From: "Kevin D. Snodgrass" 
Subject: Re: Disk Cache/ compression problem
Date: 1998/07/22
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To: Neil 
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Organization: Radiks Internet Access
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NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Jul 1998 22:14:34 GMT
Newsgroups: fido.novell

Neil wrote:
> 
> I am running Novell 4.1 25 user. Every time I do a large copy to the
> fileserver from a local hard drive, the server then locks up for about an
> hour performing some sort of hard disk ritual. This is taking up 100%
> utilisation thus preventing anybody from using the server and there seems
> to be nothing I can do except wait.
> 
> A file server should be able to handle large throughputs of data in this
> way without much problem.
> 
> The server is a P100 with 64MB of RAM. The disk volume is a 525MB SCSI
> drive.
> 
> Is the server compressing the information? because it seems to hold a lot
> of information for a 525MB. Any tips on speeding up the server are vey much
> appreciated.

Lots of possibilities here.  Do you have Immediate Compress
turned on?  If so then the server will have to compress all
data before it gets to disk.  Not good.

How close to being full is the volume in question?

How close to full is the volume when you include
deleted-but-not-yet-purged files?  If there is no free space
then the server will have to purge deleted files before it
can write new files.  If it takes hundreds or thousands of
little files (from an LRU style lookup) to free up enough
space that could be your problem.  This can be caused by
using BTRIEVE.NLM on BTRieve V.5 filetypes, as well as many
other causes.

What is the CONCURRENT DISK WRITES (not sure if that is the
correct parameter name, but it is close) paramter set to? 
Change that parameter to a higher value with SERVMAN.  You
may need to reboot, can't remember.

BTW, SCSI drives are CHEAP!  http://www.mwave.com/ has an
IBM SCSI, either 2.1 or 4.3 GB, for $199.  Put another drive
in that poor machine, create a new volume on it (DO NOT SPAN
DRIVES UNLESS YOU ARE DUPLEXING!!!) and put all your user
type stuff there.  Leave the little drive as SYS: with the
NetWare installed stuff on it.

-- 
Kevin D. Snodgrass

New spam-proofed email address,
    intelligent beings will adjust.