[Samba] Samba server slow down after serving more than casual data

[Michael]

Hello,

I am currently running Fedora 15 on an x86_64 system that acts as a 
whole house server for named, dhcp, nfs, nis, htpp, samba, etc

The system is currently running samba-3.5.11-71 with kernel 
2.6.40.6-0.fc15.x86_64.  The system is fully patched as of today. 
However, this issue has existed for at least 2 years and I am at a loss 
to debug it.

I have a simple samba configuration for sharing files to a windows VM on 
another box.

Here is the config:

[global]

workgroup = NERD
server string = Samba Server on NERD
security = user
hosts allow =192.168.1.
log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
max log size = 50

passdb backend = smbpasswd

dns proxy = no

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = no
writable = yes


This seems to work well for extended periods of time without issues 
until I transfer more than normal (for me) amounts of data like DVD ISOs 
or importing a music collection into itunes.  The direction of the data 
flow doesn't seem to matter. Once a large amount of data has been 
transferred, then all remote access becomes painfully slow. NFS access 
to the unix clients, samba access, even ssh'ing into the server becomes 
painfully slow.  Memory utilization and cpu utilization are low.

Restarting the samba server does not clear the issue.  Only rebooting 
the server clears up the issue.

I don't see any interesting messages in the log files

It seems like the use of samba triggers something on the server that 
brings it to a crawl and affects everything.

I can copy data back and forth using NFS for hours and never see the 
issue unless I use samba.

Any suggestions or help in debugging this issue?

Michael