Server slow

Khushav · November 6, 2023

Budget (including currency): $750-800 or ₹60000 - 70000

Country: India

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: A server to store tally data (an accounting software)

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): i currently have multiple pc with an i5 4gen processor( 4gb ram, no gpu, 250gb wd sata ssd)and a server pc with i3 5gen processor(8gb ram,no gpu, 1tb hdd) of which the software is running. In the initial stage everything was running smoothly but as the data increased the software got slower and slower, i did install 1gbps lan card it did create a difference but its still pretty slow. Now I don’t know if i should invest in making a server or the main pc better.

Eigenvektor · November 6, 2023

Is the server connected locally, or is there an internet connection in between? How much data does it need to store per day, on average? And it sounds like the server does more than just store the data. What type of work does it have to do, what does average CPU usage look like? If there's nothing else to do other than storage and maybe caching, my guess would be you primarily need a fast storage device, equally fast network and more RAM.

Khushav · November 6, 2023

3 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Is the server connected locally, or is there an internet connection in between? How much data does it need to store per day, on average? And it sounds like the server does more than just store the data. What type of work does it have to do, what does average CPU usage look like? If there's nothing else to do other than storage and maybe caching, my guess would be you primarily need a fast storage device, equally fast network and more RAM.

The data is not gigantic but small within some gb’s all we do is accounting. On an average account entry's are done on a daily bases. The working is like the main pc has all the data and other pcs are connect together using network LAN which is 1gbps in speed. When the software runs the entry takes much longer time and keeps on loading. The software name is tally prime. The data altogether is around 10-15 gbs.

mariushm · November 6, 2023

Add more ram. 8 GB is low for a server in 2023.

Then add a SSD to the server (it can be sata, use MLC or TLC, not QLC drives), move the database on the SSD and schedule daily backups of the database to the hard drive, just in case the SSD craps out on your at some point in the future.

The software is probably using a database, could be some free version of MS SQL, could be MySQL/MariaDB, or could even be SQLite... figure it out what it uses.

It may be configured by default for low amount of memory, to not cache tables in ram where possible, maybe right now it slows down because each time you run some query the drive has to seek and retrieve random bits of information from 10-15 GB of content on a hard drive. You could increase ram and then see if you can configure the database server to use more ram to reduce disk usage.

You could actually look in Task Manager (if the server uses Windows) to see how loaded the hard drive is when that software runs slow, and also how much memory is used by the database server and the software, that could give you an idea whether you should invest in a SSD upgrade or RAM upgrade first.

Defragmenting the hard drive wouldn't hurt in the meantime.

edit: if you do get a SSD, get 500 GB or more, even though the whole data amount is only 10-15 GB. Smaller SSDs will have slower performance, hiccups, won't work well .... think of it like how the computer can use 2 memory sticks in parallel to improve performance by reading and writing on two sticks at same time, just the same a SSD controller can read and write in parallel on up to 4-8 layers of memory inside a flash memory chip that holds data in the SSD. Nowadays, SSDs that are 250 GB or lower will usually be made with partially faulty chips, which have some of those layers completely disabled so the SSD controller will have maybe 1 or 2 layers to work with in parallel instead of 4-8 to work with, so the performance suffers.

Eigenvektor · November 6, 2023

1 hour ago, Khushav said:

The software name is tally prime. The data altogether is around 10-15 gbs.

I have no experience with this software, so I can't make any recommendation based on that.

My general advice would be to look at how the current hardware is used. How high is the average CPU usage? How much RAM is being used, what's the average throughput of the disk and network card?

Answering these questions will help you determine which component(s) are the limiting factor and most in need of an upgrade.

Khushav · November 6, 2023

11 hours ago, mariushm said:

Add more ram. 8 GB is low for a server in 2023.

Then add a SSD to the server (it can be sata, use MLC or TLC, not QLC drives), move the database on the SSD and schedule daily backups of the database to the hard drive, just in case the SSD craps out on your at some point in the future.

The software is probably using a database, could be some free version of MS SQL, could be MySQL/MariaDB, or could even be SQLite... figure it out what it uses.

It may be configured by default for low amount of memory, to not cache tables in ram where possible, maybe right now it slows down because each time you run some query the drive has to seek and retrieve random bits of information from 10-15 GB of content on a hard drive. You could increase ram and then see if you can configure the database server to use more ram to reduce disk usage.

You could actually look in Task Manager (if the server uses Windows) to see how loaded the hard drive is when that software runs slow, and also how much memory is used by the database server and the software, that could give you an idea whether you should invest in a SSD upgrade or RAM upgrade first.

Defragmenting the hard drive wouldn't hurt in the meantime.

edit: if you do get a SSD, get 500 GB or more, even though the whole data amount is only 10-15 GB. Smaller SSDs will have slower performance, hiccups, won't work well .... think of it like how the computer can use 2 memory sticks in parallel to improve performance by reading and writing on two sticks at same time, just the same a SSD controller can read and write in parallel on up to 4-8 layers of memory inside a flash memory chip that holds data in the SSD. Nowadays, SSDs that are 250 GB or lower will usually be made with partially faulty chips, which have some of those layers completely disabled so the SSD controller will have maybe 1 or 2 layers to work with in parallel instead of 4-8 to work with, so the performance suffers.