physical memory utilization suddenly dropped

[Lantana121]

Running Freenas 9.1.1 for about a year. Have (4) 2TB drives with 8gb ram. System used primarily as storage for movies and tv shows using XBMC.

Problem is suddenly system is very sluggish. Long time to change movies and significant shuddering while watching movies making them un-watchable. Drives are all reported as healthy. Only change I can notice in the reporting tab is the physical memory utilization has suddenly dropped significantly. Historically uses about 6gb and has 2gb free. Now reporting less than 1gb used and 7gb free.

Does not appear to be networking issue as internet gaming and watching shows online run fine. Have checked that network cables are secured and restarted everything.

Any ideas?

 

[cyberjock]

Yes, get more RAM.

If other process start needing RAM it gets taken from the ARC. ARC size shrinks and performance of your zpools goes from "acceptable" to "slit my wrists this is unusable".

This is the result of some program trying to take RAM it shouldn't and ZFS having to deal with it. This sounds just like the common analogy I use when I talk about how my system needed more RAM. Works great for a while, then you jump off the cliff.

I'd upgrade to 12GB or 16GB and you'll see the problem go away. :)

 

[esamett]

Try cycling CIFS service on/off. It has worked for me twice when Windows Explorer NAS operations became very slow. Ticket was posted and recently amended: (search: rsync)