[WinMac] NT/SFM CPU Load


David A. Holter(holter[at]bethel.edu)
Wed, 04 Nov 1998 15:08:24 -0600


Has anyone had any experience with the "System" process running close to 100%
during peak activity on an NT 4.0 SP3 server? We have a single processor,
Dell Pentium II 300 MHz system doing the file sharing for our PC labs and
our residential computing users. Using Performance Monitor, the CPU load
seems to be closely related to the number of File Control Operations being
performed. The problem typically starts when there are 60-65 Mac users
connected and 10-15 Win95 users connected. Once File Control Operations
reach a steady 6k to 7k per second, the "Total Processor Time" remains pretty
close to 100% (nearly all of which is attributable to the "System" process).
The student's files are on a 9GB Ultra2Wide SCSI HD/Adapter. The disk
performance seems to be keeping up fairly well (18-20% utilisation average
for R/W activity). Our Mac users average 10-15 open files per user, and
our Win95 users typically have 2-3 files open per user. The File Control
Operations per second figure seems very high to me, but I have had little
experience with an NT server being used for a lab with this many active Mac
users connected. Our Mac users have their Netscape prefs stored in their
home folder on the server and I suspect this is where the large number of
open files per Mac user is coming from. As soon as our lab closes at 11pm,
the server load drops down to much more acceptable levels. I have searched
TechNet for information on the role of the File Control Operations with
little success.
Any help/information would be greatly appreciated!

Dave Holter

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Wed Nov 04 1998 - 13:10:38 PST