Windows 2000 Server Performance Degradation

Greetings From a First Time Poster,

I have a Windows 2000 Server running SP3 that I use strictly for file serving for a small 5-node network. The server started acting up a few months ago. Files that used to take a second or two to copy from one directory to another now take 20-30 seconds. To copy 100MB from one drive to another I am receiving an estimated time of 40+ minutes!

The network runs 100BaseT. When I copy the files from the server to one of the nodes (which are all XP Pro SP2), the copy is almost instantaneous.

This server has been in use for five years and has a lot of files on it. It has three physical hard drives that are partitioned into six logical drives.
At first I figured it was a case of extreme file fragmentation. I purchased Executive Software DiskKeeper Server Edition and defragged the drives. I still have the performance problems.

Next I thought the drives were too full. So I moved data around and off the server to free up space. Following are the current stats on the logical partitions:

Logical Partitions
G: 4.4 GB capacity with 41% free
L: 18.2 GB capacity with 53% free
O: 9.6 GB capacity with 22% free
P: 36.4 GB capacity with 42% free

My server's C drive has a 4 GB capacity and is 40% free. All drives are NTFS.

Another thought is that over the years we have probably aborted hundreds of copy actions on large mult-MB files. Is it possible that even though the drive says it has 20% free, that I have a good chunk of the space tied up in lost clusters? I have used Gale Force's ShredXP to shred the free space on the drives, thinking this might help.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I saw one post that suggested upgrading from SP1 to SP2 helped this on a workstation. Would SP4 help this on a server?

 

Yes is a good think trying to instal sp4 on the server.
What chnages have you made since that happens?
New software?
New Hardware?
Do you have anti virus?
Do you have Backup?

 

Thank you Windux,

I do not run any applications on the server itself, except for system utilities and backup. I backup my server regularly to tape and to disk. The server itself does not have direct internet access.

The desktop clients (that have MS Outlook email accounts) all have up to date AV software (Fprot), use Zone Alarm, SpyBot S&D and AdAware.

Would it help if I moved all my files to a separate drive, wiped the partition clean, then copied them back?

 

If you can do that no problem but i do not think it is gonna work.


Did you try to copy from one client to other client to check the performance!
The client to server and server to client?

Defrag and scnadisk would help as well!

 

If I try to copy a file from a client to the server, it is somewhat slow (I would say 70% of normal speed). If I copy from the server to a client, it runs at 100% speed. If I copy from the server to the server, it runs at about 10-15% of the normal speed.

I plan to upgrade to SP4. Should I do the defrag and scandisk before or after the upgrade?
Also, how exactly do I do a scandisk. Is it on the physical drives or for each logical partition? Can I open up a command prompt and say, for the G drive do the following:

g:\scandsk

Finally, is scandisk the same as chkdisk?

Thank you again for all your time and suggestions. They are really appreciated!

 

First install SP4.
Do a Disk Clean UP (System Disk)
Defrag All the partitions
Scan all partitions.

chkdsk - Creates and displays a status report for a disk based on the file system. Chkdsk also lists and corrects errors on the disk. Used without parameters, chkdsk displays the status of the disk in the current drive.

here

Scandisk/Disk Defragmenter - Maintaining disk performance by defragmenting volumes that use the FAT, the FAT32, or the NTFS file system, fix disk errors and check bad sectors.

here

I think you need a system maintenace