[Samba] Miserable read performance (factor ~60 too slow)

[Oliver Schulze L.]

Could it be the disk?
Can you do a:
hdparm -t /dev/sda

Then benchmark your XP disk with www.hdtune.com

HTH
Oliver

Arno Schäfer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to migrate my files from a Windows XP Pro box to a new 
> server running OpenSuSE 10.2/Linux 2.6.18 (x86_64) and Samba 3.0.25b.
>
> The Server is a new Athlon 64 X2 4000+/1GB with two 400GB SATA disks 
> in a software RAID1 configuration. The share file system is reiserfs 
> on a 350GB RAID1 partition.
>
> I have a small LAN with three PCs on 100MBit Ethernet and a Laptop on 
> WLAN on a 4 Port Switch/WLAN/DSL router.
>
>
> I am experiencing extremely (an I really mean EXTREMELY) bad 
> performance. It is so bad that it can not have anything to do with 
> performance "tuning", it must be a configuration error somewhere.
>
> Doing some comparisons, I find that
>
> - copying a 700MB file from the CIFS share of the Windows XP box to a 
> different Windows PC starts immediately and takes about two minutes.
>
> - copying the same file via HTTP from the new Samba server takes a 
> little more than one minute (10.5 MB/sec).
>
> - copying the file from the Samba share varies hugely. It can take 
> between 90 seconds and literally hours (!).
>
> - sometimes it goes faster, but almost always the startup time is 
> between 20 and 90 seconds, that is the time before the copying even 
> begins.
>
> - I have found repeatedly that when I am copying a file from the Samba 
> share, and it goes extremely slow (estimated time 90 minutes), and I 
> start copying a second file (from the same or a different PC), 
> suddenly the copying speeds up to "normal" speed.
>
> ifconfig does not show any collisions or errors, and as I said, 
> copying via HTTP is extremely fast.
>
> The Linux installation is as barebones as I could make it, no X11, no 
> firewall (for now), no ZENWorks or AppArmor or anything. I already 
> once reinstalled everything from scratch, to no avail.
>
> Any ideas would be immensely appreciated, as I am seriously 
> considering going back to Windows XP ;-)
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Arno
>
>
> Here is my smb.conf:
>
> [global]
>         workgroup = MSHEIMNETZ
>         printing = cups
>         printcap name = cups
>         printcap cache time = 750
>         cups options = raw
>         map to guest = Bad User
>         include = /etc/samba/dhcp.conf
>         logon path = \\%L\profiles\.msprofile
>         logon home = \\%L\%U\.9xprofile
>         logon drive = P:
>         usershare allow guests = Yes
>         add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd  -c Machine -d 
> /var/lib/nobody -s /bin/false %m$
>         domain logons = No
>         domain master = No
>         security = share
>         netbios name = FILESERVER2
>
> [printers]
>         comment = All Printers
>         path = /var/tmp
>         printable = Yes
>         create mask = 0600
>         browseable = No
> [print$]
>         comment = Printer Drivers
>         path = /var/lib/samba/drivers
>         write list = @ntadmin root
>         force group = ntadmin
>         create mask = 0664
>         directory mask = 0775
>
> [share]
>         comment = share
>         path = /share
>         read only = No
>         guest ok = Yes
>         browsable = Yes
>

-- 
Oliver Schulze L.   | http://tinymailto.com/oliver  
Asuncion - Paraguay | http://www.solojuegos.mobi