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I am having an issue where users have started to experience very slow transfer speeds both to and from my Dell server. When I say started, the only thing that has changed is that as of Sunday, we moved a share (about 360 gig) from an older server to the one in question. It is strictly acting as a file server at this point with no actual programs being 'served'. We had no issues with the server before yesterday afternoon and the all servers on the same network (and switch) are working properly.

I have tried to research extensively and have followed many a link that have provided good and useful instruction. But, none of it has worked.

One link I found, http://winntfs.com/2011/10/07/slow-file-copy-or-slow-file-transfer-with-various-windows-versions-2k8-2k8r2-2k3/ is a compilation of all the tcp stack fixes that I have done to attempt to resolve the issue.

Other things we have tried:

  • Disabled all Anti-Virus and the Firewall
  • Updated network drivers on the workstations.
  • Utilized machines and user accounts
  • Mapped the share using several different methods (IP, FQDN, etc)
  • We have moved the cable port for the server into a different port on the same switch and even moved it to a different switch.
  • We have updated o the latest Broadcom NetExtreme drive for the server (16.4.0.2)
  • We have tried to download a file from the internet and experience the same speed issues when copying to that server. There are no errors in the server event log.
  • We have tried a different cable.

Things we have not tried yet:

  • Utilize a new network card if we can find/buy one.

Has anyone else experience and solved this issue?

masegaloeh
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Bob
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  • Is your server running RAID? If so, which? What speeds are the NICs on the server and desktop and switches? – CIA Sep 23 '14 at 22:22
  • I would do a network sniff to see if there is some bad traffic going over the wire. You might see that your NIC is behaving poorly. What is the link speed showing on the server? What about on the switch? What about duplex? Are you using anything 'odd' like jumbo frames etc? – Philosophene Sep 26 '14 at 16:36
  • Old question, but lacking detail. Like how slow is slow? how long is a piece of string. – hookenz Jun 18 '15 at 08:42
  • Have you installed the [enterprise hotfix rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2775511)? "These hotfixes improve the overall performance and system reliability of Windows 7 SP1-based and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1-based computers." – austinian Aug 17 '15 at 16:54

4 Answers4

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Just a few things to glance at, (probably mostly blind alleys, but hey, they're ideas!)

Older windows (2003, xp et al) used an older version of the SMB protocol; you may want to check that your Windows 7 clients are setup to use the newer protocol (Windows 7 supports SMB 2, and Windows 8 supports SMB-3, which is the highest level that 2008 serves). If you are serving applications off the fileshare, this could impact performance if there is some oplock-ing going on (foxpro-like databases, think Quickbooks).

If you mean you physically moved a hard drive from one server to another, try creating a share on a different hard disk and see if performance is better on that drive.

Check the hard disk controller setup. If the old machine had a dedicated RAID controller and the new one does not that is pretty likely to cause trouble. If they are comparable on-board controllers, check that they use similar settings (both AHCI, etc.)

Confirm that the old server was not resolving WINS or DNS for the network, competing response for name lookups cause brutal performance problems. If you have a linux box, using a tool like tcpdump or wireshark can give you a nice packet log that will tell you if you have more than one machine, or no machine, responding to those queries.

Divide and conquer is key: Confirm network performance by sharing between different machines, confirm hard disk performance by copying a lot of files around between two disks on the same system, and so on. Check for OS problems with a Windows 8 box. Check Good luck!

a_sysop_named_jester
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You should try to disable the Microsoft Network Server: Digitally Sign Communications (Always) policy. You will also need to disable the Domain Member: Digitally Encrypt or Sign Secure Channel Data (Always) policy.

See: https://redmondmag.com/articles/2014/05/16/network-performance-problems.aspx

Christoph Wissing
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Harddisk performance also can affect the Copy process. Since the copy process mainly depends on the read and write speed of the source and destination disk kindly check performance of the disk including the bad sectors in disks.

BDRSuite
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  • I should have added that there is no issue copying a file locally onto the server from a USB Flash Drive. – Bob Sep 23 '14 at 21:52
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I have had issues where speeds have dropped suddenly, by a factor of 10. Each time I ended up finding out that it was a cabling problem. 100mbps will run over 4 wires (1&3-2&6), and will be automatically selected as the speed for the connection even if both devices are gigabit capable and the cable between them is failing. Gigabit requires all 8 wires to be in good condition. Check your link speeds on the devices in question, and on any intermediary switches as well. if you find that its the horizontal cabling, you can usually just hit the patch panel with a 110 tool and it will pop back to life.

radiks32
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