[Samba] Trying to find a bottleneck

[Jeff Morrow]

I'm trying to get my network setup as streamlined as possible.  I ran a 
brain-dead-simple speed test of Samba and I'm very confused by the 
results.  Here's my setup:

Fast new WinXP Pro machine
NetGear GA311 gigabit ethernet
   ^
   |     dedicated gigabit ethernet line (no switch)
   v
RTL8169 gigabit ethernet
Relatively fast new Debian Linux machine

I set up ramdisks on both machines to ensure that the hard drives were 
not the bottleneck.  I then put a roughly 7 MB file on the linux ramdisk 
and mounted that disk on my windows box via Samba.  I then wrote a .bat 
script on the windows side that copies the file from the linux ramdisk 
to the windows ramdisk over and over again.

On the windows side, the network utilization monitor says that network 
load stays around 25-30%.  It occasionally gets as high as 40%.  CPU 
usage on the windows side is negligible.  On the linux side, top reports 
that smbd is taking about 30% CPU.

I'm confused by the fact that neither network utilization nor CPU usage 
on either computer is getting anywhere near 100%.  I'm wondering if 
there are any config settings I can tweak to get Samba to fill my 
gigabit line more fully.

Thanks alot.

Jeff Morrow