Hub

Quick checks

Slow storage

Your dashboard's average response time can look fine while users feel storage run slow at one hour

About 15 minutes, from your performance view

An average blends quiet nights and weekends with the few hours when everyone is logged in. A slow busy hour disappears into it.

Yes 2
Written down, with a date (a log, a screen, a document), and it meets your own plan.
Partly 1
Remembered, but not written down, or the record shows you missed your plan.
No 0
Nobody knows, or it was never done. A blank is a finding.

"None, checked on a date" counts as a record. No plan or target written down? Write your guess first, then measure: the guess is your plan.

Tap No, Partly or Yes for each question. Your score adds up as you go. Nothing you tap is saved or sent.

Five questions about your own setup

  1. 1 The busiest hour

    Your answer, and where it is written down (with the date) With the performance view set to the last month, which hour of the day was busiest?

    Your answer
    Score 0, 1 or 2This quarterNext quarter

    How to raise it

    Where to find it:
    The performance view on your main storage system, the screen where you read the average, with the range set to the last month. Pick the hour with the most requests, or the most data moving per second, not the average line. If that hour is when backups or overnight jobs run, also read the busiest hour when people are at work.
    To get it to a 2:
    The hour of day, read from that screen and written down with the date you read it.

    Where each reading lives on your dashboard: five readings from your own dashboard

  2. 2 Its response time

    Your answer, and where it is written down (with the date) What was the response time in that hour? (Response time is how long storage takes to answer a request.)

    Your answer
    Score 0, 1 or 2This quarterNext quarter

    How to raise it

    Where to find it:
    The same screen, at that hour of the day.
    To get it to a 2:
    The response time for that hour, read from the screen and written down with the date.

  3. 3 The average beside it

    Your answer, and where it is written down (with the date) What was the average response time on the same screen, for the same month?

    Your answer
    Score 0, 1 or 2This quarterNext quarter

    How to raise it

    Where to find it:
    The same screen and the same range, the average line.
    To get it to a 2:
    The average written next to the busiest hour's response time, both from that screen and dated.

  4. 4 What users said

    Your answer, and where it is written down (with the date) When users last told you storage was slow, what time of day was it?

    Your answer
    Score 0, 1 or 2This quarterNext quarter

    How to raise it

    Where to find it:
    Tickets or chat messages from users.
    To get it to a 2:
    A dated ticket or message, with its time of day, matched or not matched to the busiest hour in row 1.

  5. 5 The last reading

    Your answer, and where it is written down (with the date) When did you last put the busiest hour's response time next to the average?

    Your answer
    Score 0, 1 or 2This quarterNext quarter

    How to raise it

    Where to find it:
    Your own notes, or the log you keep.
    To get it to a 2:
    A dated reading inside the interval your team sets. No interval written down? Write your guess (once a month, once a quarter) and score against it.

Your total, out of 10

9-10 Known
Score the same page again next quarter.
5-8 Partly known
Fix your lowest row this week.
0-4 Assumed
Do row 1 this week.

Two rules beat the total: if row 1 scores below 2, the result is Assumed. Any row that missed your plan or guess is your next step.

When users last told you storage was slow, what time of day was it?

What this does not prove

The reading shows when, not why: a slow hour can come from the network, the servers or the application. One busy hour does not show it was the worst hour, or that the same hour will come back. If the two numbers are close, the busiest hour shows no sign of strain on that system this month.

Made by StepKnock, a small team in San Diego, paid through our partners when a customer buys. This page sells nothing.

Related

Use it with: How slow is our busiest hour, next to the average?

More like this: A slow hour on shared storage is hard to explain until you can say whose work is in it

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