[SOLVED] Copying files to Win Server 2019 stalls repeatedly ?

[Deleted member 2783327]

I was on Server 2012 R2 until a few months ago.

Copying files from any PCs on the networks TO the servers internal drives would fluctuate between 1.1GB/s and 120Mbs/s, with speeds averaging over 500MB/s. Of course, this is for large files. I also have a 2 bay USB-C enclosure and copies to that would be stable at about 170MB/s.

The infrastructure here (NICs and switches) is all 10Gbe.

After I upgraded from 2012 R2 to 2019. Copies to the external drives remain the same. Copying any large file (>5GB), stalls and drops to 0 bps for about 30 - 45 seconds.

I thought it might be a failing drive, but the symptoms are the same on all internal drives.

I've been through every fix and tweak I can find on the 'net, but nothing works.

Robocopy does exactly the same thing. (stopping at exactly 25%, 50% and 75%)

Copying from the server to any PC is fine.

I'd rather not have to go back to 2012 R2.

Microsoft support were useless of course.

I'm out of ideas.

 

[jojesa]

Make sure to get the lates drivers for all the hardware (network card, disk controllers, etc.)

I had a similar issue and it was caused by a feature that it was not supported on the old hardware.
'Large Send Offload' (LSO)

Go to Control Panel> Device Manager> Network Adapters> Advanced tab
Select Large Send Offload V2 (IPv4) and set it to Disabled
If using IPv6, then do the same for it.

 

[Deleted member 2783327]

Hey, thanks for getting back to me

LSO is disabled.

I went through several "server tuning" websites and tried dozens of settings. None worked.

If I had a dollar for every time a website said "update your drivers" and it didn't solve the problem I'd be a multimillionaire

Of course, having said that, it was the first thing I tried, though I can't understand why the drivers I used on 2012 R2 would so massively under perform on 2019? I did update graphics, chipset, NIC, SSD and Audio drivers. But then, driver updates didn't solve the problem.

I've also found, as I have 10G nic, the Receive Side Coalescing causes problems, so that's disabled.

IPv6 is completely disabled on all of my systems.

I should probably mention that W10 to W10 PCs is fine both ways. It's only to the server. This is why I'm thinking the Server OS is the issue.

Of course, autotuning is disabled and remote differential compression is not installed.

 

[jojesa]

....I can't understand why the drivers I used on 2012 R2 would so massively under perform on 2019? I did update graphics, chipset, NIC, SSD and Audio drivers. But then, driver updates didn't solve the problem.

A lot of hardware on servers running 2012 R2 would not be fully compatible with Win Server 2019.
Windows installs basic drivers, but hardware might not fully work as designed with Windows basic drivers.

I have a couple of servers running 2012 R2, I upgraded to 2019 then I had to downgrade them.
They were not working as they should...they will be running 2012 R2 until they go out.

 

[Deleted member 2783327]

The only hardware that doesn't work on the server OSs is the onboard NICs. But there are ways to make them work. That's because intel ripped out the code from the INF files for consumer NICs.

Other than that I've never had a hardware issue that I'm aware of. The motherboard is 3 years old (it was current when S2019 was released), but everything else is new. The CPU is 10900X. The memory is F4-3600C16Q-32GTZN. GPU is RTX2070S

I've never relied on Microsoft's "basic" drivers for anything that I could replace with better drivers. In any case, this has proven not to be a driver issue.

I'm going to try S2016 see if that works. I did find a post that said that Microsoft re-invented the TCP-stack in 2019 that has caused lots of problems, but 2012 R2 and 2016 used the same TCP-Stack.

 

[Deleted member 2783327]

Ugh!! S2016 won't allow the installation of drivers for RTX series graphics cards.

Looks like it's back to Server 2012 R2.

Personally, I find it absurd that I have to run a 10 year old OS to be able to install graphics drivers AND copy files at higher speeds.

 

[Alabalcho]

If you ask me - anything more than basic Intel HD driver is waste of money on a server.

As for drivers - tried installing WS2019 on a fancy desktop board. Ended up trying "generic" Intel drivers provided instead of hacking INFs.

 

[Deleted member 2783327]

If you ask me - anything more than basic Intel HD driver is waste of money on a server.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I move a LOT of data around. On W2012 R2 I can move it at over 1GB/s (with drops down to 500-700MB/s) on a 10G NIC. On a 1GB nic I can copy at 113MB/s.

On S2019 with the stalling my average copy speed is about 45MB/s. It's the same on a 1GB, 2.5GB and 10GB NIC. That's just over 30% of most people's onboard 1GB NIC.

The server is the most critical place to have the high speed NIC & switch as it is the central store for everything and has 150TB of storage. All 10 PCs here get their content from the server. It's significantly cheaper to build and run than a NAS with 10G NICS when you already have all the server hardware.

I prepared the INF files once, and now I have 2 extra steps to get those onboard NICs working adding maybe 1-2 minutes total to the over all install/setup time. Hardly a burden.