Samba Speed Question

[David Collier-Brown]

Dave Dezinski wrote:
| We've got a few NT40 servers that have more than 20000 files 
| in a single directory, that don't perform this badly.  We'd 
| like to replace these servers with Linux boxes using Samba, 
| but unless we re-organize these files into multiple directories
| (which means a bunch of custom software needs to be rewritten), 
| this isn't possible.
|
| This definately is a problem that should be a looked into, this 
| is not the first time I've seen someone complain about this.  

	Yes, it's an artifact of the Unix algorihms:
	linear search and the reliable writes of the
	directory metadata.  The latter is adressed 
	in the  SGI logging filesystem, the Solaris 
	logging option, ReiserFS and in ext2fs.

| Spliting the files up into multiple directories, is just a 
| temporary workaround, not a solution.

	Well, it's sort of a permanent workaround (;-))
	It adresses the linear-search problem nicely,
	which only a true logging fs (or caching) helps with.

	NT will run out of speed on very deep b-tree
	structures, which fortunately are rare, although
	programs generating filenames sometimes stumble into
	the "bad" part of the namespace. So would hashing
	filesystems, if anyone built them.

--dave
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | Always do right. This will gratify some people
185 Ellerslie Ave.,   | and astonish the rest.        -- Mark Twain
Willowdale, Ontario   | //www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/author.html
Work: (905) 415-2849 Home: (416) 223-8968 Email: davecb at canada.sun.com