How to Increase SAS processing

[SAS_user]

Hello,

how to increase SAS processing.
Everything was ok, but suddenly all my datasteps and sortsteps, became significantly slower.
For instance:
Earlier:
NOTE: There were 26919787 observations read from the data set WORK.************.
NOTE: The data set WORK.************ has 26919787 observations and 8 variables.
NOTE: PROCEDURE SORT used (Total process time):
real time 5:54.18
cpu time 2:14.35

Now:
NOTE: There were 25018900 observations read from the data set WORK..************.
NOTE: The data set WORK..************ has 25018900 observations and 8 variables.
NOTE: PROCEDURE SORT used (Total process time):
real time 15:30.68
cpu time 2:17.62

I think the sort procedure works OK, but outputting to a dataset is quite slowly.

[Paige]

The real time took longer, but the CPU time was approximately the same.

This would indicate to me that the problem isn't SAS, its the other things your computer is doing.

[DanielSantos]

From my experience, In the end, it's always a I/O problem.

Have you measured your I/O at the system level?

You should have no less than 70MB/sec per process to achieve a reasonable performance.

Cheers from Portugal.

Daniel Santos @ www.cgd.pt.