Testing Domain Controller Response Time with Powershell

MyWorkDrive requires a fast connection to Active Directory Domain Controllers, since it does not store user information like group membership or permissions and needs to look it up on login and access.

If the Domain Controller response time is long, MyWorkDrive will run slowly. This is commonly seen when the domain controllers are not local to the MyWorkDrive server (same LAN segement or Resource Group/tenant) and particuarly acute when using a slow VPN connection.

A good test of domain controller response time can be conducted with Powershell. Running the test outlined in this article on the MyWorkDrive server will indicate how fast your Domain Controllers are responding. In particular, the Logon Server the server hosting MyWorkDrive is connecting to.

We’ve included a link to the script referenced in the Microsoft discussion here.

You will need to change the username tested to a valid username on your domain on line 29 of the script.

The test does require RSAT tools to be installed (discussion), in case you receive the error “The term ‘Get-ADUser’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet”

You should expect to get results well under 1 second.

If you get signifigantly longer results, particuarly from the MyWorkDrive’s indicated logon server, that would cause performance issues in MyWorkDrive. It will respond to logins and file directory access/browsing very slowly.

If you find your Domain controllers are running slowly, you may need to move your MyWorkDrive server to be in the same location as the Domain controller, or use Sites and Services to direct the MyWorkDrive server to use a specific (local) DC. It is not advised to install the domain controller on the same server as MyWorkDrive, see this article for details.