User Guide
26 NetWare Server Disks and Storage Devices Administration Guide
NetWare Server Disks and Storage Devices Administration Guide
103-000179-001
August 30, 2001
Novell Confidential
Manual 99a38 July 17, 2001
Improving Disk Writes
For a write-intensive server, the following procedures can improve the speed
of disk writes.
“Increasing the Number of Concurrent Writes” on page 26.
“Changing Disk and Directory Caching for Faster Writes” on page 27.
“Turning Off Read-After-Write Verification” on page 28.
Increasing the Number of Concurrent Writes
You can increase the speed and efficiency of disk cache writes by increasing
the number of write requests that can be executed at one time.
To determine whether you need to increase the number of concurrent writes,
first compare the number of dirty cache buffers to the total number of cache
buffers. These statistics are found on the General Information screen in
MONITOR. Dirty cache buffers contain data that has not yet been written to
disk.
The ratio of dirty cache buffers to total cache buffers is an indicator of the
efficiency of disk cache writes. If the number of dirty cache buffers is greater
than 70 % of total cache buffers, increase the number of concurrent write
requests.
For an explanation of file caching, see Setting the Cache Buffers in the Novell
Storage Services Administration Guide.
NOTE: Increasing the number of concurrent disk cache writes slows disk cache
reads. You might want to balance the speed of disk writes and reads to meet the
needs of users. If your server's processing load is write-intensive, you can favor
disk writes. If it is read-intensive, favor disk reads.
1 From the MONITOR Available Options, select Server Parameters > File
Caching. For instructions on using MONITOR, see MONITOR in
Utilities Reference.
NOTE: You can also set file caching parameters with the SET command in
MONITOR.
2 Increase the value of Maximum Concurrent Disk Cache Writes.
If the parameter is currently at the default value of 50, try increasing it to
100. The changed value is now persistent.
3 Press Esc until you return to Available Options.