RE: Writing to a Windows server instead of to the IFS

My guess is that it's both the processor as well as Windows. While the
IFS can compete there is a limit to it's speed. Check out the V5R4
performance capabilities reference. While there are improvements with
V5R4 it doesn't compare to certain WINTEL numbers. You can do some more
tweaking of certain Work Management objects to help but I think it's a
losing battle. If your PC is an average or better machine it should out
perform the IFS. I'm just using the transfer rates listed in the
capabilities reference and comparing them to WINTEL numbers out there on
the market. While my lab is not perfect I have been able to exceed the
capabilities reference but that is basically turning the System i into
nothing but a file server (eliminating various OS/400 functions from
running, changing and tweaking the work management objects used by IFS
functions) - not what you want I would imagine. And that improvement
doesn't come close to the above average and higher WINTEL numbers.

If average file serving speeds are ok with you the IFS might work. If
it is to be incorporated with a System i application it might be the
best choice. Beat Windows at the one thing Windows does well? Probably
not.

It was a really long time ago but my testing of System i/Linux/Samba
performed better than WINTEL. I don't have any of that information
available any more so I can't really back it up. I'd hazard a guess
that the fastest file server would be a nicely configured System i using
Linux and Samba....other than that it would be a Blade Center device
attached to System i DASD. But that is just a guess.


Michael Crump

Manager, Computing Services
Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc.
1509 S. Macedonia Ave.
Muncie, IN 47302
765.741.7696
765.741.7012 f

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-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 1:31 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Writing to a Windows server instead of to the IFS

It's not the disk drives or controllers. We moved stuff from a share on

the IFS to an IXS card in the same iSeries and it worked much better.
Either it's that Windows is that much better at file serving, or, the
dedicated processor of the IXS card. I'm going with Windows.

Rob Berendt