I have a Windows NT4 NTFS4 file-system with approx 1 million files. I'm getting extremely poor performance from the file system - for example when backing the server up I get a throughput of 12 kb/sec. Is there any way of improving the file-systems performance?
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NTFS performance issue
- Thread starter glparker
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How are the million files ordered? If they're all in one folder then that could be the cause.
A FCB (File Control Block) is written for every folder and file that records the location of every cluster used. Large files use more FCBs because there are more locations to track. Same goes for Folders. The more files mean more FCBs. The performance issue arises because whenever the file system goes looking for a particular file, it has to search through all the FCBs for the folder in order to find the pointer to the actual file's FCBs. At least that's how it worked in FAT32, things may have been optimized or changed with NTFS.
Depending on the backup process, you may also be running out of physical memory causing a lot of virtual memory disk thrashing.
A FCB (File Control Block) is written for every folder and file that records the location of every cluster used. Large files use more FCBs because there are more locations to track. Same goes for Folders. The more files mean more FCBs. The performance issue arises because whenever the file system goes looking for a particular file, it has to search through all the FCBs for the folder in order to find the pointer to the actual file's FCBs. At least that's how it worked in FAT32, things may have been optimized or changed with NTFS.
Depending on the backup process, you may also be running out of physical memory causing a lot of virtual memory disk thrashing.
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