[Samba] Performance: Samba 3 vs. Windows 2003

Tue Apr 27 17:36:43 GMT 2004

I have been noticing similar results with my server.  The Samba machine is
a dual processor Xeon with 1 gig of ram running Fedora Core 1.  The NT 4
machine is a dual PIII 500 machine with 512mb of ram.

I still have an NT 4 server and a Samba 3 machine that I setup.

A 25 meg copied from the NT machine takes about 4 seconds.  The same file
takes 8 seconds on the Samba 3 machine.

I had to play with the SO_SNDBUF and SO_RVCBUF.  It doesn't like them set
to 8192.  4096 works about as well as it can.

Doug

------------------------------------------
doug.curtis at gtrep.gatech.edu
Systems Support Specialist IV
Georgia Institute of Technology - Savannah
210 Technology Circle
Savannah, GA 31407
Phone: 912.966.7956
Fax: 912.966.7836

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, Paul Gienger wrote:

> Have you tested a non-samba protocol,  FTP perhaps?  Many ftp programs
> will give you an estimate of the speed realtime as well, fwiw, although
> they can be a little buggy at times on estimations.
>
> Andrew Gray wrote:
>
> >Here's a couple suggestions that we've played with.
> >
> >- What kernel are you running on your Samba box?  We got significantly
> >better performance when we switched to 2.6.5 over 2.4.22.
> >- Do you have debugging turned on in Samba?  Or anything other than log
> >level = 0?  That can slow things down a fair bit as well.
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Alexander Lazarevich" <alazarev at itg.uiuc.edu>
> >To: "Samba Mailing List" <samba at lists.samba.org>
> >Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 3:30 PM
> >Subject: [Samba] Performance: Samba 3 vs. Windows 2003
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>Samba guru's:
> >>
> >>Our Samba 3 network performance is half that of Windows 2003 Server. I
> >>really want to stay with samba/unix, but half the performance? I'm hoping
> >>someone can point me in the right direction so we can keep using
> >>samba/unix. I'll try to give as much detail without giving pages and
> >>pages of benchmark numbers. If someone wants to see numbers, I'll send
> >>them:
> >>
> >>Fileserver is Dell PE2600, Dual Xeon 18GHz, 2GB memory, Gig NIC. System
> >>is dual boot RHEL3-AS with an ext3 filesystem and Windows 2003 Server
> >>with NTFS. The fileserving disk is a SATA-SCSI RAID enclosure. Bonnie++
> >>and iozone both show that the RAID enclosure can do 80MB/sec writes and
> >>40MB/sec reads on the ext3 in linux. Benchmarks in windows 2003 are very
> >>similar. Why it gets faster writes than read, I don't know, and I don't
> >>care right now. What I'm worried about is our samba network performance.
> >>
> >>Clients are Windows XP/2K/NT4 pro with all patches installed and Gig NICs.
> >>All the clients can netperf to the server at 60+MB/sec, some even faster.
> >>No collisions on the NICs, nothing wrong with the network. There is a
> >>cisco Gig switch inbetween the client and the server as well.
> >>
> >>Here is the bottom line:
> >>
> >>When the server is running samba 3, the clients get 12-13MB/sec.
> >>
> >>When the server is running windows 2003, the clients get 24-26MB/sec.
> >>
> >>Keep in mind the server hardware is exactly the same, the only thing I
> >>change is the software. Windows 2003 beets up Samba 3, hands down.
> >>
> >>However, all this testing is done by just drag and drop, and looking at
> >>the clock to time it. Not the best way to do it, but I don't know of
> >>another way now, suggestions welcome. The difference is obvious and
> >>consistent: 500MB file in samba 3 writes to disk in 42 seconds, but writes
> >>to windows 2003 disk in 21 seconds. I can produce the same results on all
> >>of our clients any time of the day.
> >>
> >>I've tried changing the smb.conf socket options (TCP_NODELAY, SO_SNDBUF,
> >>etc.) to 65523, 242xxx, whatever. /etc/init.d/smb restart, then try again.
> >>No change in performance whatsoever. Still 12-13MB/sec. I've also set
> >>other options in smb.conf, such as xmit, write size, read size, but
> >>nothing seems to change the fact that samba 3 can't do more than
> >>12-13MB/sec.
> >>
> >>I've also searched the list, and found some people had success in
> >>performance issues by changing the SO_SNDBUF, but they didn't list any
> >>benchmark numbers. Maybe they were happy with 12-13MB/sec, but I'm not,
> >>especially if something else can get 25MB/sec.
> >>
> >>Any input is welcome.
> >>
> >>Alex
> >>---                                                               ---
> >>   Alex Lazarevich | Systems Administrator | Imaging Technology Group
> >>    Beckman Institute | University of Illinois | www.itg.uiuc.edu
> >>---                                                               ---
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>--
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Paul Gienger                     Office:		701-281-1884
> Applied Engineering Inc.         Cell:			701-306-6254
> Information Systems Consultant   Fax:			701-281-1322
> URL: www.ae-solutions.com        mailto:pgienger at ae-solutions.com
>
>
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