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From: GuyA on 24 Jun 2010 09:01
I've read all the available SUGI papers etc on Windows performance
tweaks but none of them have seemed to have a great effect.

System: Windows XP Pro 32bit, 8 processors, 8 GB of RAM, 1TB drive,
partitioned so that Windows/SAS is on C and SAS temp files and all
data are on D.

I have found that setting options such as SORTSIZE/SUMSIZE to anything
over about 1GB tends to have negative consequences, such as "out of
memory" errors when using procedures such as SUMMARY.

Setting them both to around 1GB definitely improves performance for
sorting and procedures that summarise (except SQL, it seems), but is
there a way to increase the utilisation of the 8GB of RAM while
maintaining reliability?

And the processors never seem to get used. Even the most taxing of
data steps never brings the processor usage above 2-3%.

Anybody have any tips? I'd like to be able to utilise this PC better.

Thanks.
From: Phil Rack on 24 Jun 2010 11:23
On Jun 24, 9:01 am, GuyA <guya.carpen...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I've read all the available SUGI papers etc on Windows performance
> tweaks but none of them have seemed to have a great effect.
>
> System: Windows XP Pro 32bit, 8 processors, 8 GB of RAM, 1TB drive,
> partitioned so that Windows/SAS is on C and SAS temp files and all
> data are on D.
>
> I have found that setting options such as SORTSIZE/SUMSIZE to anything
> over about 1GB tends to have negative consequences, such as "out of
> memory" errors when using procedures such as SUMMARY.
>
> Setting them both to around 1GB definitely improves performance for
> sorting and procedures that summarise (except SQL, it seems), but is
> there a way to increase the utilisation of the 8GB of RAM while
> maintaining reliability?
>
> And the processors never seem to get used. Even the most taxing of
> data steps never brings the processor usage above 2-3%.
>
> Anybody have any tips? I'd like to be able to utilise this PC better.
>
> Thanks.

I believe your problem is most likely that you are I/O bound. If you
can, you might consider installing a 2nd physical drive and moving
your temp work folder over to it. An even better choice would be to
get a 3rd drive and put your perm SAS data sets on it so that you have
your OS and progams on drive #1, Perm data sets on drive #2, and SAS
work files on drive #3.

Btw, you can use the resource monitor under Windows to see how much
disk I/O is going on and try to determine where the bottle neck really
lies.

Phil Rack
www.minequest.com
An Authorized WPS Reseller.
From: Phil Rack on 24 Jun 2010 11:33
On Jun 24, 9:01 am, GuyA <guya.carpen...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I've read all the available SUGI papers etc on Windows performance
> tweaks but none of them have seemed to have a great effect.
>
> System: Windows XP Pro 32bit, 8 processors, 8 GB of RAM, 1TB drive,
> partitioned so that Windows/SAS is on C and SAS temp files and all
> data are on D.
>
> I have found that setting options such as SORTSIZE/SUMSIZE to anything
> over about 1GB tends to have negative consequences, such as "out of
> memory" errors when using procedures such as SUMMARY.
>
> Setting them both to around 1GB definitely improves performance for
> sorting and procedures that summarise (except SQL, it seems), but is
> there a way to increase the utilisation of the 8GB of RAM while
> maintaining reliability?
>
> And the processors never seem to get used. Even the most taxing of
> data steps never brings the processor usage above 2-3%.
>
> Anybody have any tips? I'd like to be able to utilise this PC better.
>
> Thanks.

One other thing... with XP Pro 32-bit, you're not really able to take
advantage of the fact that you have more then 4GB of RAM are you?
From: GuyA on 24 Jun 2010 12:04
Thanks Phil.

I have suspected that I/O is one of the bottlenecks: sorting a dataset
may take 5 mins, writing the resulting dataset may take 15, for
example.

I'll poke around in resource monitor and have a look at these things.

Would as simple a solution as using an external hard drive be a good
first step?

And yes, I know about the 32bit limit: why do they even put more than
3GB in a 32bit OS computer? Stupid...
From: Phil Rack on 24 Jun 2010 12:16
On Jun 24, 12:04 pm, GuyA <guya.carpen...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Phil.
>
> I have suspected that I/O is one of the bottlenecks: sorting a dataset
> may take 5 mins, writing the resulting dataset may take 15, for
> example.
>
> I'll poke around in resource monitor and have a look at these things.
>
> Would as simple a solution as using an external hard drive be a good
> first step?
>
> And yes, I know about the 32bit limit: why do they even put more than
> 3GB in a 32bit OS computer? Stupid...

If the external drive is USB, I imagine you won't see much of an
improvement. If you are able to setup an external using e-sata
instead, I'm sure there would be a performance gain.

Phil
www.minequest.com
An Authorized WPS Reseller
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