Extremely Slow Performance on a FM 5.5 Server

[Ron69]

Hi,

I am currently hosting a FM 5 database on a networked PowerMac G4 - 450 w/ 512MB RAM that is running Fm Server 5.5.

I have noticed that when I TCP/IP into the database as a guest the performance when it comes to sorting records is extremely slow. There are over 8000 records, and doing a sort of say 6000 will take about 20 minutes. You can watch it count down by 4 records every couple of seconds. Now the machines are on a Gigbit network and the NIC cards are set to 100 Full. Any ideas or reasons why this database would be crawling like that?

Thanks!

Ron

[Ender]

Does your sort include unstored calcs or fields from a related file? This could account for the slow sorting.

[Ron69]

Nope. It does a sort and then breaks the results down according to job type and then it gives a summary count of each type. When this was run on a stand-alone Mac it flew. When initially transferred to Mac server it flew and then slowed down.

[Vaughan]

FMS 5 server slowdown is lost usually caused by a lack of free hard disk space. Delete temp files, unnecesary backups etc.

[Ron69]

Checked temp folders and looked for any unecesary backup files...not much to report. The HD is a 60Gig with 54Gig unused (don't think space is an issue). I increased the Disk Cache size to 20000. Still no improvement.

I'm not sure what else can be done.

[stanley]

when I TCP/IP into the database as a guest

How exactly are you accessing the dbs? The above makes it sound like you are going in through the OS rather than via Open Remote..., which would be a mistake.

Also, what OS is the server running? Is there anything else running on the server? How many users are accessing the server?

-Stanley

[Vaughan]

If you are running FMS 5.5 under MacOS 9, make sure that FM Server is *always* the front-most, active application. (It should ideally be the only application running too.)

Kill all screen savers except maybe for one that blanks the screen, but anything that takes OS focus away from FMS will kill performance.

Leave the OS disk cache setting at their defaults.

[xochi]

What are your RAM Cache settings on both Server and Client? Make sure they are maxxed out (40MB)

If the performance starts fast, then slows down dramatically, this can often be a sign that your "working set" has become larger than your RAM Cache...

[Vaughan]

Don't just max out the caches. Too much cache is as inefficient as too little.

Instead, use the Remore Administration plugin to view the server performance stats. Set the cache size so that the unflushed cache setting (or whatever it is) is about 95%. If it's always 100% then too much is being cached; this slows down the machine every time it gets flushed.

[xochi]

Vaughan: I have seen a situation where maxxing out the tiny 40MB cache in FM 5.5 server reduced performance. Have you? I agree that under FM7, it might be possible to set the cache so large that the OS suffered for lack of RAM....

Also, I'm pretty sure that FM keeps track of cache changes -- i.e. it won't bother flushing non-dirty data to disk.

In FM7 (not sure about 5.5) the "flush cache on Idle" setting is, IMHO, broken. I've seen it repeatedly flush the cache in the middle of a long Import step (which is precisely the opposite of what "idle" means to most folks...).