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PostPosted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:13 pm 
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HI all I have just bought two Ex490's the first set up a dream and I just copied about 1.5TB over in 8 hours. The second is proving more of a challange.
The set up when fine however with no antivirus software I am only seaing a transfer rate of 4MB/Sec net utilisation <5%. The system is connected to my other server through a 100/1000 switch. I then tried to copy a large file from the server to a mac and got a great transfer rate ~ 80MB/Sec. When I try to copy back to the EX490 I am back at 5MB/s. One strange behaviour is that after a boot a see a few seconds at ~50MB/Sec then the fall to ~5MB/sec. I called HP who offered little help other than saying rebuild the server as from the factory which I did. This has provided no improvement.
As I have done two off these and the other went fine I am open to suggestions as to why the transfer to server should be so poor. I have also tried a direct connection between my other server and the EX490 to verify, but the same results.

To have to return the hardwere would be a pain but am I missing something?
Thanks for any input


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 12:38 am 
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You mention network utilization but did not mention CPU Utilization or anything about the hard drive activity in the server. There is a great Add-In called WHS DISK MANAGEMENT and if you goto the NEWS area here you can read about the latest version of that add-in. I will let you look at it and there you can find out all about it but I recommend it for a number of reasons which you will be quick to recognise.

This is what I think is happening to your server. When you place a large amount of data on it at one time the server has to do more then just store it. Everything you set for duplication then has to be duplicated or copied to other drives within your drive pool. This is when a program called DEMIGRATOR kicks in and it can be processor intensive which reduces the performance of your server.

Then there are other features in the EX490 like the video functions and such that when they get active they tend to bog things down. Just take the two things I mentioned and your server tries to do it all and begins to crawl. Once it catches up with everything your servers performance will return to normal its just a matter of how long it will take to process what you have given it. As for transfering 1.5 TB of data in 8 hours now thats outstanding but now your server is processing that 1.5 TB of data and since I do not know what you have to be duplicated or what video functions you have on chances are you may have to let it run its course of the next few days.

I am currently transfering just over 2 TB of data to my new server and I turned off duplication because I have to play move the drives from one server to another but once I get all the drives in place I will turn on the duplication and I am going to just leave it alone for a week but it might only need a couple days but I have my mind set for a week.

Anyway once your server settles down and returns to being fast again just take your data migration abit slower and once its done you will see a big difference in the servers performance you have an EX490 which can run circles around my EX470 but I have had almost 2 yrs to understand the best way to work with my EX470 and I have to tell you it works well once I found out how to work with it and the longer it runs the better it seems to do with handling things. Having said that I think your EX490 will do you well in time just be patient with it and wait till it gets peppy again you will not have long to wait but be patient with it you will soon see.

Good Luck and enjoy your EX490 when it settles down..... Its just busy doing what you asked it to do....

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:19 pm 
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Thanks comp 1962. In fact you seam to be spot on. I was about to return the server so removed the second 1.5TB hard disk. After doing this I did a copy trial and got a TX rate of 55MB/Sec. As you have highlighted this indicates that the isssue is in fact disk transfer related and not network congestion.

I did turn off all medi streaming options and have also set all disks to span over mirrot in the home console.

I am still a little unsure of why a span disk set has a reduced speed over a single disk? IS this as a soft raid is used in WHS?

Thankyou for you support


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:25 pm 
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What happens when you had duplicate turned on is that when you add files to your server the program which handles all the duplication functions called DEMIGRATOR kicks into action and it tends to be processor intensive which results in sluggish server performance. The more you give it to handle the more sluggish your server will become but its only a temporary condition that often people fail to realize.

For this reason I always suggest that if you want to move large amounts of data to your server to do so before you goto bed and the server will process that stuff while your sleeping and when you wake up hopefully it will have completed its task. So basically give it some files at night and see how it works out. If its fine then give it a larger grouping of files the next time. In time you will know just how much to give your server but what I can say is that for some reason this process gets better over time and I have moved 200 GB chunks at night on the EX470 and its handled it quite well but I have to admit thats alot of data to move.

Once your done putting your data on your server the famed demigrator will kick in from time to time to do its housekeeping but it will not run very long so its impact will be minimal at best.

Once your data has been duplicated which you can check on the Server Storage Tab then it would be a good time to turn on the other functions for your media and let it runs its course and then your server will treat you extremely well.

Of course you may be tempted to install Add-Ins to provide other features and functions. I would do so only once your server has settled in and after giving each Add-In a good review to see what others have to say about them so you fully understand what problems if any might exist in them before adding them. When you do install Add-Ins I recommend that you install them one at a time and let the server run for a while to make sure you have not installed a problem. Often people install alot of add-ins run into a problem and have no clue what caused their problem which is why people here often ask what add-ins were recently installed and ask for a bit of history to help resolve the issues people report and request help with.

As your server matures, settles in and your understanding of how to work with it increases you will find the EX490 to be a very nice server. Its a much nicer server then my EX470 and if my less powered unit can serve me well then how much more can your more powerful EX490 serve you.

Now having said all there there are issues with some of the EX49x MSS that have been discussed in great detail on this site but mostly with how to effectively perform a server recovery this I think you should spend time reviewing as there are recommendations and solutions mentioned here that work, have been proven to work by others and its damn good reading material too.

As with any of the HP MSS when they are new we all rush to get our data on them so we can use them because no where in the manuals does it explain whats the best approach but what I and others have explained here works and its the best approach to starting off a new server be it an HP MSS or other WHS based machine....

Good luck and sorry for the book......I tend to write more but worse if you talk with me on the phone because I talk more then I write so your saved from that end of my personality.

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~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 8:57 am 
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Thanks for the feedback, All was going well so I slipped the second disk back in. I managed to copy some files at the lower rate then camne back to find the red heartbeat light flashing and the second disks blue LED out.

I have to assume the disk has failed and / or was failing hence the sloweer than expected performance? One question asked earlier was about the CPU load during this. It never moved above about 30% during the copy periods.

I am now trying to remove the disk using the console, the event log had no entrys relating to the failure? Of course all this is assuming the new 1.5TB Western digital disk has actually failed. Even after a hard reset the Blue LED never came on and the system flagged the device as missing.

Regards


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 4:31 pm 
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I would probably remove the drive and treat it with suspicion -- as you are. There have certainly been reports of drives that do fail in the MSS (or with WHS in general) but pass CHKDSK and even manufacturers diagnostics. Rare, but it happens.

Personally, I'd probably try another drive first, then RMA the other if the new one works or look again at the MSS if it, too, fails.

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