Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!tymix!cirrusl!sunstorm!dhesi From: dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.nfs Subject: Re: how many nfsd's should I run? Message-ID: <2982@cirrusl.UUCP> Date: 6 Mar 91 19:33:41 GMT References: <28975@cs.yale.edu> <2936@redstar.cs.qmw.ac.uk> Sender: news@cirrusl.UUCP Organization: Cirrus Logic Inc. Lines: 29 Here are some practical results. Each machine listed below had 8 nfsds running originally. Results of increasing the numbers are shown. Sun-3/180: Increased to 16. Result: system nearly dead of high load on CPU; NFS response much worse and frequent "NFS server ... not responding" messages on clients. Sun-3/280: Increased to 16. Result: system much more sluggish; CPU response very poor (but not dead); NFS response not noticeably changed. Sun-4/280: Increased to 32. Result: system very sluggish; CPU response much poorer (nearly dead but not quite); NFS response not noticeably changed. Sun-4/490: Increased to 32. Result: system more sluggish; CPU response worse but not as bad as with above machines; NFS response not noticeably changed, but might be slightly better. One of the adverse effects of a large number of nfsds under SunOS 4.0.3 is that if an executing binary is ever deleted, and then the server reboots, or if a mounted filesystem is unmounted and replaced by another while a client was executing from it, the resulting NFS traffic becomes VERY high and adversely affects both server and client. The more nfsds there are the close the server is to being completely dead at this point. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi