Extremely slow moving Mailboxes from E2K to Exchange 2007
I am doing this in a test environment. I tried to move 100 mailboxes from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2007. It does about 1200 messages/minute. It took 12 hours to move a 2GB mailbox over.
I kept the testing system running for 2 straight days to move all of them over.
Is this normal?
I kept the testing system running for 2 straight days to move all of them over.
Is this normal?
ASKER
Both machines have their own hard drives and neither machine is running 100% CPU.
Are you actioning the move from one of the servers, or are you doing it from a client ?
ASKER
From the 2007 server.
ASKER
I just upgraded my Exchange 2007 to SP2, now the mailbox moving speed drops down to 40/minute. That is insane!!!
"Both machines have their own hard drives and neither machine is running 100% CPU. "
That doesn't really answer the point I was making.
CPU means nothing with Exchange. Exchange is not CPU heavy. It is storage heavy.
If you have everything on a single array, such as a RAID 5 then I would expect it be slow, because the drive is being thrashed.
Simon.
That doesn't really answer the point I was making.
CPU means nothing with Exchange. Exchange is not CPU heavy. It is storage heavy.
If you have everything on a single array, such as a RAID 5 then I would expect it be slow, because the drive is being thrashed.
Simon.
ASKER
They are both RAID 1 SATA drives.
You have a single RAID 1 SATA array for both servers?
Just the one?
If that is the case, it will be slow. For a high performance system you need at least two, preferably three arrays.
Simon.
Just the one?
If that is the case, it will be slow. For a high performance system you need at least two, preferably three arrays.
Simon.
ASKER
I don't see how that will increase performance. I am watching the network traffic - there's hardly any activity - about 100k bytes per second. It took about 6 hours to move a 2GB mailbox.
Something must be wrong.
Something must be wrong.
ASKER
Sorry, 8 hours to move a 2GB mailbox.
The reason you don't see why it will increase performance is because you don't know the architecture of Exchange. That may well be blunt, but that is the case.
Exchange is a high transactional database. It writes to two places at once when you do anything with the database. The transaction logs and the database.
If you have both of those on the same physical disks, then it is trying to write to the same place at the same time.
Then take in to account that you are using SATA, which is slower than SCSI/SAS and the server is crippled.
There could also be a problem with the storage on one side or the other, which is causing Exchange to keep reading the data over and over again - although I would expect something to be logged if that was the case.
Do you have AV software on the machine? That can also play a major part in significant slow downs.
8 hours to move 2gb is particularly slow, but it may well not be a single cause.
Simon.
Exchange is a high transactional database. It writes to two places at once when you do anything with the database. The transaction logs and the database.
If you have both of those on the same physical disks, then it is trying to write to the same place at the same time.
Then take in to account that you are using SATA, which is slower than SCSI/SAS and the server is crippled.
There could also be a problem with the storage on one side or the other, which is causing Exchange to keep reading the data over and over again - although I would expect something to be logged if that was the case.
Do you have AV software on the machine? That can also play a major part in significant slow downs.
8 hours to move 2gb is particularly slow, but it may well not be a single cause.
Simon.
ASKER
There's no AV software. Both boxes have Dual Xeon 3.4Ghz CPU and 2x SATA drives in RAID 1.
I understand what you are saying, Simon. I still don't see how it can be 8 hours for 2GB mailbox.
I understand what you are saying, Simon. I still don't see how it can be 8 hours for 2GB mailbox.
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ASKER
problem still not solved, but got some idea.
Speed of the hardware is one major factor. That can cause a bottleneck. Exchange is writing to two places at once when you move content - the database and the transaction logs. If you have both of those on the same array/drives then it will simply be thrashing against itself.
Simon.