Same SAS code runs slower on another PC

[bnawrocki]

My co-worker and I have similar Windows 7 PCs running SAS locally - we have similar amounts of free disk space and memory and CPUs.

However, when she runs a SAS program, it takes her computer 3 or 4 times longer to run it than when I run the same program. The SAS code accesses SAS datasets that reside on our network.

I've looked at Windows Task Manager, and her computer doesn't seem to be maxing out on CPU or Memory when she is running the SAS code. I know how to read the SAS log to show "CPU"  time and "Real" time used by each SAS code step. Her CPU time is similar, but Real time is much, much higher.

Any ideas how to troubleshoot this issue? 

[Tom · Accepted solution]

Some obvious things to check.

How busy is the machine doing other things? They could be taking CPU cycles, using memory, moving the disk head away from where SAS needs to read and/or write.

Are you using remote or local disks?  If remote how fast is the connection to the disk.  If local how optimized is the disk?  perhaps the data being read is fragmented on one disk and contiguous on the other.  Similarly for writing is there contiguous space to write the data or does the disk head need to jump around.

How similar are the machines really? Are the CPUs specs really the same? Are the disks really the same? Is the memory speed really the same?