[Samba] Windows 2K outperform Linux/Samba very much?

[Malcolm Baldridge]

Jacky Kim <jcy_2008 at 163.com> wrote:

> I trid 20,000 files in a directory too, and found the same result:
> Windows's share is about 10 times faster than Linux/samba's one 
> when get small file's property(NOT content).

Jacky,

Not all Linux filesystems are created equally, especially for this kind of
file access method.

Ext2/Ext3 is probably the slowest filesytem for this kind of thing.  I have
seen some glimpses of directory hashing being retrofitted into ext2/ext3,
but this requires a format-time option with very new tools, with new
mount/kernels, etc.

You'd be MUCH better off with reiserfs.  I've had 500,000 files in a single
directory without a significant decrease in performance.  I've never managed
to get Windows 2000 to manage this without really tanking in performance
[I've given up the test harness long before it got that far].

I don't think you'll ever see samba outperforming Windows in this though,
because of the case-insensitivity issue, though it should at least match the
performance.

Reiserfs may provide other benefits (superior access locality) which MIGHT
boost performance a bit towards Linux/Samba, but I'd not hold my breath.

=MB=