Trials and tribulations of a new Admin.

[nutcase]

A few things, random read/write on any traditional disk array will be that slow, sequential throughput could be fine. You can easily get 1-2MB/s 100% random but still several hundred MB/s sequential r/w.

Defraggler is pretty terrible from what I've seen of it. Turn on scheduled defrag in windows for once a week and worry less about the stats, files will fragment.

Absolutely. But when a different partition on the same array can churn out about 3 times the data you know things can be improved - for no cost.

I've had no issue with defraggler.

 

[Ricimer]

Absolutely. But when a different partition on the same array can churn out about 3 times the data you know things can be improved - for no cost.

I've had no issue with defraggler.

Defraggler likes to move *everything* each time I run it, while the built in tools will leave slightly more files fragmented, they are more conservative during consolidation so usually take much less time.

There will be other things to consider, file locks, antivirus, physical/virtual etc (things like many dynamic vhds expanding by small amounts on the same dive causing fragmentation on the HV side).

I've always found the performance monitor with queue length the best indicator for issues in windows, along with iomonitor being good to check new builds.

Although I desperately miss esxtop when using hyper-v servers :|

 

[nutcase]

One more item to add to the pile (and a very big pile it is) is our P-WAN renewal is coming up. Another company that supplies our IP Phones has said they can reduce our costs significantly (~30%) with no install costs. We currently have 3 sites with fibre, and 4 with EFM.

Turns out they're offering FTTC for all but a couple of sites. When the current setup was being planned, FTTC wasn't considered because because there was no SLA, no guarantees on bandwidth contention or priority.

The telephone supplier are saying they can offer 22hour fix (with backup ADSL as we have currently), and QoS for our traffic as well as traffic type QoS. Our current supplier still only offers FTTC as one step up on a domestic product. Currently we have 4 or 9 hour fix for our primary circuits.

Two sites have the cabinet within spitting distance so we are offered the full 80/20 rate. Which is WAY over our needs (head office has 20mbit and rarely hits it)

Has anyone looked at FTTC as an alternative to traditional leased lines? Are they a viable alternative now? I'm very sceptical as what we have now works very well indeed but that kind of saving is not to be sniffed at. The supplier before the one we have now we had awful latencies etc. and I *really* don't want to go back to those days!

Just found out another reason for them being cheaper - they have only included a backup connection for the main office, not for any of the satellites so the above mention of FTTC with backup ADSL was wrong.

 

[nutcase]

Defraggler likes to move *everything* each time I run it, while the built in tools will leave slightly more files fragmented, they are more conservative during consolidation so usually take much less time.

There will be other things to consider, file locks, antivirus, physical/virtual etc (things like many dynamic vhds expanding by small amounts on the same dive causing fragmentation on the HV side).

I've always found the performance monitor with queue length the best indicator for issues in windows, along with iomonitor being good to check new builds.

Although I desperately miss esxtop when using hyper-v servers :|

Oh I know it will never get down to nothing, and that's fine. The build in defrag tool wasn't touching it at all.

Percent disk time is never below 100, and often up in the high hundreds/low thousands. Queue length for the most part isn't too bad (that's where it being an 8 disk array helps), normally between 1 and 10.

 

[nutcase]

Just found out another reason for them being cheaper - they have only included a backup connection for the main office, not for any of the satellites so the above mention of FTTC with backup ADSL was wrong.

They've got the hint now and are re-speccing so we're not downgrading connections.

Meantime had a phone call today from a different company - "Virgin Media are upgrading firmware on some of their tails are they can't connect to yours". Er that will be because we've not been a client of yours since late 2013. Seriously, how do some companies survive if they hadn't noticed a connection been disconnected for nearly 3 years? Makes me look competent!!

 

[nutcase]

Things are a little quiet at the moment because I'm just getting on with it, but mainly because I'm not allowed to spend any money at the moment

Have had a couple of emails sent to the directors recently singing my praises. One was I suspect trying to placate me as I explained the same thing many times in really easy language and they still didn't get it - "switch user"... Then it finally clicked.

The other one I guess I actually did something right?

Having a bit of trouble though - there's a decorator in doing a couple of rooms and so far they've ripped one network socket out the wall, and connected one end of a patch lead into a wall port, and the other end into another wall port. Fortunately I recently put in protection against that.