[linux-cifs-client] sequential read performance - read ahead ?

[Alexander Indenbaum]

Hello,

I'm working with two kinds of embedded Linux boxes powered by 2.4
kernel and cifs  1.20c connected to Windows CIFS server via 100Mbps
Ethernet switch. Our usage pattern is sequential read of large files
from CIFS shares ("streaming"). I'm using  simple "time dd
if=CIFS_FILE of=/dev/null" benchmark to measure read performance. Here
are results:

CPU strength/BogoMIPS        Read Throughput/Mbps
266                                       5
2988                                     14.5

As you see, read performance is heavily influenced by CPU strength :)
I'm looking for a ways to improve read performance especially on  weak
266 BogoMIPS box. After doing some reading I started to believe the
best way to do so is to implement some kind of read-ahead mechanism. I
saw 2.5 kernel patch by James Roper doing so over vfs_readpages
interface - http://marc.info/?l=linux-cifs-client&m=112665626721358
I've tried to integrate the patch but 2.4 kernel does not have
vfs_readpages interface :(.

So what do you think? Is it possible to implement CIFS read-ahead over
2.4 VFS? How?
Maybe other ideas for performance optimization?

Thank you for your help,
Alexander Indenbaum