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Hello. I recently upgrade from a 4-year-old Dell server to a Quad Core 64bit
server for file serving. Since the upgrade I have noticed that the
performance of file/folder access is not as it should be. It is very slow
listing folder contents. The data drive on the server is about 1TB
consisting of a few 300GB hard drives in a RAID5 array. Dell has been unable
to help me resovle this issue over the last few weeks. They are saying the
1TB parition is too big and that we should not be using 5-300GB hard drives.
However, that is the server they spec'd for us.

Can someone help or shed some light on this? I have a hard time believing
that an older server is faster than the new one despite their comments.

Thanks,

- Bill E.

First, some clarity - when you say listing folder contents is slow, could
you tell me where you observe that? On the server console in Explorer? Or
from a network share?

If it's the second, then we need to know what OS's we're dealing with here
on both the client and the server side of the equation. (I have my
hunches...)

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel


"Bill Evans" <> wrote in message
news:C1825F6F-B071-43DA-BD9B-...
> Hello. I recently upgrade from a 4-year-old Dell server to a Quad Core
> 64bit
> server for file serving. Since the upgrade I have noticed that the
> performance of file/folder access is not as it should be. It is very slow
> listing folder contents. The data drive on the server is about 1TB
> consisting of a few 300GB hard drives in a RAID5 array. Dell has been
> unable
> to help me resovle this issue over the last few weeks. They are saying
> the
> 1TB parition is too big and that we should not be using 5-300GB hard
> drives.
> However, that is the server they spec'd for us.
>
> Can someone help or shed some light on this? I have a hard time believing
> that an older server is faster than the new one despite their comments.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Bill E.

Charlie, thank you for your post.

I am sorry that I wasn't more clear. The server OS is Windows 2003 R2 x64
(Intel) Enterprise Edition - SP2. The clients are all Windows XP SP2. The
problem occurs when listing the contents of the home directory folders on the
file server. Each group in the organization has its own folder. Each folder
has 100-350 folders in it, one for each users home folder. When listing
these folders through Windows Explorer, whether the console or from a network
share, it takes 10 seconds to 45 seconds to list the contents. Sometimes it
"times out" and does not list anything. We did not have this problem with
the old file server on the same physical network and connections.

Please help!

"Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:

> First, some clarity - when you say listing folder contents is slow, could
> you tell me where you observe that? On the server console in Explorer? Or
> from a network share?
>
> If it's the second, then we need to know what OS's we're dealing with here
> on both the client and the server side of the equation. (I have my
> hunches...)
>
> --
> Charlie.
> http://msmvps.com/xperts64
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel
>
>
> "Bill Evans" <> wrote in message
> news:C1825F6F-B071-43DA-BD9B-...
> > Hello. I recently upgrade from a 4-year-old Dell server to a Quad Core
> > 64bit
> > server for file serving. Since the upgrade I have noticed that the
> > performance of file/folder access is not as it should be. It is very slow
> > listing folder contents. The data drive on the server is about 1TB
> > consisting of a few 300GB hard drives in a RAID5 array. Dell has been
> > unable
> > to help me resovle this issue over the last few weeks. They are saying
> > the
> > 1TB parition is too big and that we should not be using 5-300GB hard
> > drives.
> > However, that is the server they spec'd for us.
> >
> > Can someone help or shed some light on this? I have a hard time believing
> > that an older server is faster than the new one despite their comments.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > - Bill E.
>

Hi
I guess , you can help Carlos clarifying "
>When listing
> these folders through Windows Explorer, whether the console or from a
> network
> share"
regards jk

First, and foremost, open regedit, and navigate to:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Param eters

Set the following parameters to false (a value of 0)

EnableRSS
EnableTCPA
EnableTCPChimney

Personally, I also set "DisableDHCPMediaSense" to a value of 1.

If there's a network connection that it's having to time out on, this may
well be the source of the issue.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel


"Bill Evans" <> wrote in message
news:0C7C1ECC-7040-400C-B0EF-...
> Charlie, thank you for your post.
>
> I am sorry that I wasn't more clear. The server OS is Windows 2003 R2 x64
> (Intel) Enterprise Edition - SP2. The clients are all Windows XP SP2.
> The
> problem occurs when listing the contents of the home directory folders on
> the
> file server. Each group in the organization has its own folder. Each
> folder
> has 100-350 folders in it, one for each users home folder. When listing
> these folders through Windows Explorer, whether the console or from a
> network
> share, it takes 10 seconds to 45 seconds to list the contents. Sometimes
> it
> "times out" and does not list anything. We did not have this problem with
> the old file server on the same physical network and connections.
>
> Please help!
>
> "Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:
>
>> First, some clarity - when you say listing folder contents is slow, could
>> you tell me where you observe that? On the server console in Explorer? Or
>> from a network share?
>>
>> If it's the second, then we need to know what OS's we're dealing with
>> here
>> on both the client and the server side of the equation. (I have my
>> hunches...)
>>
>> --
>> Charlie.
>> http://msmvps.com/xperts64
>> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel
>>
>>
>> "Bill Evans" <> wrote in message
>> news:C1825F6F-B071-43DA-BD9B-...
>> > Hello. I recently upgrade from a 4-year-old Dell server to a Quad Core
>> > 64bit
>> > server for file serving. Since the upgrade I have noticed that the
>> > performance of file/folder access is not as it should be. It is very
>> > slow
>> > listing folder contents. The data drive on the server is about 1TB
>> > consisting of a few 300GB hard drives in a RAID5 array. Dell has been
>> > unable
>> > to help me resovle this issue over the last few weeks. They are saying
>> > the
>> > 1TB parition is too big and that we should not be using 5-300GB hard
>> > drives.
>> > However, that is the server they spec'd for us.
>> >
>> > Can someone help or shed some light on this? I have a hard time
>> > believing
>> > that an older server is faster than the new one despite their comments.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> >
>> > - Bill E.
>>

Charlie, thank you again for posting.

I have set the three settings you mentioned to 0 on the servers registry.
The DisableDHCPMediaSense is not there so I could not set that. Do I need to
reboot for this to take effect? What exactly will this do?

Thanks,

- Bill E.

"Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:

> First, and foremost, open regedit, and navigate to:
>
> HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Param eters
>
> Set the following parameters to false (a value of 0)
>
> EnableRSS
> EnableTCPA
> EnableTCPChimney
>
> Personally, I also set "DisableDHCPMediaSense" to a value of 1.
>
> If there's a network connection that it's having to time out on, this may
> well be the source of the issue.
>
> --
> Charlie.
> http://msmvps.com/xperts64
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel
>
>
> "Bill Evans" <> wrote in message
> news:0C7C1ECC-7040-400C-B0EF-...
> > Charlie, thank you for your post.
> >
> > I am sorry that I wasn't more clear. The server OS is Windows 2003 R2 x64
> > (Intel) Enterprise Edition - SP2. The clients are all Windows XP SP2.
> > The
> > problem occurs when listing the contents of the home directory folders on
> > the
> > file server. Each group in the organization has its own folder. Each
> > folder
> > has 100-350 folders in it, one for each users home folder. When listing
> > these folders through Windows Explorer, whether the console or from a
> > network
> > share, it takes 10 seconds to 45 seconds to list the contents. Sometimes
> > it
> > "times out" and does not list anything. We did not have this problem with
> > the old file server on the same physical network and connections.
> >
> > Please help!
> >
> > "Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:
> >
> >> First, some clarity - when you say listing folder contents is slow, could
> >> you tell me where you observe that? On the server console in Explorer? Or
> >> from a network share?
> >>
> >> If it's the second, then we need to know what OS's we're dealing with
> >> here
> >> on both the client and the server side of the equation. (I have my
> >> hunches...)
> >>
> >> --
> >> Charlie.
> >> http://msmvps.com/xperts64
> >> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel
> >>
> >>
> >> "Bill Evans" <> wrote in message
> >> news:C1825F6F-B071-43DA-BD9B-...
> >> > Hello. I recently upgrade from a 4-year-old Dell server to a Quad Core
> >> > 64bit
> >> > server for file serving. Since the upgrade I have noticed that the
> >> > performance of file/folder access is not as it should be. It is very
> >> > slow
> >> > listing folder contents. The data drive on the server is about 1TB
> >> > consisting of a few 300GB hard drives in a RAID5 array. Dell has been
> >> > unable
> >> > to help me resovle this issue over the last few weeks. They are saying
> >> > the
> >> > 1TB parition is too big and that we should not be using 5-300GB hard
> >> > drives.
> >> > However, that is the server they spec'd for us.
> >> >
> >> > Can someone help or shed some light on this? I have a hard time
> >> > believing
> >> > that an older server is faster than the new one despite their comments.
> >> >
> >> > Thanks,
> >> >
> >> > - Bill E.
> >>
>

Yes, you need to reboot.

This will turn off some of the advanced performance tuning features of the
NICs that don't work well with some networks. The result can be a big time
delay when explorer opens, as it needs to get some network information.

Not sure it's applicable in your case, but it's been a definite source of
issues for some, and won't do you any good with XP clients anyway.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel


"Bill Evans" <> wrote in message
news:AAC0A662-2FEB-4AB7-8B72-...
> Charlie, thank you again for posting.
>
> I have set the three settings you mentioned to 0 on the servers registry.
> The DisableDHCPMediaSense is not there so I could not set that. Do I need
> to
> reboot for this to take effect? What exactly will this do?
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Bill E.
>
> "Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:
>
>> First, and foremost, open regedit, and navigate to:
>>
>> HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Param eters
>>
>> Set the following parameters to false (a value of 0)
>>
>> EnableRSS
>> EnableTCPA
>> EnableTCPChimney
>>
>> Personally, I also set "DisableDHCPMediaSense" to a value of 1.
>>
>> If there's a network connection that it's having to time out on, this may
>> well be the source of the issue.
>>
>> --
>> Charlie.
>> http://msmvps.com/xperts64
>> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel
>>
>>
>> "Bill Evans" <> wrote in message
>> news:0C7C1ECC-7040-400C-B0EF-...
>> > Charlie, thank you for your post.
>> >
>> > I am sorry that I wasn't more clear. The server OS is Windows 2003 R2
>> > x64
>> > (Intel) Enterprise Edition - SP2. The clients are all Windows XP SP2.
>> > The
>> > problem occurs when listing the contents of the home directory folders
>> > on
>> > the
>> > file server. Each group in the organization has its own folder. Each
>> > folder
>> > has 100-350 folders in it, one for each users home folder. When
>> > listing
>> > these folders through Windows Explorer, whether the console or from a
>> > network
>> > share, it takes 10 seconds to 45 seconds to list the contents.
>> > Sometimes
>> > it
>> > "times out" and does not list anything. We did not have this problem
>> > with
>> > the old file server on the same physical network and connections.
>> >
>> > Please help!
>> >
>> > "Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:
>> >
>> >> First, some clarity - when you say listing folder contents is slow,
>> >> could
>> >> you tell me where you observe that? On the server console in Explorer?
>> >> Or
>> >> from a network share?
>> >>
>> >> If it's the second, then we need to know what OS's we're dealing with
>> >> here
>> >> on both the client and the server side of the equation. (I have my
>> >> hunches...)
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Charlie.
>> >> http://msmvps.com/xperts64
>> >> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> "Bill Evans" <> wrote in message
>> >> news:C1825F6F-B071-43DA-BD9B-...
>> >> > Hello. I recently upgrade from a 4-year-old Dell server to a Quad
>> >> > Core
>> >> > 64bit
>> >> > server for file serving. Since the upgrade I have noticed that the
>> >> > performance of file/folder access is not as it should be. It is
>> >> > very
>> >> > slow
>> >> > listing folder contents. The data drive on the server is about 1TB
>> >> > consisting of a few 300GB hard drives in a RAID5 array. Dell has
>> >> > been
>> >> > unable
>> >> > to help me resovle this issue over the last few weeks. They are
>> >> > saying
>> >> > the
>> >> > 1TB parition is too big and that we should not be using 5-300GB hard
>> >> > drives.
>> >> > However, that is the server they spec'd for us.
>> >> >
>> >> > Can someone help or shed some light on this? I have a hard time
>> >> > believing
>> >> > that an older server is faster than the new one despite their
>> >> > comments.
>> >> >
>> >> > Thanks,
>> >> >
>> >> > - Bill E.
>> >>
>>