Deteriorating disk access on Server '03 box (reboot fixes, temporarily)

[two00lbwaster]

I'm suffering a problem with a Windows Server 2003 standard x86 box that has a mirrored RAID array in it where the disk access, read and write performance falls through the floor fairly rapidly after a reboot.

It does hit some base, low level of performance which it operates at, but rebooting will temporarily restore the disk access to reasonable levels.

Anyone got any clue as to what this could be?

[Splash]

What disks and controller are you using? Are you getting anything in the event log? What does perfmon have to say?

[arthurleung]

Try using the Microsoft SetCache / CacheSet tool to reduce the cache size.
I've had similar problem before when windows attempts to buffer a whole ISO file into memory when I mount it over LAN, without releasing it even if I don't actually read anything from another machine. It keeps drawing memory until it eats into the virtual memory (on harddrive) which my whole system would start locking up.

I solved it by using SetCache (Oddly I can't find it on google now). I presume CacheSet
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897561.aspx
will work too.

[two00lbwaster]

What disks and controller are you using? Are you getting anything in the event log? What does perfmon have to say?

Perfmon says that the queue keeps spiking and that the physicaldisk is running almost exclusively at 100% or 100,000

Disks and controller I couldn't say as this is just a hosted box.

Try using the Microsoft SetCache / CacheSet tool to reduce the cache size.
I've had similar problem before when windows attempts to buffer a whole ISO file into memory when I mount it over LAN, without releasing it even if I don't actually read anything from another machine. It keeps drawing memory until it eats into the virtual memory (on harddrive) which my whole system would start locking up.

I solved it by using SetCache (Oddly I can't find it on google now). I presume CacheSet
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897561.aspx
will work too.

Thanks for that, I'll have a look

[Moby-Dick]

is it a physical or a virtual machine ?

[Splash]

That's a good point - it could well be that it's a virtual box on congested hardware.

[two00lbwaster]

is it a physical or a virtual machine ?

Sorry, yes it's a physical machine. No VMs on this hardware, just, about, 300 websites.

[two00lbwaster]

arthurleung, what are the perameters for setcache? I found it but without documentation.

I've started to use Cacheset instead

[arthurleung]

arthurleung, what are the perameters for setcache? I found it but without documentation.

I've started to use Cacheset instead

its just "setcache <memory size in MB>", with "setcache" give you your current setting
I think the minimum if 1/8 of your memory. I personally set it to the minimal I could set as I couldn't see any benefit going higher at all.

My XP64 (=W2K3) stupidly defaults to 4GB (100&#37; memory) at start-up which causes all those spikes to me.
I assumed you was running a file server though. For web server I think it might be just someone doing large database transactions without you knowing it.

If NCQ is available also enable it.

[two00lbwaster]

its just "setcache <memory size in MB>", with "setcache" give you your current setting
I think the minimum if 1/8 of your memory. I personally set it to the minimal I could set as I couldn't see any benefit going higher at all.

I set it to 384MB for now, but I might increase this to 512MB. The server is already using close to its maximum allowance of RAM (3.25GB out of 4GB; 32bit nonsense).

My XP64 (=W2K3) stupidly defaults to 4GB (100% memory) at start-up which causes all those spikes to me.
I assumed you was running a file server though. For web server I think it might be just someone doing large database transactions without you knowing it.

Nope the only uploading and downloading that is acceptable from this server that is not done by the it support is that of supported media file types through a CMS.

I use XP64 too by the way; at home. It's a neat little OS compared to Vista64 which is the OS on my laptop (bloody XPs non-existent SATA support).

If NCQ is available also enable it.

I'll put a ticket in about this as I've asked this in the past and now I'm in charge of the administration I have the ability of raising the support tickets to ask

[arthurleung]

I set it to 384MB for now, but I might increase this to 512MB. The server is already using close to its maximum allowance of RAM (3.25GB out of 4GB; 32bit nonsense).



Nope the only uploading and downloading that is acceptable from this server that is not done by the it support is that of supported media file types through a CMS.

I use XP64 too by the way; at home. It's a neat little OS compared to Vista64 which is the OS on my laptop (bloody XPs non-existent SATA support).



I'll put a ticket in about this as I've asked this in the past and now I'm in charge of the administration I have the ability of raising the support tickets to ask

If the memory usage is really that high, you may need to change your IIS or Apache (or whatever web server you're using) setting to use a less ram, e.g. less number of workers / concurrent users

As long as the web requests are served quickly, there shouldn't be a long queue -> high memory usage.

See if there are other processes that eats up memory too.