Slow perfomance when files running on FMS 5

[Timothy_HK]

I have around 40 files sharing via FMS 5 and FMS is configured on Windows 2003 server. I have no idea why the performance of the files were extremely slow when the file running on FMS.

As I have tried open a same file directly on my computer and running a same script, it will only take around 5-8 seconds to complete the whole process, but it took more than 1 mins when a file was opened via FMS.

And, same problem when modify the fields in [Define field], it will take around 30 mins to recalculate the fields for around 7500 records (file size is 170MB), but it will only take 5 mins if opened a file locally.

Is it the FMS itself problem? How to fine tune the FMS?

Here below is the existing configuration of FMS,

Guest: Allow up to 50 simultaneously connected guests. (We have around 30 users only)

Files: Hosted 50 files. (I have around 47 files hosting now) and reserved 40MB for database cache

File Types: Disabled

Administration: Enabled the "Remote Administration"

Networking: TCP/IP only

Configuration of the server

OS: Windows 2003

CPU: Intel P4-3GB

RAM: 1GB

Hard disk: 80GB RAID1

Thanks for your time and help.

[gdurniak]

"PING" the network, and check for dropped packets. FileMaker is very sensitive to network problems. Also, try installing FMS 5 on another machine, as a test.

[Timothy_HK]

Actually, I did a Ping test before I post and there had not any packet dropped. Now, I installed the FMS on XP Pro and linked with one computer by cross cable. The result is much much faster.

When I need to replace data, I noticed that when a file opened via FMS, the speed is much slower compare with open a file locally. As FMS took 2 mins to replace 1 field data in 300 records but it only took 15 sec if a file opened locally.

Is it normal? I think you can imagine how long it will be taken if I have 200000 records needed to replace a new data.

Thanks for your time.

[gdurniak]

I have found that operations on a local file will be about twice as fast.

Please note that FMS5 was not written for Windows 2003 Server. Try it with Windows 2000, or XP Pro. It might be faster. 2 mins to replace 1 field in 300 records is definitely not correct.

[Timothy_HK]

Thanks for your information.

Yes, when migrated FMS back to old W2K server, the performance is back to normal. Is there have any possibility to run FMS 5 on Windows 2003 Server with normal performance?