Team foundation server 2010 - some setup question relating to performance

Question

Hi Setup TFS 2010 on a pretty oldish server (actually an oldish desktop machine running server 2003 - single core, pre Core2 P4 so outdated...)

I'm finding a first adding and first getting of a website with about 700 files is quite slow (over 20 mins already over a VPN line).

Once you do that, the checkin / checkout operations are reasonably ok.

One thing I haven't done yet is get one of the guys at work to make a change and for me at home to do a get latest. We were running VSS up to this and that operation used to be a killer!

Anyway, few questions: 1)We set it up as a basic installation on server 2008 express. Would there be any performance gain with full sql server 2008?

2) We have the option of moving the drive to a better core 2 machine that should be a lot faster - will that make any difference?

Or are we simply running into a typical slowness of TFS over a LAN (bearing in mind we as a team work mainly in the office but sometimes from home over VPN when the speed issue seems to get worse).

Answer 1

TFS in it self isn't slow. We run a TFS on a dedicated VM and with the other VM's on the actual server also taking up ticks, or TFS is decently fast and reliable. Even when checking in and out code, running reports etc... So maybe the 2 core machine would help, but your P4 shouldn't be that bad in running it. 700 Files should be fairly quick within a minute or so. I think its your VPN that makes it slow. Everyone knows how slow VPN's can be.

Answer 2

Just an update. We moved to a faster machine (since we were getting one anyway). The speed of the machine makes no difference.

The good news is, its only slow the first time you add a project to TFS or take it down from TFS.

Daily checkin / checkout is fine. Also, doing a get latest from home is much improved over VSS - it no longer does that horrible freeze while it spends 10 mins figuring out if files have changed.

It was worth the upgrade for this alone.