Well, it could be maxed out. This is not that powerful of a server. The dual
processors do practically nothing for what you are doing. Applications
typically use dual processing but the system doing regular file sharing
etc., is not going to utilize the processors as much as SQL or Exchange
would. How big are the roaming profiles in general? Typically profiles get
big quick and if there are 300 hundred teachers trying to log in or save
things that will tax the server. Also if there is virus scanning going on
while profiles are being loaded this could slow things down tremendously.
Sounds like you need to offload some of this stuff to another server. Is
this also a Domain Controller? More RAM may help but you should be able to
see the RAM utilization in Task Manager. How many drives in the RAID5? How
fast are these drives? This all adds up to the speed of the machine. Is
there enough space left on the system partition? Have you moved the pagefile
to a different drive than the system(winnt folder) partition? Also you could
use performance monitor to see if there is excessive paging to the disk and
many other options to see where the bottleneck is.
--
Scott Harding
MCSE, MCSA, A+, Network+
Microsoft MVP - Windows NT Server

scrockel@***No_SPAM***hotmail.com
"Terry" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:076d01c3aa00$3fbb3060$(E-Mail Removed)...
> The school I'm working with is experiencing the following
> problem. Three identical servers, all with nearly the same
> number of processes, packets, etc. The one server that
> houses the user roaming profiles(300 teachers), mapped
> data drive for each user(up to 800), and mapped "public"
> folder(again up to 800), runs maxed out nearly all the
> time (70-99% constantly). Nearly all of the resources are
> being consumed by the "SYSTEM" process. Almost nothing
> else runs on this server. Network sniffing says ethernet
> usage only ~10%. Is this too much too ask from a dual PII
> 450's, 1GB Ram, raid 5 server? (I can't believe it is)
> Thanks for any advice!
> Terry
>

Thanks for the advice. We are running Norton AV Corp, I
don't think we can disable that for obvios reasons (unless
you have other ideas). I think we'll move the public
mapped drive to another server. That should be easy enough
to change in the login script. The profiles would be much
harder to change in active directory (and they have to
reside somewhere I suppose). The mapped data drive could
be moved, do you know of any scripts that might aid us in
changing the mapped drive path in active directory?
Thanks again
Terry

>-----Original Message-----
>Well, it could be maxed out. This is not that powerful of
a server. The dual
>processors do practically nothing for what you are doing.
Applications
>typically use dual processing but the system doing
regular file sharing
>etc., is not going to utilize the processors as much as
SQL or Exchange
>would. How big are the roaming profiles in general?
Typically profiles get
>big quick and if there are 300 hundred teachers trying to
log in or save
>things that will tax the server. Also if there is virus
scanning going on
>while profiles are being loaded this could slow things
down tremendously.
>Sounds like you need to offload some of this stuff to
another server. Is
>this also a Domain Controller? More RAM may help but you
should be able to
>see the RAM utilization in Task Manager. How many drives
in the RAID5? How
>fast are these drives? This all adds up to the speed of
the machine. Is
>there enough space left on the system partition? Have you
moved the pagefile
>to a different drive than the system(winnt folder)
partition? Also you could
>use performance monitor to see if there is excessive
paging to the disk and
>many other options to see where the bottleneck is.
>--
>Scott Harding
>MCSE, MCSA, A+, Network+
>Microsoft MVP - Windows NT Server
>
>scrockel@***No_SPAM***hotmail.com
>"Terry" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message
>news:076d01c3aa00$3fbb3060$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> The school I'm working with is experiencing the
following
>> problem. Three identical servers, all with nearly the
same
>> number of processes, packets, etc. The one server that
>> houses the user roaming profiles(300 teachers), mapped
>> data drive for each user(up to 800), and mapped "public"
>> folder(again up to 800), runs maxed out nearly all the
>> time (70-99% constantly). Nearly all of the resources
are
>> being consumed by the "SYSTEM" process. Almost nothing
>> else runs on this server. Network sniffing says ethernet
>> usage only ~10%. Is this too much too ask from a dual
PII
>> 450's, 1GB Ram, raid 5 server? (I can't believe it is)
>> Thanks for any advice!
>> Terry
>>
>
>
>.
>

Well if you are using a login script can't you just change the UNC path
there?? That's the beauty of scripts is one change populates the entire user
base. You may want to 'tune' Norton to only scan incoming data and not
outgoing, I know you can do this with McAfee but not sure about Norton.
There are many tools at Sysinternals.com and doing a search at Google turned
up many sites for scripting help.

--
Scott Harding
MCSE, MCSA, A+, Network+
Microsoft MVP - Windows NT Server

scrockel@***No_SPAM***hotmail.com
"Terry" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:09d201c3aab8$47634ba0$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Thanks for the advice. We are running Norton AV Corp, I
> don't think we can disable that for obvios reasons (unless
> you have other ideas). I think we'll move the public
> mapped drive to another server. That should be easy enough
> to change in the login script. The profiles would be much
> harder to change in active directory (and they have to
> reside somewhere I suppose). The mapped data drive could
> be moved, do you know of any scripts that might aid us in
> changing the mapped drive path in active directory?
> Thanks again
> Terry
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >Well, it could be maxed out. This is not that powerful of
> a server. The dual
> >processors do practically nothing for what you are doing.
> Applications
> >typically use dual processing but the system doing
> regular file sharing
> >etc., is not going to utilize the processors as much as
> SQL or Exchange
> >would. How big are the roaming profiles in general?
> Typically profiles get
> >big quick and if there are 300 hundred teachers trying to
> log in or save
> >things that will tax the server. Also if there is virus
> scanning going on
> >while profiles are being loaded this could slow things
> down tremendously.
> >Sounds like you need to offload some of this stuff to
> another server. Is
> >this also a Domain Controller? More RAM may help but you
> should be able to
> >see the RAM utilization in Task Manager. How many drives
> in the RAID5? How
> >fast are these drives? This all adds up to the speed of
> the machine. Is
> >there enough space left on the system partition? Have you
> moved the pagefile
> >to a different drive than the system(winnt folder)
> partition? Also you could
> >use performance monitor to see if there is excessive
> paging to the disk and
> >many other options to see where the bottleneck is.
> >--
> >Scott Harding
> >MCSE, MCSA, A+, Network+
> >Microsoft MVP - Windows NT Server
> >
> >scrockel@***No_SPAM***hotmail.com
> >"Terry" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> message
> >news:076d01c3aa00$3fbb3060$(E-Mail Removed)...
> >> The school I'm working with is experiencing the
> following
> >> problem. Three identical servers, all with nearly the
> same
> >> number of processes, packets, etc. The one server that
> >> houses the user roaming profiles(300 teachers), mapped
> >> data drive for each user(up to 800), and mapped "public"
> >> folder(again up to 800), runs maxed out nearly all the
> >> time (70-99% constantly). Nearly all of the resources
> are
> >> being consumed by the "SYSTEM" process. Almost nothing
> >> else runs on this server. Network sniffing says ethernet
> >> usage only ~10%. Is this too much too ask from a dual
> PII
> >> 450's, 1GB Ram, raid 5 server? (I can't believe it is)
> >> Thanks for any advice!
> >> Terry
> >>
> >
> >
> >.
> >

Thanks yet again Scott!
I actually was trying to think of a way to move the entire
mapped public folder to another server, without losing its
security settings. What happened in testing was that the
copied data folder inherited the rights of the folder
they're copied in to (as they should, I suppose). Any
tricks out there to keep the original rights intact?
Terry


>-----Original Message-----
>Well if you are using a login script can't you just
change the UNC path
>there?? That's the beauty of scripts is one change
populates the entire user
>base. You may want to 'tune' Norton to only scan incoming
data and not
>outgoing, I know you can do this with McAfee but not sure
about Norton.
>There are many tools at Sysinternals.com and doing a
search at Google turned
>up many sites for scripting help.
>
>--
>Scott Harding
>MCSE, MCSA, A+, Network+
>Microsoft MVP - Windows NT Server
>
>scrockel@***No_SPAM***hotmail.com
>"Terry" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message
>news:09d201c3aab8$47634ba0$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Thanks for the advice. We are running Norton AV Corp, I
>> don't think we can disable that for obvios reasons
(unless
>> you have other ideas). I think we'll move the public
>> mapped drive to another server. That should be easy
enough
>> to change in the login script. The profiles would be
much
>> harder to change in active directory (and they have to
>> reside somewhere I suppose). The mapped data drive could
>> be moved, do you know of any scripts that might aid us
in
>> changing the mapped drive path in active directory?
>> Thanks again
>> Terry
>>
>> >-----Original Message-----
>> >Well, it could be maxed out. This is not that powerful
of
>> a server. The dual
>> >processors do practically nothing for what you are
doing.
>> Applications
>> >typically use dual processing but the system doing
>> regular file sharing
>> >etc., is not going to utilize the processors as much as
>> SQL or Exchange
>> >would. How big are the roaming profiles in general?
>> Typically profiles get
>> >big quick and if there are 300 hundred teachers trying
to
>> log in or save
>> >things that will tax the server. Also if there is virus
>> scanning going on
>> >while profiles are being loaded this could slow things
>> down tremendously.
>> >Sounds like you need to offload some of this stuff to
>> another server. Is
>> >this also a Domain Controller? More RAM may help but
you
>> should be able to
>> >see the RAM utilization in Task Manager. How many
drives
>> in the RAID5? How
>> >fast are these drives? This all adds up to the speed of
>> the machine. Is
>> >there enough space left on the system partition? Have
you
>> moved the pagefile
>> >to a different drive than the system(winnt folder)
>> partition? Also you could
>> >use performance monitor to see if there is excessive
>> paging to the disk and
>> >many other options to see where the bottleneck is.
>> >--
>> >Scott Harding
>> >MCSE, MCSA, A+, Network+
>> >Microsoft MVP - Windows NT Server
>> >
>> >scrockel@***No_SPAM***hotmail.com
>> >"Terry" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
>> message
>> >news:076d01c3aa00$3fbb3060$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> >> The school I'm working with is experiencing the
>> following
>> >> problem. Three identical servers, all with nearly the
>> same
>> >> number of processes, packets, etc. The one server
that
>> >> houses the user roaming profiles(300 teachers),
mapped
>> >> data drive for each user(up to 800), and
mapped "public"
>> >> folder(again up to 800), runs maxed out nearly all
the
>> >> time (70-99% constantly). Nearly all of the resources
>> are
>> >> being consumed by the "SYSTEM" process. Almost
nothing
>> >> else runs on this server. Network sniffing says
ethernet
>> >> usage only ~10%. Is this too much too ask from a dual
>> PII
>> >> 450's, 1GB Ram, raid 5 server? (I can't believe it
is)
>> >> Thanks for any advice!
>> >> Terry
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >.
>> >
>
>
>.
>