File server woes

[viper92086]

So i'm having this issue with our company fileserver and i think its a hardware limitation, but want you ideas.

So we currently have a dell poweredge 840 (xeon, with raid 1, running sbs2003 w/ 4gb ram). As of right now it duties as a file server for our shared company folder, print server, and it also runs our AD (no email, its for the sole purpose of having security when accessing folders on the file server). I noticed that it tends to freeze and bog down often when people start moving files/folders around. We have several monitoring pcs that are as well dumping files and folders onto this network share (about 1mb files going back and forth). There are about 10 of these monitoring pcs with constant access moving small files, then about 15 employee pcs that connect and move various files and various times.



Now i'm not sure what kind of upgrades i can really do without taking the whole server down and doing a reformat on a raid 5 config. any ideas or suggestions? is my hardware definatly the limiting factor?

 

[nitrobass24]

RAID5
Could just add it to what you have so you dont have to take it down.
Then just build the RAID5 with some new fast drives 15kSAS.
After its done building, take the server offline (at night or slow-time) and move the contents to the new array.
Take RAID1 offline
Change Drive letter of RAID5 to what RAID1 used to be so your folder structure is the same.
Bring server online....keep on trucking

 

[GeorgeHR]

You say little about the amount of data that is being handled bu the server.

Certainly a RAID solution with faster drives will solve some problems, but ....

 

[viper92086]

You say little about the amount of data that is being handled bu the server.

Certainly a RAID solution with faster drives will solve some problems, but ....

Oh sorry i musta deleted that last paragraph before i posted.


The small files that are being transfered back and forth from what we call monitoring pcs can range from 1-5mb (this is happening every few minutes. On top of that we have the additional workstations that do the occasionaly moving of both large and small files

 

[viper92086]

RAID5
Could just add it to what you have so you dont have to take it down.
Then just build the RAID5 with some new fast drives 15kSAS.
After its done building, take the server offline (at night or slow-time) and move the contents to the new array.
Take RAID1 offline
Change Drive letter of RAID5 to what RAID1 used to be so your folder structure is the same.
Bring server online....keep on trucking

at that point it seems like i should just get a new server. This one would need a new hardware raid controller. (this would crush the existing raid)

Do you guys recommend leaving the data and OS drives seperate? or combined on a raid 5 array?

 

[brandinb]

I recommend a raid 1 or 10 for the os and a raid 10 for the data. How much storage do you need? Budget?

If your budget is decent and your data sets are not large I would get ssd drives. Two in raid 1 for the os and 4 in raid 10 for the data. And yes always separate the os and data drives on the server.

Also I would upgrade the network to gigabit unless it is already there. That is cheap and will always show a benefit on file transfers. If your moving serious amounts of data you can setup seperate raid arrays on the server for different data sets and multiple nics. Then you can assign seperate address to the nics and have the clients connect to different addresses to share the load on the nics (if your bumping against gigabit limits 125mb/s) or use bonding features of server nics.

 

[viper92086]

I recommend a raid 1 or 10 for the os and a raid 10 for the data. How much storage do you need? Budget?

If your budget is decent and your data sets are not large I would get ssd drives. Two in raid 1 for the os and 4 in raid 10 for the data. And yes always separate the os and data drives on the server.

Also I would upgrade the network to gigabit unless it is already there. That is cheap and will always show a benefit on file transfers. If your moving serious amounts of data you can setup seperate raid arrays on the server for different data sets and multiple nics. Then you can assign seperate address to the nics and have the clients connect to different addresses to share the load on the nics (if your bumping against gigabit limits 125mb/s) or use bonding features of server nics.

Thanks for the heads up! I will see what i can peice together in terms of a raid 5 or 10 for data. maybe i can salvage what i have.