[Samba] is there a bandwidth limit per file?

[Michael]

Hello!
Sorry for late answer but, i was on travel until sunday. I tried with 
Ubuntu Live CD but still with similiar limit. So, I decided to upgrade 
to Gigabit Interface (Switch & NICs).

Here, the results for the case someone is curious.

Now I get around 160MBit on average from and to the server. This does 
not change when copying several files in parallel. With NETIO around 
250MBit (linx-win) and 500MBit (win-win) are possible. I guess 20MB/s is 
what i can get with this slow computer and Samba.

Thank you, Jeremy for the fast and good support,
    Michael

Jeremy Allison schrieb:
> On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 12:20:19AM +0200, Michael wrote:
>   
>> Hello Everybody!
>>
>> I set up a fileserver:
>>    - Pentium II, 350 Mhz,
>>    - 256MB RAM,
>>    - Intel Fast Ethernet PCI
>>    - VIA-SATA Controller
>>    - 2x500GB SATA HDD RAID 1
>>    - Debian 4, Samba 3
>>    - Samba set up in user shares mode without special options, but with
>> the suggested optimizations
>>
>> Clients:
>>    - Windows XP Prof SP2
>>
>> So far it works fine. I can read and write files without problem. But my
>> bandwith seems to be limited somehow. When i copy one file i get a
>> nearly constant transfer rate of about 6.8 MB/s (read and write).
>> Do i copy two files in parallel i get a total transfer rate of about
>> 10MB/s (again for read and write)
>> with 3 files it is even around 11MB/s. Why i can't reach this transfer
>> rate with just one file? It is the same from both windows pc.
>>
>> I benchmarked my network around 11.5MB/s are reached using netio
>> (Win-Win,Win-Debian).
>> The HDDs are reaching 60MB/s with hdparm -t /dev/sd?
>>
>> I search for such an issue, but didn't find something useful. I looked into 
>> the documentation, but didn't find some hints for that issue.
>>
>> How can i find the bootleneck in the system?
>>     
>
> I'd guess the problem is the Windows redirector only
> allowing one outstanding 64k read/write request on
> the wire at a time. This is a known problem with
> XP. To test is this is the case, try using smbclient
> from another Linux box to write a file and see
> if the throughput rises. We allow up to max mux
> (protocol limit) outstanding requests on the
> wire.
>
> Jeremy.
>
>