Slow FM Server WHy?

[randy remark]

Hi.

I have Filemaker Server version 5.5 hosting 15 related databases to 12 users, and at times it runs annoying slow, especially when switching from 1 database to another.

Its hosted on a Windows Small Business Server 2000, Hardware is 1GHz Pentium III with 512Mb RAM.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers Mark :smirk:

[Anatoli]

We don't know how is SBS taxed with another tasks.

I experienced best performance when FM server was installed on W2K *client* and not Windows Server OS.

[Anatoli]

BTW, FM server is slow when FM backup is running.

[Kurt Knippel]

Every single time I had the misfourtune to work with SBS it was a slow and miserable experience, even when running its own apps (SQL Server, Exchange Server, IIs, etc).

I quickly learned to request that client NOT order the SBS and simply buy OS and server apps seperately.

[DonH]

Not much in the way of help yet I see.

What I have found is that FileMaker is a memory hog of the worst sort. Matter-of-fact I think it says so in the users manual.

Anyway, I used to get complaints about sudden slowdowns until I looked at the virtual memory setup. Make sure you have PLENTY of space for virtual memory and set it as HUGE to start out with.

See if that helps.

[Anatoli]

Whaaaaat?

Never saw that in all my FM server installations. Unless you are living in previous millenium and 40-50 MB is considered as "memory hog".

Then I do not know how to call GoLive from Adobe with 1-2 GB of virtual memory.

[Kurt Knippel]

I'd never call FM a memory hog. 40MB is about the max that FM will ever use. Filemaker does not do anything in RAM, Filemaker is all disk based and thus requires a big fast disk drive, but little RAM and no Virtual Memory.

I'd bet that some other installed apps were hogging the RAM. Everytime I had to work with it, Exchange Server and IIS both keep taking more and more RAM as time went on. Even Primary/Secondary Domain Controller can occassionally take too much RAM.

[ProBenefits]

I have almost the exact same setup as mentioned above.

We have SBS 2000 running on a Dell PowerEdge Server running FM Server & FM Pro Unlimited for Web purposes. It all seems to run fine together. There are times when screens do come up a bit delayed, but I've often found it's the user configuration and setup that causes this.

One general note: if you are using the other features (exchange, IIS, etc.) Ram-up... We had 512MB and I bit the bullet and purchased 2GB Ram and for a bunch of things, I noticed a huge increase.

[adberg]

So I use FM server 5 on Windows XP Home. My experience is really in the Mac world - and this configuration is very, very slow. Am I better off with a different version of Windows? XP Pro? I use the server only for this and for a bit of (also very slow) filesharing.

[Anatoli]

W2000 is the best so far!

[adberg]

Is it significantly faster? More stable? We only use four PCs in the office on FileMaker, and two or three more over the DSL. The DSL computers wont get any faster, but would the office PCs speed up with Win2K?

[Anatoli]

Sure. The Pro Windows software is always excellent from NT4 sp3 up.

The '95-98-Me-XP Home isn't so great and I've never use that for professional things.

[Vaughan]

FM Server won't run on Win 95 or 98 anyway, since they don't support services. I dunno about ME or XP.

[Anatoli]

Maybe it will run, I've vaguely remember that I might see it, but it will be utter nonsense.