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Window NTFS fragmentation + File system full degrade performance?

richardl
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Hi,

IHAC current using NetApp FC SAN, connect to window 2003, they are running backup to disk on top of the LUN (NTFS format).

After running for a while, the FC LUN performance (write) drop sigificantly (from close to 100MB/s to around 40MB/s). A closer look finds that the LUN is highly fragmented and due to the staging unit design it is always running with 90% file system full.

Our competitor is educating them this behaviour appear at Netapp FC SAN only.

I am urgently looking for any third party documentation that support the theory a highly fragmented NTFS LUN, together with file system close to or above 90% full, will introduce sigificant write performance degradation.  Therefore the above issue will appear regardless of what SAN vendor they are using.

Any input is highly appreicated!!!

Thanks.

Richard

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