WHS CPU Maxed - Cuts Off File Sharing

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Lipex666

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#313832 1-Apr-2010 12:40

yeah searchindex.exe was part of SP 3 i also uninstalled and now tell mes theres a update so I put it back again.

see https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/feedback/details/518387/searchindexer-exe-taking-up-a-lot-more-memory-than-it-used-to-prior-to-pp3

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allan

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#313858 1-Apr-2010 13:32

Extremely unlikely that this would be your issue, but just in case!!

I had a problem where any WHS background processes (backups, moving files into duplicate storage, the Sunday morning backup database reorganisation etc) would absolutely kill my CPU - backups were taking 5 times longer than normal etc. Things like the demigrator process would hog the CPU for hours on end. In my case though, file shares were still fine.

Turned out that my server had lost its BIOS settings for one of my drives, even although WHS could still see it at the OS level, even with rebooting. Once I reset the BIOS details, all magically came right.

gehenna

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#313862 1-Apr-2010 13:36

Just to clarify, the server isn't doing anything but file sharing and duplication. I don't have any Windows machines in the apartment so there's no backing up or anything like that. Just straight folder shares being accessed from a number of Mac computers.

I think a SQL Express is on there from some testing I was doing some time ago, I might get rid of that too.

Incidentally, if I decided that I wanted to reinstall the WHS OS, would my data drives remain intact and duplicated?

freitasm

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#313869 1-Apr-2010 13:42

gehenna: Just to clarify, the server isn't doing anything but file sharing and duplication. I don't have any Windows machines in the apartment so there's no backing up or anything like that. Just straight folder shares being accessed from a number of Mac computers.

I think a SQL Express is on there from some testing I was doing some time ago, I might get rid of that too.

Incidentally, if I decided that I wanted to reinstall the WHS OS, would my data drives remain intact and duplicated?

Just insert the original DVD, start installation and when asked do a RESTORE INSTALL (or something that sounds like that). It will automatically rebuild the folders for you, but you will have to recreate users and assign rights, that's all.

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CapBBeard

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#313902 1-Apr-2010 14:40

This could be a silly suggestion but I had a quick read and didn't see it mentioned specifically, but have you checked the 'Show processes from all users' checkbox in task manager?

If not, this will possibly explain why you cannot see the process chewing up your CPU!

In saying this, I'm not 100% sure if this is applicable to WHS as I've not used it personally. But just a suggestion :)

gehenna

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#313906 1-Apr-2010 14:42

CapBBeard: This could be a silly suggestion but I had a quick read and didn't see it mentioned specifically, but have you checked the 'Show processes from all users' checkbox in task manager?

If not, this will possibly explain why you cannot see the process chewing up your CPU!

In saying this, I'm not 100% sure if this is applicable to WHS as I've not used it personally. But just a suggestion :)

This has been mentioned, and my response is I'll be checking the next time it happens.

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CapBBeard

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#313911 1-Apr-2010 14:46

Ah there it is right there on the second page! My apologies to you and Nety :)

Ragnor

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#314051 1-Apr-2010 22:21

Sysinternals Process Monitor may give you more information than the standard windows task manager

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

gehenna

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#314396 3-Apr-2010 15:32

Ok, seems like System Idle Process is 99% CPU when this happens, but only a few kb of memory. That's what the windows Task Manager says, trying to load up Process Explorer now

EDIT: And here's what Process Explorer says:

freitasm

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#314397 3-Apr-2010 15:36

It still sounds to me like IO contention caused by demigrator...

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#314398 3-Apr-2010 15:37

freitasm: It still sounds to me like IO contention caused by demigrator...

Parlez-vous anglais?

EDIT: So after a quick google, the demigrator service is responsible for the organisation of files, moving stuff around and duplicating properly, etc.

I wonder if this could be because my storage is down to about 80GB so it's having to work harder to distribute files across the drives properly. I really need to chuck another hard disk in there but haven't had the time to do it. I don't recall this being a problem in the early days of the server while i still had hundreds of gigs free, but it does seem to have gotten worse over time.

I think i'll chuck another disk in there soon, it needs it anyway, and see if this helps.

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gehenna

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#320485 19-Apr-2010 22:57

Just a quick update in case anyone is reading through this with similar problems in the future. I'm certain that Mauricio was right and that the demigrator service was the cause. The problem being that almost all drives were at maximum storage capacity, with one drive left over that had a fair amount of space on it (around 100GB). Every time I copied something to the server it had to work overtime to move stuff around to fit it all properly so that there was a definite duplicated copy of each file.

I've since had to turn off replication until I can get hold of a new drive, so hopefully nothing drastic happens to the server in the next couple of weeks. That said, the content is mostly backed up elsewhere anyway so no biggie.

Thanks for all the responses, I didn't expect this to get as much exposure as it did!

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