Server sizing guide

MyWorkDrive Server Sizing Guide

MyWorkDrive server is capable of supporting a large number of Daily Active Users, numbering potentially in the thousands, in organizations of 10,000 users or more. The actual performance you will obtain is dependent on a number of factors in your specific environment.

Our general guidance is that a reasonably sized server (physical or VM) with 4 cores, at 2.4ghz and 8gb of ram should be able to serve 250 concurrent users working with an average number and size of documents.

Keep in mind that MyWorkDrive is not a syncing application. Your files are not shared from somewhere in the cloud, they are shared directly from their native location on YOUR network on YOUR servers. The performance of your MyWorkDrive installation will be heavily dependent on your network infrastructure.

 

Some variables to consider:

The performance of the server or VM you install to.

The performance of the disk subsystem which hosts your shares.

The performance of the interconnect between your MWD server and shares

Your internet connection

 

Additionally, you must consider your workforce.

How many files are the opening?

How large are the files they are opening?

Are they using the Web Client, Map Drive Client (desktop) or Mobile?

What percentage of your workforce is using MyWorkDrive at any given time?

 

Your Environment

MyWorkDrive works best when installed as a stand alone application on a Virtual Machine with a local connection to the File Server and Shares. The server (vm) you install to should have a minimum of 2 cores at 2.4ghz and 4gb of ram.

Connecting your shares via slow copper, a VPN or the like will significantly impact performance. Virus Scanners and other applications running on the MyWorkDrive server will also degrade performance (and should be disabled.)

The performance of your shares will also impact the sizing of your MyWorkDrive server. If your shares are slow, due to a slow SAN, slow backbone or low spindle speeds on direct connect storage, your server will not be able to serve as many clients.

We encourage you to test the MyWorkDrive server’s connection to your shares using a tool such as Microsoft’s Diskspd utility

https://github.com/Microsoft/diskspd/releases/latest/download/DiskSpd.zip

Using the command line arguments -c10M -d5 -r -w40 -t4 -o32 -b4k -Sh –L c:\testfile.dat in an command window as Administrator, you should obtain readings for

Read I/Os
Read MiB/s
Write I/Os
Write MiB/s

From your MyWorkDrive server to the shares where the data is located.

Here is a chart of acceptable ranges for each of those readings

	Read I/Os	Read MiB/s	Write I/Os	Write MiB/s	Server Handles Estimate
Low	10000	45.0	8000	30.0	100
Average	15000	100.0	10,500	60.0	150
Excellent	20000	150.00	12,500	90.0	200

 

Similarly, if your internet connection is slow or the connections of the remote users are slow, your server will spend more time processing fewer requests. Our load testing was conducted using a minimum 25 Mpbs connections. 50Mbps or greater is recommended. For organizations of 250 or more, a 100Mbps connection should be considered the minimum

 

Your Work Force

We expect the average users to open 20 or less small files per day, and 6 or less large files per day. The average office document is under 100k. Large files we rate at 10mb or greater. We conducted our tests using these numbers. If your users are using a larger number of files or working with larger file sizes, you will require more server capacity.

 

We offer a variety of clients. The most efficient is the Web Client. The Map Drive (desktop) clients are less efficient, particularly when working with files larger than 10mb. If your users will heavily use the Map Drive client, additional server capacity will be required.

 

Interactive Sizing Guide

An interactive Server sizing guide is available in Microsoft Excel (MyWorkDrive Server Sizing Estimator) for you to input your own numbers and create your own projections. We’ve included our Server Handles Estimate alongside the Diskspd numbers in the chart above for you to reference.

If you have any questions about MyWorkDrive server sizing or using the projections document, please contact us.

 

Clustering and dedicated database provider considerations

Multiple Nodes

At higher user count, you may consider running multiple nodes to increase availably and provide for scheduled downtime/maintenance. MyWorkDrive supports multi-node environments with the option to sync configuration files and share sessions and locks across nodes. Details are available in our clustering configuration instructions.

Dedicated Database Server

Some configurations with higher user counts may benefit from running a dedicated SQL server for the Sessions and Locks database. User counts at 250 or more may start to show signs of higher CPU utilization, particularly when using the Map Drive client (OS requested background refreshes occur even when users are not active in the file system). User counts greater than 500 will certainly benefit from offloading the sessions and locks database, regardless of multi-node scenarios.

Support for a dedicated sessions and locks database is supported as part of the cluster configuration, even when only using a single server.