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Testing Relay hardware throughput with DBWriteTest

 

Applies to: Groove Server 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2010-02-16

This procedure describes how to use the DBWriteTest utility, available on the Microsoft Groove Server 2010 Relay installation media, to test the server hardware to determine whether it can support typical Relay throughput. This utility also lets you confirm that existing volumes meet Groove Server Relay requirements. By running a piece of Relay server code, this utility measures the performance of 20,000 Relay data transactions on a specific drive. It is not intended for general disk performance checks. You can use the utility on any installed Groove Relay server, provided that Groove Server Relay is not currently running. Review the detailed hardware requirements list in System requirements for Groove Server 2010.

Note

The caching hardware controller must support a throughput rate of 1,800,000 bytes/ second, as verified by DBWritetest.

Note

All Volumes, Database/Log, and Queue Store directories must be uncompressed, with a cluster size of 4,096 bytes (typical default). Volumes must be formatted as NTFS (network volumes are not supported.) Verify volume setup with Relay server’s DBWritetest utility.

These procedures require that Groove Server Manager is installed as described in Install and configure Groove Server 2010 Manager.

To run the DBWriteTest utility

  1. Copy the DBWriteTest.exe file from the root directory of the Groove Server Relay installation media onto the Groove Relay queue store drive and directory (typically, the FFQ directory).

Note

Groove Server Relay must be shut down or not yet installed.

  1. Go to the directory where the DBWriteTest file was copied, open a Windows command Administrator prompt, and enter: dbwritetest.

    Output similar to the following example should appear (typically after 2 minutes or more):

    D: \relay\>DBWriteTest.exe
GrooveDBWrite test Version 1.1
Doing 20000 operations of 1000 bytes each to GrooveDBWriteTest
99% free disk space, cluster size=4096
Finished 20000 operations 1 to 20000 of size 1000, elapsed time 4.565415 sec,
80.76 operations/sec, 4380762.76 bytes/sec

  2. Make sure that the volume cluster size is 4,096 bytes.

  3. Note the resulting throughput value (in the last line of the output). This value should be greater than 1,800,000 bytes/second.

  4. Repeat this test two more times and ensure that the resulting throughput values are not below 1,800,000 bytes/second. If numbers fall below this recommended value, contact a Microsoft Support representative to determine how best to adjust your hardware to support desired usage.

  5. If the RQS volume is different than the FFQ volume, repeat the previous steps for the RQS database drive directory.