a bit. Use these part numbers:

Following are memory options available from HP:


256 MB of Advanced ECC PC3200 DDR SDRAM DIMM Memory Kit (1 x 256 MB)
354557 -B21
512 MB of Advanced ECC PC3200 DDR SDRAM DIMM Memory Kit (1 x 512 MB)

354560 -B21
1024 MB of Advanced ECC PC3200 DDR SDRAM DIMM Memory Kit (1 x 1024 MB)

354563 -B21


You can also add additional NICs, if you have an ml110.

These things may help, but it depends upon your particular workload. They may not help.

How many users are you trying to support on the machine? What type of applications are they using it for? Is it possible that you simply have too small a machine to do the job? Are there other outside factors that could be causing the problem? (for example, authentication problems, DNS servers missing, etc. that can cause the system to be waiting for or searching for something on the network?)

How's your network loading? Network bottlenecks can often appear as server problems - they can cause significant retransmissions.

Look into it a bit, and post back with more details...

Cheers,

Vince