🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4c1cqo$4...@ionews.io.org> er...@io.org (Erwin Krisch) writes:

>3.12.  The server is a Pentium 100 MHZ
>with 32 MB of RAM and 4 netcards to 
>distribute the traffic. The system runs
>on a 10 Base 2, bus topology.  We also

>drives. However, we are worried that the
>system might slow down to a snail pace if
>all the stations access Windows 3.1
>applications at the same time. So, which
>one of these three scenarios is the best
>in terms of optimizing speed:

>a.   Increase the RAM of the server to 64 MB;
>b.   increase the number of cards on the
>c.   install Windows 3.1 on each station

1st, make sure these cards used in server are high performance type
- some cards require more time for data transfer between card memory
and computer memory than all remaining processing. 2nd, monitor net
load (e.g. send short packets from one station and measure collision
frequency, if less than 50% have collisions it is OK, when more you
need more cards in server). 3rd, monitor disk cache usage on server
- if you have less than 70% cache hits on disk reads, it is good idea
to buy more memory for server, not necessarily next 32MB, 8 or 16 can
help a lot; 90% is good ratio showing you have enough memory.
4th, WINDOWS use disk (or network) file as virtual memory in case
the computer memory is insufficient; if workstations have little
memory, the file accesses will overload network, and it isn't good
idea to add memory on server instead workstations; I suppose 4MB for
every workstation is reasonable memory size; although they still may
need more, they will access it rarely enough for the server memory
or even disk to be more efficient (in category of money spent) than
putting more memory in workstations; but it depends on what programs
are used and isn't predictable; try put disk in one workstation,
configure WINDOWS to use it for swap file and monitor its accesses
- the access ratio will show if you have enough memory or not.