Diagnosing Server 2008 and Windows 7 LAN Speed

Question

I have a customer with Server 2008 in a VM, and maybe 15 Windows 7 clients. They are experiencing slowness when using an ERP system whose data resides on the server. The database in question is a load of shared files, as opposed to on a database server.

The network is gigabit throughout. I am told that the cabling is CAT5e or CAT6, there is some chance it may not be.

The switch is a 3Com 4200G, which is a managed device.

Initially I have used a tool called PathTest to examine raw LAN throughput. It's similar to iperf.

I ran a test between server and workstation, for 10 seconds, bidirectional. The results are:

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Firstly from client to server I'm seeing what strikes me as a low-ish Mbps number, and what strikes me as a very low number from server to client. The numbers are consistent over the 10 or so times I ran the test.

Am I right in thinking they're low and if they are, where do I start looking ?

Try running test against multiple machines, so that you can compare results. Also, check connection speed between the hosts, this will allow to narrow the issue. Besides, have you checked whether any other apps in the background (on the server) are consuming network bandwidth (TCPView is a good and simple one to check this). — Volodymyr Molodets, Nov 16 '12 at 14:51
also do the clients access the database files via a smb share? — tony roth, Nov 16 '12 at 16:04
veryify that its using smb2 also since I can't see the speed info whats the average speed? — tony roth, Nov 16 '12 at 16:06
can you copy files between win7 workstations and if so what does the perf look like then? — tony roth, Nov 16 '12 at 16:35
Thanks Tony - I am visiting the site next week and will update after that. — Alan B, Nov 16 '12 at 16:52

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 20 '12 at 15:20

Okay, the fix in this case was:

Installed Server 2008 Service Pack 2 on the Windows Server 2008 in question.
Re-enabled SMB2 on that server. It was possibly disabled originally to circumvent a known bug that caused file corruption with certain products when using Server 2008 or later with Windows Vista or later.
Installed hotfix Windows6.0-KB2635024-x86 on the server to address another file corruption bug in SMB2.
On each Windows 7 workstation, updated network drivers to most current version where needed (some were 5 years old).
On each Windows 7 workstation, configured network card to disable interrupt moderation, and force to 1Gbps full duplex.
On each Windows 7 workstation, installed hotfix Windows6.1-KB2618096-x86 to address a file corruption issue in SMB2.

thanks to your post I have resolved my issues very similar to yours. My server is Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation, the workstations are four Windows 7 Home Premium, one Windows XP Pro and one Windows Vista Ultimate. The account system is written in Visual Foxpro 9 and uses DBF, FPT and CDX files. I have followed your steps but the hotfix KB2635024 was not installable on the server nor on the Windows 7 workstations. Is because mine is R2 while your is not? Tomorrow I will try to apply these steps also on the Vista workstation. — Gianni Turri, Nov 22 '12 at 23:56

Diagnosing Server 2008 and Windows 7 LAN Speed

1 Answers1