Server/network transfer speed causing slow CAD performance

Hello,
My company has been experiencing relatively slow CAD performance (Civil3D) when using large data sets (LiDAR, Large aerials, etc.). After coming up with various workarounds on the CAD side, we have started to suspect that much of our slowness is actually due to relatively slow server-CAD data transfer speed. We recently had our CAD network on a virtual server that had a data transfer speed (both read and write) of about 350Mbps. I asked our IT support person about this and was told our server has the capacity to transfer up to 12Gbps, but because of the virtual server as well as our current network hardware, we were being limited to this relatively slow transfer speed. He then moved our CAD files to an actual physical server and now we are getting transfer speeds of about 750Mbps and CAD performance is noticeably faster when using large data sets. Apparently upgrading our network hardware would be somewhat of an investment, so I am now wondering what is typical for network transfer speeds and if we should start looking into upgrading our network to further increase CAD performance. Does anybody know what the recommended network transfer speed should be when using large data sets in CAD? Alternatively, does anybody want to share what their LAN speed is and if they are experiencing performance issues with large data sets?
Thanks in advance.
Luke

Welcome to AUGI. :beer:

There are several factors at play here.

For an on-premise domain environment, there is effectively no difference between a virtual server or its physical server host (one box, multiple servers), in terms of capability as they all share the same physical host and therefore have the same physical hardware limitations; only the Hyper-V resources dedicated to each and their configuration within Server Manager respectively is different (without getting into the technical side of server roles, etc). So, if you saw an immediate reduction in latency (increase in IOPS) by moving your CAD data from a virtual server to its physical server host, then your IT admin may want to double check the Hyper-V resources (CPU, Memory and NIC), as well as the virtual server's Server Manager configuration for where the physical host is better optimized for performance.

12Gbps is likely your server's RAID Controller's max throughput; that just means how quickly it transfers data within the machine to the RAID array, not how quickly it transfers data from the machine to your workstation, across the network... This does not make a difference between your virtual server and its physical server host, as both are accessing the same RAID array, based on that physical server's physical disks... The server only sees the virtual disks that the RAID Controller creates, hence the same performance to both virtual and physical server host in kind.

The best I can offer at this point is for your IT Admin to consider making the data disk for where your CAD data resides to be configured for RAID 10 (assuming you have the necessary storage capacity), ensure that the physical host has as many disparate ethernet connections to your network switch as possible (only reserving iDRAC) and that they be configured for NIC Teaming (unless they have tested for better performance using SMB 3.0, etc).

Beyond that, you're now in the realm of configuring VLANs on the network switches if not also site-to-site connectivity (depending on how many offices you have & their network/server topology), NIC Teaming or SMB 3.0 on your client workstations, configuring Civil 3D, your workstation & re-organizing your drawings for performance, etc.

HTH

Also, given that you specifically mentioned using Civil 3D, posts #46-48 from this thread may be of some use:

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.ph...=1#post1337972


Cheers

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Originally Posted by lwalton776659

Alternatively, does anybody want to share what their LAN speed is and if they are experiencing performance issues with large data sets?

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Here's a benchmark from my file server (RAID 5 array, Gigabit LAN); note the difference between MBps (shown below) vs Mbps:

Attachment 107008

** 118 MBps is +/- 944 Mbps

Thanks for the info! Very helpful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lwalton776659

Thanks for the info! Very helpful.

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Happy to help. :beer:

The physical servers usually cause problems in work performance. Thanks to the IT support experts for helping every business. They not only help us to prevent data loss but also saves us from a disaster.