FM Server / FM Client Performance Conflict

[hanwayb]

We have two groups using FM 5: one is a Mac group running FM server; the other is a PC group, and they run their databases off a server share (not running FM server). Both groups have been using FM in this way for several years. Now, the Mac group claims that their performance drops dramatically when the PC group uses its FM databases. The PC users have reported no performance issues. Both groups are small, about seven users each. The PC group databases are also very small, 7 databases with a total size of less than 10MB; the Mac group databases are very large.

Absolutely no changes have been made to the network/server infrastructure in six months. Each group is on its own network switch segment.

Has anyone seen performance conflicts with one group running FM server and another running FM in a shared-client mode?

[Keith LaMarre]

Filemaker isn't designed to be run the way that your PC users are doing it - and if the FM Server is on the PC Shared Volume Server you're asking for trouble. Probably you're not going to get much of a response from this forum as very few (maybe no one) would set the system up like this.

[Wim Decorte]

Got to reinforce what Keith is saying. That setup is the #1 cause of data and file corruption in the long run. Short term effects is a drop in performance.

Don't use OS level file sharing on live FM files. FM files you want to share have to be open in a copy of FMP (peer to peer sharing) or in FileMaker Server. I recommend using FileMaker Server even for the smallest of deployments for its ability to make live backups.

[stanley]

Hanwayb:

Welcome to the Forums.

I can't for the life of me imagine why your systems are arranged like that. There should be no reason for the two sets of files to be separated - everything should be hosted on FileMaker Server, for speed, for security, and for data consistency. FileMaker is truly cross-platform, so it doesn't matter if the users are on PCs, Macs, Linux, or whatever, and the same goes for the server, so long as it is a dedicated FileMaker Server, used for nothing else.

As for the Mac people claiming a slowdown when the PC users access the FileMaker Server, either there is something seriously wrong with the PC setup (beyond what Wim and Keith suggest) or the slowdown isn't really happening. I'd suggest you look at that for yourself, and check the server statistics during one of these slowdowns...

-Stanley