11.4 Upgrade (server) - shocking performance!

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11.4 Upgrade (server) - shocking performance!

Just upgraded our Mac Mini server to 11.4 (from 11.2.x) and apart from the fact that all of the custom shares had been deleted (nice job Apple), the performance is nothing short of shocking!

CPU load is <10%, memory is <40% and connected workstations are lucky to copy data at 5-10MB/s. Previously we were able to saturate the NIC at just over 100MB/sec. I'm sat here on this server and the thing feels like its a 10 year old laptop. I have restarted since the update during the working day which is a pain to inform everyone working remotely.

Ive ran ATTO disk benchmark (locally) and the drives will only read/write at 40-50MB/s, workstations run ATTO (on the shared volume) at only 5-10MB/s (previously would run over 100MB/s all day)

I've just run ATTO on our backup Mac Mini server (10.13) remotely and I can get 110MB/s over the mounted share.

Whats going on with this update? I've got a stream of angry workers messaging me and I'm out of ideas apart from throw this in the bin and switch to the backup server.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Cheers for any advice

Mac mini, macOS 11.4

Posted on Jun 24, 2021 7:45 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

65,492 points

Jun 25, 2021 7:26 AM in response to quietstorming

I don't think that having security updates turned on would mean that the system would restart on its own.

Part of the problem may be that the drive is a slow 5400 rpm which is 85% full. There is a chance that it could be starting to fail.

It is possible that something changed with 11.4, but maybe it was an unfortunate coincidence.

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Answer 2

Jun 25, 2021 7:12 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Etrecheck report

Hi Luis, thanks for the reply.

I have attached the report which only seems to flag up the fact I have automatic updates turned off (I need to pick this manually as I can't have the server reboot whenever it likes).

Also it claims no time machine backups which is incorrect.

The only software I have running that isn't standard apple stuff is: ATTO disk benchmark and Sync Folders Pro+ (which syncs this server to the back up server every 15 mins. I had turned this off yesterday to see if it made any difference to the performance, which it didn't seem to affect.

cheers

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Answer 3

Jun 25, 2021 6:11 AM in response to quietstorming

I don't see why 11.4 by itself would do that. Maybe some software that is installed is not playing nice.

You may want to run Etrecheck and post its report here, using the "additional text" button below.

Maybe we can spot something that leads to a solution.

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Answer 4

Jun 25, 2021 7:52 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Yeah, i know the slow HD isn't ideal, I didn't really have the budget when this was deployed in early 2018 for SSD's. It was performing fine prior to the update, maybe 11.4 is too much for this little mac mini with a mechanical drive? I've spent the last few days archiving jobs off the server to blu-ray to get some space back but when I'm only pulling 10MB/s off the server it's taking a lot longer than usual lol

With it only having Thunderbolt 2 (mini DisplayPort connectors) I can't really utilise any fast bootable ext drive enclosures such as the OWC Envoy Express.

I've added internal SSDs to Mac Minis before but I don't fancy taking apart this live server one night incase anything goes wrong. I guess it will be easier to replace with a new M1/1TB SSD mac mini and repurpose this machine as a failover (running an older OS).

Thanks for your help

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Answer 5

Jun 25, 2021 8:04 AM in response to quietstorming

With it only having Thunderbolt 2 (mini DisplayPort connectors) I can't really utilise any fast bootable ext drive enclosures such as the OWC Envoy Express.

I've added internal SSDs to Mac Minis before but I don't fancy taking apart this live server one night incase anything goes wrong. I guess it will be easier to replace with a new M1/1TB SSD mac mini and repurpose this machine as a failover (running an older OS).

Thanks for your help

Any USB3 connected regular SSD will run circles around that 5400rpm drive.

You do NOT need Thunderbolt.

You can get an internal SATA SSD, put it in a USB3 case and it will still be much faster that the HD.

1TB will be less than $100 (maybe $70 or so).

Or for a little more money you can get an external NVME SSD like a Crucial X8. It probably won't make noticeable difference with the current machine compared to the SATA SSD, as the USB3 bus will become the limiting factor.

I have two of those and they give some 900MBps on a 16" MBP, and a 500MBps on an older 2014 (again, the USB bus is the limitation there, like it would be in your Mini).

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Answer 6

Jun 25, 2021 8:38 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Ah, thanks for the heads on the Crucial X8, after some reading it does indeed look bootable.

I'm going to have a think over the weekend and work out whether I shall go for the quick fix bootable SSD option or whether I should use this opportunity to replace the machine entirely as its coming up to 3 years constant service?

The last linux web server I built last year I put in a NVMe PCIe raid card and I was able to see speeds of 5GB/s writes and 6GB/s reads just using 2 NVMe drives Raid0 (for testing purposes before I changed to Raid1), absolutely mind blowing speeds. Unfortunately not an option unless I'm using a MacPro for a mac server.

Thanks for your help, I had previously overlooked the USB3 option. I've always avoided USB attached storage preferring eSATA, PCIe or Thunderbolt connectivity.

cheers Luis

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Answer 7

etresoft

Level 8

47,586 points

Jun 25, 2021 8:54 AM in response to quietstorming

quietstorming wrote:

Also it claims no time machine backups which is incorrect.

EtreCheck needs Full Drive Access to collect all of your Time Machine information. For some reason, Apple put the Time Machine preferences file under one of the most strict security protections on the system. There is only one level higher, Data Vaults, that only Apple itself is permitted to access.

Are you sure about those transfer rates? This computer has been up for 2 hours and has sent 12 GB of data in that time. That doesn't sound so bad.

Generally speaking, however, I would not recommend this particular computer. I remember when I was first working on EtreCheck version 4 and I snuck into an Apple Store and tried it out on some of the newer computers that I didn't have. When I tried it on the 2014 Mac mini, I thought I found a bug because EtreCheck just locked up. But not, it was just horribly, horribly slow.

Furthermore, macOS itself is a consumer operating system. I wouldn't recommend it for server tasks if you have some other alternative.

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Answer 8

Jun 28, 2021 7:09 AM in response to etresoft

etresoft wrote:

Are you sure about those transfer rates? This computer has been up for 2 hours and has sent 12 GB of data in that time. That doesn't sound so bad.

It was probably doing a sync of updated files to the backup server. Usually I would expect to remote copy 20GB of data in 5-10 mins before the update.

generally speaking, however, I would not recommend this particular computer. I remember when I was first working on EtreCheck version 4 and I snuck into an Apple Store and tried it out on some of the newer computers that I didn't have. When I tried it on the 2014 Mac mini, I thought I found a bug because EtreCheck just locked up. But not, it was just horribly, horribly slow.

I agree, these Mac Minis can be painfully slow to use as a computer but surprisingly they are very capable for general file sharing use. Currently there aren't many other options hardware wise for Mac servers.

furthermore, macOS itself is a consumer operating system. I wouldn't recommend it for server tasks if you have some other alternative.

I'm going to have to disagree here, I've always ran OSX Server on these Mac Minis (and many Mac before them) until Apple killed it off as a dedicated server OS. Now we just run OSX with Apple Server Tools App. OSX is a very capable OS to use for a server IMO. We generally get much faster transfer speeds than windows servers with only our Linux servers that can match them speed wise. However, the complexity and knowledge needed to run a Linux server means we just use them for our web and dev servers and keep the standard file sharing requirements on OSX.

I'm awaiting delivery of the Crucial x8 and will try this as a boot drive to see how things improve. Interestingly, today I'm now getting transfer speeds around the 40-50MB/s, a lot better than last week but still pretty poor.

thanks for the comments guys

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Answer 9

Jun 25, 2021 7:53 AM in response to quietstorming

I'm waiting until out of work hours before I run disk first aid as I don't want to disconnect users this afternoon. Interesting to see if it picks up anything

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11.4 Upgrade (server) - shocking performance!

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