Slow xServe

Our xserve is slow and lagging out.
Dual 2.3 PowerPC G5 8GB ram running 10.4.7
It is connected to an xRaid which is raid level 5.
Our network is all Gigabit.
The xServe is strictly being used as a file server.
We recently added new MacPros to our studio all 8 core 10.6.8 with 16 GB ram.
It seems that our server is having trouble file serving for the new machines.
The types of problems we are having are delayed finder window display. very slow file transfers,
windows not refreshing. At times when you open a finder window to transfer files the data
does not refresh and in some cases you can not even close the window cancel the process
launch a new app from the dock. Its like it freezes our MacPros.
The new MacPros work flawlessly on their own.
The xserve works fine transferring files or opening them locally.
Is there an incompatibility issue with Server 10.4.7 and newer machines running 10.6.7?

Hi
Sounds more like a problem with the XRAID? How full is it? If you're down to less than 15% of free disk space, performance will start to suffer along the lines you describe.
"Is there an incompatibility issue with Server 10.4.7 and newer machines running 10.6.7?"
Not that I'm aware of.
HTH?
Tony

Similar Messages

Slow Xserver Response

Hi all,
Setup: G5 Xserve 2 gig, 1 gig RAM, OSX 10.4.7 Server; 80 gig boot drive, two 500 gig HDs in other bays. Clients (maybe 30 max) connecting from OSX machines via "Go > Connect to Server > 192.168.1.15" (IP Address of xServe). Server is used only for file storage. All the files are in 5 different shares on one of the two 500 gig drives (which are then backed up nightly to the second 500 gig drive).
Here's the problem: Things have gotten painfully slow in reading directories. For instance, in the Finder, if I open up one of the shares that's mounted on my desktop, it takes at least 30 seconds to list all the files/folders there (108 items). Also, in apps like InDesign, when trying to place an image from a pretty full directory, it can take up to a minute for the list of available files to build.
Can't really pinpoint when this might have started happening, perhaps with 10.4.6 update? Up until then everything was fine.
Tried rebooting the server; turned off all other services; zapped PRAM; deleted cache; deleted .DSstore files; all to no avail.
Anybody else seen this or have any possible solutions?

Has the system got progressively slow over time or was it a sudden thing?
If it's sudden then it may be something like a duplex mismatch on the server (if it's affecting all clients) or on the client (if only specific clients).
Check the switch for errors. High rates of CRC errors can indicate that a duplex mismatch is at fault. You can also run the command netstat -s -w 10 to get an updating list of throughput statistics on the network. Ideally the 'errs' columns should be 0. Try watching the stats as you access the server from a remote system.
You might also want to look at what the server is doing - whether it's CPU bound (some process is using all available CPU cycles), or memory bound (there isn't enough RAM to keep all services in memory, causing excessive paging). 1GB should be enough for a simple file server, but if the server is performing other tasks, too, it may be too little.

HT1338 XSERVE 10.6.8 is running very slow, and Workgroup Manager is not responding

XSERVE 10.6.8 is running very slow, and Workgroup Manager is not responding. There is no more updates to download.

munish khanna wrote:
1. upgrade to lion, which should over write previous software and the reasons for it being slow.
No, you don't want to upgrade over a buggy system, Lion has issues of it's own that will only complicate matters, plus Lion is slower than Snow Leopard.
Learn all the pitfalls before you upgrade to Lion, like all your Rosetta/older programs will no longer work and more.
Leave Lion for a new hardware purchase is my advice, it's still got plenty of security and other issues.
For your performance, your likely better off replacing the hard drive with a 7,200 RPM model and maxing the RAM, download the free MacTracker to find out your specs, and OtherWorld Computing is good for videos, tools and parts.
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/
2. Format the hard disc and reinstall snow leopard.
That will work, provided your data is off the machine first.
Now how do i reinstall snow leopard as it was an online purchased upgrade from leopard.
The 10.6 Snow Leopard disk that you upgraded 10.5 Leopard from actually has the full OS X 10.6 on it.
All you have to do is stick the disk in and hold the c key down while booting, use Disk Utility to erase the entire drive, quit and install 10.6.
Of course your not going to get the free iLife that came with the 10.5 grey disks, see if you can first install 10.5 with the same methods, then setup with the same user name as before, then upgrade to 10.6
I think Apple nulled booting off the 10.5 disks, but it won't hurt to try.
Another method would be to install 10.6 fresh by itself, then use the program called Pacifist to extract iLife from the 10.5 disks.
http://www.charlessoft.com/
Read here for plenty of how to's
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

XServe is slow over 100MB/s switch

I have a big problem that's getting bigger by the month. My LAN is sloooowww! I am the assistant (i.e. volunteer technology coordinator at a small private elementary school and we are using a Dual G5 XServe (all the latest patches) for our main server. We mainly use it for authentication (OpenDirectory) and file sharing (SMB). We have 200 WindowsXP machines shared amongst 500 students using roaming profiles.
Our problem is that logging in/out of the LAN is taking 4-6 minutes and that's way too much time to sit there with Kindergarten grade students! We've limited profiles (although we are still trying to reduce them further) and tried several other things on the Windows side but nothing seems to help. I've monitored the XServe's resources during the day and it never seems to break a sweat in either CPU, Disk I/O, or network activity. The only thing I can think of right now is that our backbone switch is an old Xylan 100MB beast with not Gig interfaces. This means that both Ethernet ports coming off the XServe are only running at 100MB each.
I think our problem is that we are pushing waaay too much data through a 200MB pipe. Does that seem correct? My first thought was to upgrade the switch to a Gig model, but the expense (even @ eBay prices) of getting enough 1000MB ports to cover the school buried that idea real quick. And I can't seem to find a Gig interface for the Xylan anywhere!?!? What other options do I have? Break down and get a second XServe (but what would we use it for)? Segment the LAN and try to find a way to make the majority of the systems hit the server at Gig speeds?
I know this is a long message but I am really out on a limb here. Anybody with some networking mojo wanna spread some around?
Thanx!
Richard

Hi Corrado-
That is quite a few machines to manage and should be commended for undertaking this project as a volunteer (:>)
You may indeed need a new server, but I think you should take a close look at your network issue first. That switch is getting a little long in the tooth. Even one bad port can slow things down. If you can budget a new server then me thinks a new switch would be a bunch cheaper.
Is this a new issue or the way it has been for a while? Does powering down the switch and bringing it back online speed things up? The answer to those questions can steer you in a couple of different troubleshooting directions.
Do you allow connection to the internet through your setup? I am presuming that you do but I don't want to overlook anything. I do know that PC's running bit torrent software can hog a huge amount of bandwidth. Now I know that this is an elementary school but kids are smart and figure stuff out, especially the sneaky stuff, pretty quickly. You may want to shore up your filtering and or firewall defenses.
I would suggest powering down the entire network, server, and client machines. Bring the switch and server back up first. Go to a classroom or media center and power up 2 Macs and go through the log in and see what happens. If this is speedy this will be a hint.
That's all the mojo I have for now. Post back with your results if you need further assistance.
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

MySQL 5.0.27-max xserve g5 dual run very slow

Hi to all,
I have a very strange problem on my dual G5 xserve running php and mysql5.
I upgrated from mysql 4.01 to mysql 5 5.0.27 and now my server is very slow during queries.
My CPU is always used at 45% by MySQL and I have not too much connections or users at the same time.
I found this link: http://www.shawnhogan.com/2005/10/mysql-problems-on-mac-os-x-server.html that explain something about mysql 5 on xserve.
Is very strange if I reboot mysql it runs normally but after some queries it returns slow again...
Anyone has some idea?
Thank you all
Yorh

I've actually tried all the USB ports and get same results. I went and bought a Sonnet USB2.0 high speed PCI adapter thinking a dedicated controller would help. It was actually slower than the onboard USB2.0 ports. Again, this same drive hooked up to my Windows XP computer performs about 4 times faster.
At this point I've purchased an external SATA card from Sonnet, the Tempo X eSATA 4x4 card. As soon as I get an eSATA cable this sould prove to be a lot better.
I'd sitll like to know if other people get similar poor performance on USB2.0 external drives vs Firewire 400 on the same computer. I stopped buying FW enclosures when it seemed Apple was abandoning firewire on their ipods and there is no Firewire 800 on the macbook pro or intel iMacs.

10.4 Workgroup manager and xserv slow..

We have an XSERV running 10.4.11 server that was working fine. last week the server OS drive became corrupted and I have to reformat and reload the backup we had from retrospect. All seemed OK... BUT.. now when a user going to login to workgroup manager, it is very slow getting to the desktop and getting any icons on the desktop. this is happening in our 2 computer labs that have IMAC computers. They were fast BEFORE the server crashed and had to be restored...

Quote:
Do we need to modify/update some schema changes with Lion to be applied to the AD?
That's the question, it looks to me like it might be trying to store the configurations in a different attribute or something.

Xserve RAID - to slow during video capture

I have Xserve RAID with 14 drives in 2 stripes ( 2x7 drives ) in RAID5. I can see in my system two "drives" called RAID1 & RAID2 - each 2.18TB.
When I`m using BlackMagic Disk Speed test utility I have only 150MB/s read and 100MB/s write which is to slow for 1080i HD.
What is wrong ? What should I do to get better performance ?
I`m new in Xserve so maybe somebody could explaine me "step by step" what to do.
I read a little about RAID50 but I have no idea how to create it.
Regards.
Rafal Szermanowicz
www.grupa13.com

Those speeds are fast enough for HD capture.
Anyway, to ensure you're getting full speed, make sure:
1) You have the 1.5 firmware on the RAID
2) Enable controller write cache is checked (enabled)
3) Use drive cache is checked (enabled)
4) Allow host cache flushing is DISABLED (unchecked)
5) Use steady streaming mode is DISABLED (unchecke)
For capture, leaving the settings at 8 stripes as prefetch is probably best. If you are going to be doing extensive playback of uncompressed HD, you may want to consider setting the prefetch at 128 stripes.

Slow Searches on XServe...from SOME computers

Having a weird issue where I have some computers logging into our XServe that are getting really slow search results. My Macbook gets lightning quick search results, and one of the iMacs we have gets very fast search results as well. However, we have systems that just search and search. Whereas my laptop finds things more or less instantly, our Mac towers (which range from 2x2.66GHz Dual Cores with 5GB of RAM to a Dual 2GHz Power PC G5) take forever on searches.
It's not a network issue, as they can search each others drives very rapidly. And it doesn't appear to be a system software issue, as while I am running Leopard (as is the server), the iMac is running 10.4.11, as are the Mac towers.
Any help would be VERY appreciated - this is incredibly frustrating!!!
R~

Hi Randy Baer1-
Might be a bad idea to discount a network problem so quickly. Speaking of which, is this a wired, wireless or mixed network?
Are you sure that the Macs in question are connected at the speed that you think they are? Do all of the machines take the same physical route to the servers? Are the slow G5s connected to the same physical switch or router? If they are wired have you tried swapping ports on the switch or router to which the Macs are wired?
Luck-
-DP

Xserve backup speed v.slow

Hi, the Xserve is running 10.4.8 and previously consisted of 3 hds. There was the main ServerHD which had the OS and a ServerData HD which mirrored the data onto the 3rd HD....or so I thought. When I set up FTP I found out that there was an OS installed on the ServerData HD as well and that THIS was the main OS.
A problem occurred with the ServerHD and the disk had to be removed leaving just the ServerData HD with both OS and data on it. This carried on mirroring onto the, now 2nd, drive.
Anyway, we have now been informed by the PC team that the backup has slowed down from 1,436.69 MB/Min to 445.00 MB/Min and this is causing a real problem. Any ideas on the cause and possible fixes? Many thanks

What do you mean by backup? What backup are we talking about here?

AFP SLOW SLOW SLOW on Xserve!! [critical]

Our studio uses an Xserve (Intel 8-core) with Leopard Server along with multiple clients ranging from Mac Pro's, Macbook Pro's and other Xserves and am having problem after problem!!! All machines are running 10.5.4.
Mainly, the problem revolves around EXTREMELY SLOW (or non existent) networking between our Mac Pro's (also 8-core) and this Xserve. I have turned off the Firewall on the Xserve and only have QTSS, AFP and SMB services running. We never had problems when running 10.4 (Tiger).
Currently AFP won't even allow anyone to connect! I have restarted the Xserve numerous times and changed settings without success. Therefore, I switched to SMB which allowed us to connect and use the file share but all of a sudden (within 20 hours of switching to SMB), networking is excruciatingly SLOW!!!! Not even usable!
I'm losing faith in Apple which I've never thought I would hear myself say. Snow Leopard better be the end-all in stability, speed and reliability.

Stephen,
How are you connecting to the server (ethernet, fibre)?
If you're using ethernet (which i assume you are) what are you typing to connect to the server?
To make sure you connect properly, try this;
afp://adminusername@serveripaddress
This will then guarantee you have privileges to connect.
Also, if you are using Ethernet, is it Cat5 or Cat6? Cat6 will be alot faster, if you have a lot of video/audio going over it, but depending on how much stuff there is, Cat5 maybe fine!
Post back to let us know...

Slow finder search from clients on the xserve

Hi there!
Since nearly three weeks, we have an xserve running with an 1.5 TB XServe-Raid. Before, we copied the data from an helios-server to the XServe-Raid. Now, when conected clients using the search-option from the finder, the display of any results is very slow. It takes a long time to show the results. With the helios-server, it tooks just a few seconds, now, it tooks a few minutes. We tried to index manually (only for spotlight) but it did not work. Could anybody help us?

Helios has it's own desktop files on all shared
volumes and a special desktop server answering
network searches very fast.
Spotlight indexing doesn't work over the network (AFP
mounted volumes or not - yet).
I assume you are using AFP for mounting server
volumes on client computers?
It shouldn't be terribly slow using Apple Server AFP
server either (it is using some kind of file indexing
to find files fast from a network client).
If using SMB I would expect slow filename searching.
We use AFP for mounting the shared volumes. And it is terrible slow. There is an process called "AppleFileServer" which is running on over 180% very often. And this also slows down the connected clients.

Xserve G4 - NAT has slow performance. Why?

I 3 Linksys Routers as access points. One right now is the gateway and DHCP server, the 2 others are access points around the house. I have an Xserve G4 (RackMac 1,1) tray loading, dual 1GHz G4 PPC CPUs and 1.5 GB of RAM. When I use the Xserve as the gateway, DNS, and DHCP server using NAT Setup Assistant, performance slows from 11MB/s, to 3MB/s download speed, and almost no upload speed for the clients on the LAN. I can do a speed test on the Xserve itself, and speed is at 8MB/s download, and 1MB/s upload, so normal, but slower. I wonder if it's DNS, but when I use Network utility on a client to resolve the IP, it takes no more than a second, if even that. It might just be the hardware. On the client, web pages take second to load, then start to load, stop, start again and once the page is there, it takes a while for the rest of the objects to load. When I am on the regular Linksys Router, this is not an issue. I use Google's DNS, and my ISP's as the forwarders. But I ask, what might really be the issue? Any ideas are appreciated.

Are you running NAT on the Linksys as well as on the Mac? That's going to be problem number 1 - double-NAT is just so icky :: shudder ::
Second to that I'd hazard that there's a MTU mismatch that's causing a stall and buffer issue with traffic.
The MTU is the maximum Transfer Unit - the size of the largest packet that can traverse the network. It's typically 1500 bytes on an ethernet network, but can drop to as low as 1200 bytes on different internet connections. If you're using a VPN, that drops the MTU, too (since the VPN has to add its own headers to each packet).
If the MTUs are mismatched (e.g. the client tries to send a 1500-byte packet down a link that only supports 1400 bytes) then something has to give - typically some combination of buffering, rewriting or packet dropping.
The Linksys may be smart enough to publish the public MTU to the internal LAN, but Mac OS X does not. Therefore the Mac is probably telling the (internal) LAN traffic to use a 1500-byte MTU while the (external) WAN link is lower.
There are various semi-technical ways of finding out the MTU for any given link, but the easiest option is often trial and error - force the internal interface to use a lower MTU and adjust it up and down until you find the optimal size. Common sizes to try are 1480, 1460 and 1400 bytes.
You can use System Preferences -> Network -> (interface) -> Advanced to set the MTU away from its default 1500.

Super Slow Performance with Xserve RAID / Promise Fibre

Hey guys,
I am experiencing a strange thing on both 10.5.8 and 10.7.5 servers (yes these are in the process of being retired). They are sharing out either an Xserve RAID or Promise Vtrak with OS X Server.
We have the fibre channel card and the storage attaches to there and they appear mounted on the desktop.
The problem we are having is that whenever OS X's file sharing is enabled these volumes run incredibly slow! I did a clean install of OS X 10.7.5 on an entirely different machine and it was still bad. All of my tests show that when you turn off file sharing, both AFP and SMB, the performance goes back to normal -- so what can we do here??? These are file servers, so that's pretty much the only thing that needs to work.
Thanks,
Andrew

Slow/poor RAID performance can be down to a number of things. Some of which are easier to check than others.
Some easy things to check are:
How much data is stored on the RAIDs?
Performance really drops off alarmingly once the RAID gets to 85% full. For a 1TB RAID this means you need to keep at least 250GB of free disk space at all times otherwise you will get the poor performance you're seeing. Once it gets to 86/87/88% full performance can drop alarmingly. Yes those few percent points can make a big difference.
How is the data stored on the RAIDs?
Having thousands and thousands of single files stored loosely on the RAID or within one single folder is not a good idea. The Finder can be and is fairly inefficient at drawing the icons for those files that are presented to network users accessing the share point(s). This can/and is perceived as very slow performance as you're viewing the files over a network connection. One way to overcome this 'feature' is to organise the data into logical folders/sub-folders and/or shares.
Are there problems with the file/directory structure of the RAIDs themselves?
Use DiskUtility (or better still DiskWarrior) to repair any issues (generally built up over a period of time) with the storage disks you have. You can't repair permissions using DiskUtility or anything else on a non-OS bearing drive. Don't forget to do this also for your System Drive (which can have its permissions repaired) as well. This will mean the server being off-line for a time whilst the system (OS) drive is being repaired. Before doing this step I would make sure you have a current and effective backup of your System/Server OS as well as all data stored on the RAIDs themselves. Hopefully you should be doing this for your data already?
To understand Disk Utility's repair permissions feature please read Apple's support document here:
About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature - Apple Support

Xserve running Server 10.5 rebuilt now DNS resolving very very slow

Hi There,
Have had to rebuild an OSX 10.5 Xserve (2008/9 model)
All seems fine apart from DNS is incredibly slow at resolving addresses.
I'm using a failt simple 1 NIC setup
Server IP 192.168.1.1
S/N 255.255.255.0
DG 192.168.1.254
DNS 192.168.1.1/127.0.0.0 (have tried both)
In the DNS setup on the server manager I have set the forwarder to the router IP (which is as it was prior to the rebuild)
NOw a ping from terminal either doesnt resolve or after about 2/3 minutes it does resolve.
If i change the servers DNS server to the router everything resolves very quickly so I'm pretty sure something is configured incorrectly in the DNS on server manager.
Looking for some hints as to what may be worng.
Thanks

post the content of /etc/named.conf
By default, this versions if bind will do lookups on its own,,, its prefered to pass those lookups to your ISP.
Start with above. I'll return the changes.

Spotlight Too Slow on XServe

Hi all, hopefully somebody has run into a somewhat similar situation and has an answer...
We have a G5 Xserve running 10.4.7, and several client machines running 10.3.9. When looking for files on the Xserve under 10.3.9, we would choose Command-F which would let us select where we wanted to search (local machine or different shares on the XServe). This worked fine, until switching to 10.4.X, where Spotlight was introduced. Now, the searches take forever.
To combat this, I started using PathFinder, which yeilded almost instantaneous results. But alas, progress must be made, and it's time to upgrade everyone else to 10.4.X, and I simply can't afford more licenses for PathFinder.
Is there anything I can do to tweak Spotlight, either on the client machines, or on the XServe itself, to speed up this searching process?
Thanks in advance.

Todd Messenger-
I am confused. That is nothing new. However, selecting Command-F still works the same under 10.4.X. and does not bring up a SpotLight search. The default SpotLight menu keyboard shortcut is Command-space, but that can be changed in spotlight preferences.
Under the privacy tab in the SpotLight preferences panel you can enter things like external hard drives that you do not want searched. I found this alone to speed up the searches.
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

Slow xServe

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