[Samba] Linux vs. Windows SMB buffering

[Will Lucas]

Hi all,

In our office we use a program that makes many small writes to a file. We
have been trying to use this program with our NAS, which hosts a Samba
share on the network. However, the performance of the program is
staggeringly slow on Window 7, 8.1, and 10.

To make the problem easily repeatable, I created a small C++ program to
just write 1 million lines to a file:
https://github.com/mevatron/nas-write-test

Next, I performed a packet capture of the two OS conversations with
Wireshark. I found the Linux SMB implementation buffer many hundreds of
lines into each write; whereas, Windows decides to immediately flush it's
buffer to disk on each line write, which obviously causes tremendous
protocol overhead and thus abysmal performance.

I have tried adjusting Lanmanworkstation parameters:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc978438.aspx

The ones that looked promising are shown below:

MaxCollectionCount
"Specifies the amount of data that must be present in the character-mode
buffer of a named pipe to trigger a write operation. If the amount of data
in the buffer meets or exceeds this value, it is written immediately.
Otherwise, it is retained in the buffer until either more data is added or
the value of the CollectionTime entry expires.
Increasing the value of this entry can improve the performance of
named-pipe applications, but it does not affect applications, such as SQL
Server applications, that do their own buffering."

CollectionTime
"Specifies the maximum time that application data waiting to be written can
remain in the character-mode buffer of a named pipe .
The redirector writes data from the character-mode buffer when the amount
of buffered data reaches the size threshold established by the value of the
MaxCollectionCount entry. However, if the application has written at least
one byte of data to the buffer but not enough data to reach the size
threshold, the contents of the buffer are written when the time specified
by this value expires.
Increasing the value of this entry can improve the performance of named
pipe applications. However, it does not affect applications, such as SQL
Server applications, which do their own buffering."

Unfortunately, I am unable to get these parameters to have any effect.

I have also determined through testing that this problem persists even when
bypassing Samba on the NAS and just writing directly between to Windows
boxes. So, I don't think it's an issue with Samba, but with the Windows SMB
client.

I was hoping someone with more knowledge of SMB has seen this before or has
deeper insights into what I can do to solve it.

I have a more visual write up of all of this on ServerFault here:
https://serverfault.com/questions/808633/small-writes-to-smb-network-share-are-slow-on-windows-fast-over-cifs-linux-moun

I have a bounty of 100 points if you would like to collect :D

Thanks for your time!
Will