[Samba] single stream performance issue, Win2K, WinXP, Samba 3.2.5-4lenny7 (Debian Lenny)

[Stan Hoeppner]

Stan Hoeppner put forth on 1/27/2010 4:37 PM:
> Stan Hoeppner put forth on 1/25/2010 5:30 PM:
>> Volker Lendecke put forth on 1/25/2010 1:28 AM:
> 
>>> The dual-stream one is kindof limited help. The interesting
>>> piece is how Win->Win does its thing faster, so we need to
>>> see that one.
>>
>> I've been busting my but trying to get you something meaningful.  This dump is
>> less than optimal for two reasons, but it's the best I can get you thus far.
>>
>> 1.  Running tshark on Win2K creates a huge network performance hit and thus b/w
>> numbers for small file (<250MB) transfers don't come close to accurately
>> describing the real world.  With tshark running the b/w is less than half of
>> normal with small files.
>>
>> 2.  Because of this I had to do a huge file copy to allow time for the client to
>> level off at peak performance, which is still ~500KB/s lower than normal due to
>> tshark overhead.
>>
>> Anyway, the file is over 400MB.  It'll take quite a while to grab off my server.
>>
>> http://www.hardwarefreak.com/smb-winwin-single-stream
>>
>> Hope you are able to glean something meaningful from it.
> 
> Were you able to grab this trace file yet Volker?  If so, have you found
> anything interesting yet when comparing it to the previous Samba->Win2K trace
> file?  Any clues yet as to why the win-win throughput is almost 3MB/s better
> than Samba->Win?  If you haven't dug into it yet, as a reminder, this last trace
> capture was done with tshark on windows.  The previous trace file was captured
> on the Linux machine with tcpdump.

Some additional data points to add to this performance issue.  Using smbclient
3.2.5 on the samba server box, with no tweak options, I ran get/put tests to
each of the Windows workstations.  The results are interesting to say the least.
 The get performance maxes the fast ethernet link at ~11MB/s.  If you recall,
the workstations max out their upload to smbd at ~8MB/s, with the same for
download.  If smbclient on the smbd box can pull from a workstation at 11MB/s,
using the same TCP/IP stack and SO settings smbd should be able to absorb an
upload at 11MB/s because it's the same path.  But it doesn't, it caps the
workstation uploads (and downloads) at ~8MB/s, no matter what options I try.

Windows XP Home machine:
smb: \> get src.exe
getting file \src.exe of size 121983488 as src.exe (11276.5 kb/s) (average
11276.5 kb/s)
smb: \> put src.exe
putting file src.exe as \src.exe (6149.3 kb/s) (average 6149.3 kb/s)

Windows 2000 Pro machine:
smb: \> get src.exe
getting file \src.exe of size 121983488 as src.exe (11195.9 kb/s) (average
11195.9 kb/s)
smb: \> put src.exe
putting file src.exe as \src.exe (6362.5 kb/s) (average 6362.5 kb/s)

-- 
Stan