View Network File Share Activity on Server Core

Question

I have a Server Core that is being used only as a file server with clients accessing it via UNC paths. I want to "tweak" the backup routines (timings) that our external backup server uses when it connects to this server and monitor the effects of my changes (how much disk activity, any locks, queue times, etc.) and make sure I'm not creating any lag time for clients when they access this file server. I can open up Process Monitor on the server, but when I filter for just file activity, it only shows activity generated by the local machine and doesn't show files that are accessed from a remote server. I was hoping to see a running list of what files are being accessed and the time required to access them, but I can't seem to get this from Process Monitor. What tool(s) can I use to monitor this, given that a server core doesn't have "Server Manager" installed?

Also, as a bonus, what would be the best values to monitor to ensure optimal performance or any possible bottlenecks? FYI, this file server is connected via iSCSI to a DELL MD3000i for all file storage.

Answer 1

Have you looked at WSRM:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755056.aspx

It will only throttle memory and cpu usage though, not disk I/O .

as far as monitoring I/O. I would use perfmon and connect from a remote workstation. You will want to monitor the following Logical disk counters as a start:

to determine disk activity(IOPS):

Disk Reads/sec Disk Transfers/sec (Total read + writes) Disk Writes/sec

to determine disk latency(How long does it take each IOP to complete):

Avg. Disk sec/Read Avg. Disk sec/Transfer Avg. Disk sec/Write

You will want to factor in how many IOPS your storage subsystem should support based on the RAID level, number of disks and disk specifications. This should give you an idea of how taxed your I/O sub system is.

Hope this helps