I am running FM Server 5.5 on a Mac G5 with OS X Server, a SCSI drive, and 256 MB RAM. We have a solution with 20 files (about 20 MB total) and on average about 6 connected users. Whenever I start the server, things run very fast at first. Then as time wears on, the server slows down significantly.

I have linked the slowdown to the number of users logged into the system. With 3 users logged in, everything runs very fast. Once two more log in, and there are 5 total users, everything slows down significantly. I know for a fact that filemaker should have no problem running such a small number of users, there should be no difference between 3 and 5 users. Furthermore, these other users are doing NOTHING (they are sitting at a login screen), I don't understand why users simply logged in doing nothing can severely impact server performance.

I have tried tweaking the cache settings, but this makes no discernable difference.

I have read the best practices from filemaker, and feel that I am doing everything correctly. The only other piece of software running on he server is Retrospect, and that only runs at night and is completely idle during the day. There are no file services running on the server.

Thanks for any help anyone could provide,

Eric

I have only one observation. You say you are running OS X server with 256 MB RAM. That amount of RAM is barely usable for just the operating system. With that little RAM the Operating system will constantly be paging out to the hard drive. That will slow down the entire system. Load that Mac G5 with at least 1 GB of RAM. Then you should see an overall improvement in performance.