[AccessD] [dba-VB] [dba-SQLServer] HELP, server completely unresponsive

Drew Wutka DWUTKA at Marlow.com
Mon Sep 28 15:06:10 CDT 2009


Ok, I had to do a little hunting, to find your system configuration.

You have 2 Windows 2003 x64 servers.  Both with a quad core processor,
16 gigs of RAM and a RAID 6.

Ok, don't take this as the word of God or anything, but there are a few
issues that are probably hitting you:

#1.  A quad core processor is not the same as having 4 actual
processors.  It's similar.  You just have 4 cores.  The biggest
difference is that with a quadcore (or duocore) system, all of the
'processors/cores' are using the same architecture/busses to communicate
with everything else.  So if you have three cores cranking away, not
specifically with calculating on their own, but in running things
through the busses, then that fourth core may be 'available', but the
line is going to be busy trying to get to it.  Does that make sense?
Plus, drive operations usually take a very high priority when it comes
to interrupt requests, that is why almost any machine, when it's
processor is tied up with drive operations, is going to appeared locked.

#2.  RAID 6.  Let's face it, the absolute best method for performance
AND reliability is a RAID 10 (or a RAID 0 +1).  That's a striped set
that is mirrored.  You get DOUBLE the reading spead of the already
doubled striped set (cause it can read data from all four drives (in a 2
drive striped (and then 2 mirror drives) config)) at the same time.  And
you get the normal double write speed.  But RAID 10 is the most
expensive to implement, however, with the cost of today's drives, that
really should not be used as a factor in decision making here, unless
you are going with ultra huge and ultra expensive drives!  RAID 5 is the
cheap way to get redundancy, and RAID 6 is a little more 'expensive' to
get double failure capability in a RAID set.  DROP THE RAID 6, and go
with a STRIPED MIRROR!

#3.  This is just guessing, but you probably also have your OS on a
partition on the same RAID.  For a desktop, having a good RAID 10, it's
gonna be fun trying to get 6 disks in there (4 for the striped mirror
data RAID, and 2 for a plain mirrored OS drive).  But if your OS is on
the same RAID set as your data, you are going to be getting a
performance hit.

So, what I would recommend is one of two things:

Solution #1.  Upgrade your machines.  Put in 2 separate (duo or quad
core) processors.  Mirror two drives for the OS, and then 4 more drives
for your data RAID 10.

Solution #2.  Upgrade to Windows 2008, and use it without the GUI (2008
can be setup where it's just a command line interface, and thus it
strips all the regular Window's overhead out of the mix....) and then
access it strictly through the network from another computer (using
Enterprise manager).

Drew

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 1:00 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] [dba-VB] [dba-SQLServer] HELP,server completely
unresponsive

I hear ya.

My problem with all of this is that Windows should handle this
gracefully.  I am not an OS kinda guy 
but logically there is just no way that SQL Server tying up the disk
drives (I/O)should freeze up 
the screen redraw.  I have limited SQL Server to 3/4ths of the memory
(12 gb) and three processors.

The remaining processor and 4 gigs of ram should be capable of running
pretty much anything.  It is 
after all now a single core machine with 4 gigs of ram.  Why in the
world can't it handle moving the 
mouse cursor?  This is Windows 2003 for goodness sakes, not Windows 95,
AND this is the year 2009, 
not 1995.  A quad core 3ghz machine with 16 gigs of ram should NEVER
lock up.  EVER!

And I as a user should not be hunting down why this is happening.

BTW did you see the notice that XP will not receive any more service
packs and NEITHER WILL WINDOWS 
2003.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com


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