Windows SBS 2003.. need Help!

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Da Light.. your understanding of the problem was very quick.

I do have sequential files (ascii) being read by the DOS application used by the users. These ascii files are residing in the shared directory. These fils are used for validating fields like zip etc.

How can I make these index files (ascii) be picked up from the users cache instead of using the Server's resources ?

I have disabled offline file policy from the Domain GPO. My users dont need offline files. My shared folders are in the range of 8-12 GB. Also users use common login.

Under these circumstances how do I make SBS 2003 a better File Server ?

Under Windows 2003 sharing.. there was an option... Cache Documents automatically... this is missing in SBS 2003. They have options for mostly Offline File. Where do I adjust the Cache for files used in Network shares ?

Is my RAID 5 server causing this problem ? How can I measure if the bottleneck (Average Disk Queue) is caused by the Raid 5. Can I strip the Raid5 to Raid 0 (Forget the advantages).

Too many questions.... but would be glad for any response.


Thanx.


Santy Balan

Thanks for the reply, Santy.

Could you please answer one question I asked in my original post:

Have you always experienced these performance problems with the server, or did they arise after any changes to the system configuration?

Some new questions:
Is the figure of 8-12 GB composed solely of the ASCII files used by the DOS application?
What is the average file size?
Also, are the majority of the files read-only?

Also, some answers to the questions in your last post:
1. You would get a performance increase if you went from RAID-5 to RAID-0, but are you willing to lose the fault tolerance?
2. If the majority of the files are read-only, you could store them locally on your users' machines if you could make changes to the paths in your DOS application.
3. If you want your server to be more biased towards file sharing than running applications, you could change the following setting -
i. Goto Control Panel
ii. Select the System applet
iii. Goto to the Advanced Tab
iv. Click on Settings button under "Performance" section
v. Goto to the Advanced Tab under "Performance Options" Dialog Box
vi. Select "System cache" radio button under "Memory usage" section

I assume of course that you are not running Exchange Server, as you mentioned that you had turned off most of the services on your server.