Headless Server - Windows Remote Desktop - Which GPU is utilized?

[CourmacherGeert]

Hello,

I am running a headless server (mainly for storage) with Windows10 as its operating system. The components are really rather weak (am1 sempron 2650 with 4gb ddr-1333) but they should actually be enough for the purpose. The server is mainly used as a storage unit (no raid or anything fancy; jbod's).

My main question is, is the internal gpu (as part of the sempron 2650) used when I remotely access the server via windows remote desktop connection?

The reason I ask is that I have set the maximum RAM usage of the internal video card to a mere 64MB in order to have more left for file transfer, torrents and ftp.
I don't run anything else on the server and I only rarely access it via the remote desktop connection. However, on occassion, I have realized that when a number of torrents are running as well as a ftp server software, the remote connection is very sluggish (it may take up to 2 minutes to establish, fail rather often and once connected it will lag incredibly).

I originally thought it has more to do with the extremely weak cpu (I regret not having opted for the 5350). There is another issue that could potentially confirm this. When transfering files to/from the server via ftp the maximum transfer I would get is stuck at around 30-40mb/s. Using normal windows explorer, however, I would get around 115mb/s. I don't need these file speeds and ftp is more convient with granting different rights to users, but I was wondering whether it was really possible that a cpu could be that weak (the ftp server software I am using is ancient; although I also tried it with more recent and the result was the same).

I'd personally still think that the bottleneck is the cpu - given that the low transfer speeds with ftp occur whether or not someone is remotly connected to it - but I am still curious to know excactly what's going on.

Thanks!

 

[COLGeek]

As a headless server, the GPU is largely irrelevant when accessing via Remote Desktop. Those functions will be handled on the client side for the most part. You really only need a GPU on the server to configure it and then you can pretty much ignore it.

I do the same sort of thing with my home server. The integrated GPU with the minimum allocated memory is sufficient.

 

[CourmacherGeert]

Thanks a lot for your answer. This actually solves my main question.

Just out of curiosity. There's not much else other than a weak CPU that could be responsible for the abysmal performance via ftp?

In that case I feel I should really warn against the Sempron 2650. Even though it may be cheap, if it can't even handle the simplest of tasks, it's not really worth it. Better to spend an additional 20€/$ and get a much better performing 5350 (I am assuming that this should be enough to run an ftp server ) Most would have probably done so anyway, but it never occured to me that for my scenario a CPU could be too weak.

 

[COLGeek]

The other factor (aside from the relatively weak CPU), could be the network adapter and drivers, or your network itself. Are you experiencing slow performance both internal and external to your network? If only external, what is the speed of your upstream side of your Internet service?

 

[CourmacherGeert]

The internal Network is 1GBit, external 150Mbit. Download to the server is at the maximum speed of around 14-15MB/s. Transfering files to/from the server is operating at the said 115MB/s when using Windows Explorer (depending on the drive though, the one that also houses the OS is a bit slower despite being the same model, age and using the same connector) but never more than 40MB/s via ftp.
The Windows Explorer speed is perhaps not as accurately measured as the one via ftp, but the difference is not really trivial.