FMS9A becomes sluggish during backups

[Tyra]

Recently upgraded FMS to a new faster server.

I run FMS9A with 11 databases hosted with two of them being around 19GB. The rest under 100MBs. On the server it's self I have both FM9 and FM8 clients running separate scripts all the time. The system seems to run fine, until the backup starts at 2am, then it slows to a point that 2-3 users can not work until it finishes. I turned verify off, which changed the back-up time from 2 hours plus to 27 minutes. Watching the activity monitor, the cpu load does not make much of a difference. But it seems that when the disk reads/writes are being done by FM, it causes a slow down. The Wait time/Calls goes way up. If I do a manually back-up of the databases from the backup directory to an external drive, it does not cause the same issue.

FMS actually seems to run slower buring backup on this new server then it did on the old G5. Just doesn't make sense. Oh, yes the Mac is a dedicated FM server. nothing else runs on it. Disabled Time Machine and Spotlight.

Specs:

FMS9A

Files:50 Max

Cache:800MB

Chache Flush:10Min.

Mac OS X Server

OS 10.5.2

Processor:2.8 Quad Core Intel Xeon

Memmory:8GB 800 Mhz DDR2

1TB SCSI Drive

Normal FMS Stats

Cache Hits: 100% Backup 100%

Cache Unsaved: 0 Backup 0

Wait Time/Call:56-388 Backup: goes way up into the millions.

[Vaughan]

"Cache:800MB"

I'd normally wait to see Steven H. Blackwell's opinion on this, but I question the wisdom of always turning the cache setting up to 11... more is not always better (if it was, the FMI engineer's wouldn't have made it adjustable they'd have just maxed it out).

Back in the FMS 5.5 days, the optimal cache setting was when the cache hits was just touching 100%. Any more was a waste.

[gdurniak]

1. you don't mention number of drives. make sure you backup to a separate fast HD

2. in general, cache size should be 10% of database size, so 800M for 40G is not crazy

3. some people create a batch file, or shell script, to pause server, and backup thru the OS. It can be faster

4. consistency check will slow you down, and might be done in a separate schedule, less frequent

greg

[Steven H. Blackwell]

The ten minute cache flush is not a Best Practice. The SE's recommend max cache amount and the default 1 munute flush interval. For these very large files, I might up that to 2 minutes, because the cache is also involved in the backup process.

Any aprticualr reason why you have 8 GB RAM in this server? FileMaker Server can only use 2 GB and I would think that the other 2 GB is optimal for the other daemons and the OS.

You might want to stagger backups such that not all files are backed up at the same time. That way you may get better response.

Is your hard drive partitioned?

You also noted:

On the server it's self I have both FM9 and FM8 clients running separate scripts all the time.

If, literally, you are running FMP on the server simultaneously with FileMaker Server, that is a [color:red]particularly bad idea. And I am not surprised you're having all these other issues, including the backup times.

Steven

[Tyra]

I originally had FMS settings at the default settings of 64MB and 1 minute flush. This gave me about 60-70% cache hits. With the 800MB i am getting 100% and at 10 minutes I am still getting 0% unsaved. But I could probably cut that in half with no problems, was just trying to cut disk reads down.

Only 1 drive, no partions, and about 100 gigs free.

Stopping the server for backups would work great, but it's a work critical and the databases need to be available at all times.

Steven, 8GB's because the system came that way. and had the same problem at 1 minute flushes.

Tried staggering the backups, but really didn't make much of a difference. 9 of the databases are so small that they backup quickly, and the other two take about the same time whether I do them separately or together, so it causes less down time to just do them all at once.

I can understand about running FMP on the same machine as the server may not be the best pratice. I use them to run two looping scripts for exporting and importing. I will try to see how the system works without FMP running. But the biggest way I have to measure preformace is the by watching the looping script speed.

By the way, I have no other problems, with the system other then when the backup occurs.

[xochi]

My suggestions:

* the consistency check slows things down a lot -- considering having it only happen once per day at 3am or whenever load is light.

* backups from one drive to itself are slow -- if you can put a 2nd drive in, especially if it's on a different bus and that bus is fast, should be better.

* 8gb of ram and 800meg cache should be fine -- in my experience with FM9 maxxing them out gives best performance.

* what's in your 19GB files? if it is a lot of images & pdfs, i'd consider storing those externally...