[Samba] Performance: Samba 3 vs. Windows 2003

Tue Apr 27 19:34:33 GMT 2004

Ok, I had to fess up my own stupidity.

After checking ifconfig, I noticed that there were no RX errors but a ton of
TX errors.  I forced the card to 100Mb Full duplex and also forced the port
on Cisco switch to do the same.

Samba runs like a champ now.

Doug

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Curtis" <doug.curtis at gtrep.gatech.edu>
To: <samba at lists.samba.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 1:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Samba] Performance: Samba 3 vs. Windows 2003

> 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
> > >>---                                                               ---
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>--
> > >>To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
> > >>instructions:  http://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > 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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> > instructions:  http://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
> >
>