E-mail is supposed to be immediate, but lately Harvard servers seem to be slower than the postal service.

A solution is in the works.

Within several weeks, the staff of Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) should have installed new equipment to handle the increased load on the server.

"We believe we know the problem," said Franklin M. Steen, director of Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) computer services. "And we believe we know the answer."

According to Steen, the problem is the result of two bottlenecks in the current system set-up. The first results from slow communication between the network and the storage system, and the second is due to uneven distribution of workload.

Rick Osterberg '96, database applications specialist of FAS computer services, confirms that the problem has recently intensified.

"We are aware of the slowdowns that users have been noticing over the past several weeks," Osterberg wrote in an e-mail message. " The fundamental technical issue is that we don't have enough capacity in the storage system."

HASCS is constantly expanding, increasing the speed and size of its services.