Slow Server
How do we know the server is slow and the problem is not elsewhere?
Make a file transfer between any two other computers on the network. Compare the measurements with the server’s transfer rates.
What are the reasons for a slow server?
There are many reasons for a slow server. The server is many times the bottle-neck of a network. Here are a few reasons for a slow server:
An average, or below average network card, (you need good quality network cards for a server).
Server Network Card Underutilized. Connect your server on the backbone or on 1GB switch ports to make use of the high speed network card. You probably want to limit all your clients to transfer at 100Mb so that there is no traffic discrimination. If your server and switches support higher transfer rates, (10GB ports), make sure you make use of it.
Slow disks. Poor hardware is many times the main reason. Improper configuration, such as choosing the wrong RAID type, or not using write caching can be another reason.
Too many clients on a server. If too many clients make requests to the same single server this could overload the server and it will perceived as a slow network by the users. Measure your server’s performance on load using the performance logs and alerts and the system monitor in Windows. Usually the performance is changing over the course of a day based on the number of users who access the server at the same time. Sometimes adding another network card would be sufficient. Enabling cache writing on the SCSI card can help a lot, (make sure you install a cache battery), adding a new SCSI card and additional disks to offload the existing ones could be of help. Sometimes adding another CPU can make a difference, (if you have free CPU slots). Memory is very often the most used method of upgrading, but most of the times it is not the needed solution. Use the performance logs and alerts and the system monitor and compare with the recommended thresholds to determine what your bottleneck is.
Slow server response, (packet sniffer to determine the handshake time), Adjust the server’s configuration to optimize the handshaking time; (this is a fairly advanced optimization task).
This article is part of a five posts series regarding Network Troubleshooting.
