This guide describes important tuning parameters and settings that you can adjust to improve the performance and energy efficiency of the Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating system. This guide describes each setting and its potential effect to help you make an informed decision about its relevance to your system, workload, and performance goals.
This paper is for information technology (IT) professionals and system administrators who need to tune the performance of a server that is running Windows Server 2008 R2.
This information applies to the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system.
References and resources discussed here are listed at the end of this guide.
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In This Guide 7
Choosing and Tuning Server Hardware 7
Choosing Server Hardware: Performance Considerations 8
Choosing Server Hardware: Power Considerations 11
Power and Performance Tuning 12
Calculating Server Energy Efficiency 12
Measuring System Energy Consumption 13
Diagnosing Energy Efficiency Issues 14
Using Power Plans in Windows Server 15
Tuning Processor Power Management Parameters 15
Interrupt Affinity 18
Performance Tuning for the Networking Subsystem 20
Choosing a Network Adapter 21
Offload Capabilities 21
Receive-Side Scaling (RSS) 21
Message-Signaled Interrupts (MSI/MSI-X) 22
Network Adapter Resources 22
Interrupt Moderation 23
Suggested Network Adapter Features for Server Roles 23
Tuning the Network Adapter 23
Enabling Offload Features 24
Increasing Network Adapter Resources 24
Enabling Interrupt Moderation 24
Enabling RSS for Web Scenarios 24
Binding Each Adapter to a CPU 25
TCP Receive Window Auto-Tuning 25
TCP Parameters 26
Network-Related Performance Counters 26
Performance Tuning for the Storage Subsystem 27
Choosing Storage 28
Estimating the Amount of Data to Be Stored 29
Choosing a Storage Array 30
Hardware RAID Levels 31
Choosing the RAID Level 34
Selecting a Stripe Unit Size 40
Determining the Volume Layout 40
Storage-Related Parameters 41
I/O Priorities 41
Storage-Related Performance Counters 41
Logical Disk and Physical Disk 41
Processor Information 43
Power Protection and Advanced Performance Option 44
Block Alignment (DISKPART) 45
Solid-State and Hybrid Drives 45
Response Times 46
Queue Lengths 48
Performance Tuning for Web Servers 49
Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance 49
Operating System Practices 49
Tuning IIS 7.5 50
Kernel-Mode Tunings 51
Cache Management Settings 51
Request and Connection Management Settings 52
User-Mode Settings 53
User-Mode Cache Behavior Settings 53
Compression Behavior Settings 54
Tuning the Default Document List 56
Central Binary Logging 56
Application and Site Tunings 57
Managing IIS 7.5 Modules 58
Classic ASP Settings 59
ASP.NET Concurrency Setting 60
Worker Process and Recycling Options 60
Secure Sockets Layer Tuning Parameters 61
ISAPI 62
Managed Code Tuning Guidelines 62
Other Issues that Affect IIS Performance 62
NTFS File System Setting 63
Networking Subsystem Performance Settings for IIS 63
Performance Tuning for File Servers 63
Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance 63
Server Message Block Model 64
SMB Model Overview 64
SMB Configuration Considerations 65
Tuning Parameters for SMB File Servers 66
SMB Server Tuning Example 68
Services for NFS Model 68
Services for NFS Model Overview 68
Tuning Parameters for NFS Server 69
General Tuning Parameters for Client Computers 72
File Client Tuning Example 74
Performance Tuning for Active Directory Servers 75
Considerations for Read-Heavy Scenarios 76
Considerations for Write-Heavy Scenarios 76
Using Indexing to Improve Query Performance 77
Optimizing Trust Paths 77
Active Directory Performance Counters 77
Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Session Host (formerly Terminal Server) 79
Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance 79
CPU Configuration 79
Processor Architecture 80
Memory Configuration 80
Disk 80
Network 81
Tuning Applications for Remote Desktop Session Host 82
Remote Desktop Session Host Tuning Parameters 83
Pagefile 83
Antivirus and Antispyware 83
Task Scheduler 83
Desktop Notification Icons 84
Client Experience Settings 85
Desktop Size 87
Windows System Resource Manager 87
Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Gateway 88
Monitoring and Data Collection 89
Performance Tuning for Virtualization Servers 89
Terminology 89
Hyper-V Architecture 91
Server Configuration 92
Hardware Selection 92
Server Core Installation Option 93
Dedicated Server Role 93
Guest Operating Systems 94
CPU Statistics 94
Processor Performance 95
VM Integration Services 95
Enlightened Guests 95
Virtual Processors 95
Background Activity 96
Weights and Reserves 96
Tuning NUMA Node Preference 97
Memory Performance 98
Enlightened Guests 98
Correct Memory Sizing for Child Partitions 98
Correct Memory Sizing for Root Partition 98
Storage I/O Performance 99
Synthetic SCSI Controller 99
Virtual Hard Disk Types 100
Passthrough Disks 100
Disabling File Last Access Time Check 101
Physical Disk Topology 101
I/O Balancer Controls 101
Network I/O Performance 102
Synthetic Network Adapter 102
Install Multiple Synthetic Network Adapters on Multiprocessor VMs 103
Offload Hardware 103
Network Switch Topology 103
Interrupt Affinity 104
VLAN Performance 104
VMQ 104
VM Chimney 104
Live Migration 104
Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (NetBench) 105
Registry Tuning Parameters for Servers 106
Registry Tuning Parameters for Client Computers 106
Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (SPECsfs2008) 107
Registry-Tuning Parameters for NFS Server 107
Performance Tuning for Network Workload (NTttcp) 108
Tuning for NTttcp 108
Network Adapter 108
TCP/IP Window Size 109
Receive-Side Scaling (RSS) 109
Tuning for IxChariot 109
Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Services Knowledge Worker Workload 110
Recommended Tunings on the Server 111
Monitoring and Data Collection 113
Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload 114
Operating System Tunings on the Server 114
Tunings on the Database Server 115
Tunings on the SAP Application Server 116
Monitoring and Data Collection 118
Performance Tuning for TPC-E Workload 118
Server Under Test (SUT) Tunings 118
SQL Server Tunings 120
Disk Storage Tunings 121
TPC-E Database Size and Layout 122
Client Systems Tunings 122
Monitoring and Data Collection 123
Resources 125
Since the release of Windows Server 2008, customers have become increasingly concerned about energy efficiency in the datacenter. To address this need, Microsoft and its partners invested a large amount of engineering resources in developing and optimizing the features, algorithms, and settings in Windows Server 2008 R2 to maximize energy efficiency with minimal effects on performance. This paper describes energy consumption considerations for servers and provides guidelines for meeting your energy usage goals. Although “power consumption” is a more commonly used term, “energy consumption” is more accurate because power is an instantaneous measurement (Energy = Power *Time). Power companies typically charge datacenters for both the energy consumed (megawatt-hours) and the peak power draw required (megawatts).
Note: Registry settings and tuning parameters changed significantly from Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 R2. Be sure to use the latest tuning guidelines to avoid unexpected results.