[linux-cifs-client] Slow Folder Traversal on One system, Fast on Another

[Tanthrix The Great]

I've got cifs mounted windows share on two linux systems here, an older
system running Arch Linux with kernel 2.6.21, and a newer Ubuntu system with
kernel 2.6.31-17.

If I do "ls -R" on the cifs mounted share (which is on a Windows 7 machine)
on the older Arch linux system, it takes about 1/4 of a second to list some
3000 files in 50 or so folders. If I do the same on the newer system, it
takes 6-7 seconds to read all the files out. These times are repeatable and
consistent, and both systems mount the share using the same command. (mount
-t cifs -o username=X,password=X //system/share /mountpoint)

This delay is causing a program I use to playback media files (the MythVideo
plugin of MythTV) to take 6-7 seconds to load the full directory tree each
time I open it, something I do quite frequently.

Are there any tips/tricks out there to speed up the traversal of cifs
mounted shares? If not, what would you recommend I would to do try and
figure out what the cause of this delay is?

Everything else on both systems works perfectly, and file transfers from the
Windows machine to linux machines go pretty much the exact same speed. This
makes me think the network is not to blame, though I'm open to any
possibilities.

Anything you could recommend would be very much appreciated, thanks.
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