Operating System Configuration
Go Up to Database and Server Performance
After you have equipped your server hardware appropriately, you should spend time tuning your operating system for server performance.
Sizing a Temporary Directory
When you configure a temporary directory (see Managing Temporary Files), choose a location that has plenty of free disk space. For some operations such as building an index, InterBase can use a great deal of space for sorting. InterBase can even use an amount of space up to twice the size of your database.
The effects of insufficient temporary space include rapid virtual memory page faults, called thrashing, which causes a dramatic performance penalty. Another possible effect is a series of “I/O error” related messages printed to the interbase.log file on the server.
Use a Dedicated Server
Using a server for both workgroup file and print services and as a database server is like letting another user play a video game on your workstation. It detracts from the performance of the workstation, and it is not the intended use for the machine.
Use a secondary server as the file and print server, and a new machine for the database server. Alternately, use the secondary server for InterBase, depending on the relative priority of these tasks – the database server benefits from having a dedicated machine, even if it is not the fastest model available. Whatever is the most important service should be given the best machine as dedicated hardware.
If performance is a high priority, you can spend money more effectively by buying a dedicated machine instead of trying to increase resources such as RAM on a machine that is providing another competing service. Compare the cost of the hardware with the cost of having less than maximum performance.
Similarly, it is best to put a database on a dedicated drive, so that the database I/O does not compete with the operating system virtual memory paging file or other operating system I/O. See Making Drives Specialized.
Optimizing Windows for Network Applications
It is recommended to set the Windows server to optimize for network applications. Without this setting, you might see the CPU usage of InterBase peak for a few seconds every InterBase server is configured by default to give priority to filesharing services. You can change this configuration on the server: Control Panel>Network>Services>Server. In the Optimization panel, choose Optimize Throughput For Network Applications.
This change can result in a dramatic improvement of performance for InterBase, as well as other services.