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RMS25CB080 on R1208gz4gcsas - slow disk access

CNecu
Beginner
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Hello

We have an Intel Server (as mentioned in title) with the following config:

16 GB RAM

1 CPU Intel Xeon E5-2630

4 x Hitachi HUC109090CSS600 in RAID 6, with two partitions: C (300GB) and D (1.34TB)

APC Smart-UPS 2200

Windows Server 2012 Standard

In Intel Raid Web Console, the setup is as follows:

- Disk Cache Policy: Unchanged

- Read Policy: Always Read Ahead

- IO Policy: Direct IO

- Write Policy: Write Back (with default policy - Always Write Back, as we did not purchase a BBU yet)

For a week since we installed this server, everything went smoothly. Yesterday evening the Event Viewer logged the following events (in order of appearance):

- 12 x The speed of processor 0 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 71 seconds since the last report. = 1 warning for each logical CPU

- 3 x While transmitting or receiving data, the server encountered a network error. Occasional errors are expected, but large amounts of these indicate a possible error in your network configuration. The error status code is contained within the returned data (formatted as Words) and may point you towards the problem. - which I assume is from a short power failure that happened around that time - we have some switches in other locations, not backed up by UPSes.

Since then, the disk access became slower than a normal SATA disk, and all activity is just sluggish. Even launching the Event Viewer takes a lot of time. I've seen this performance before switching from Write Thru to Write Back.

I've rarely seen the CPU going above 20% and the memory has a constant rate of 36% usage.

Copying a 4GB iso from D to C:

Also, two benchmarks made, one last week and one now. You can guess wich is which

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CNecu
Beginner
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Allow me to answer myself.

I waited until everybody went home, restarted the server to check RAID console bios. And the weird thing is, although RAID Web Console was reporting Write Back w/ Always Write Back, in RAID Bios it was Write Thru.

So, I assume it's a RAID Web Console bug.

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