[Samba] Performance Question: Lots of Small Files vs One Large File

[Robert Buck]

Is this a protocol issue? A decade ago I saw writes to small files less
than 16k were awful, because the cost of opening and other file ops dwarfed
writing actual content. So very small files should be slow, but these files
are 10mb each.

Or is this a Windows issue? If so, what's causing the problem?

Just trying to understand.

On Tue, Oct 6, 2020 at 2:39 PM Ralph Boehme <slow at samba.org> wrote:

> Am 10/6/20 um 7:49 PM schrieb Robert Buck via samba:
> > In an architecture where we have Samba running on RHEL exposing shares to
> > Windows, when we have 1 large 1GB file, the write performance to storage
> is
> > very fast, even over distances of 5000 miles. However, even writes to
> local
> > Samba servers, with 100 10MB files being copied onto a shared drive,
> > Windows Explorer is MUCH slower. I don't know if it's really Samba, but
> > more than likely Windows.
> >
> > Does anyone on channel have experience with copying multiple small files
> > onto shares? Are there any ways to make copying files onto a share
> faster?
>
> to save you a lot rocking back and forth, yes, small files workloads
> will be slower. The smaller, the slower... :)
>
> -slow
>
> --
> Ralph Boehme, Samba Team                https://samba.org/
> Samba Developer, SerNet GmbH   https://sernet.de/en/samba/
> GPG-Fingerprint   FAE2C6088A24252051C559E4AA1E9B7126399E46
>
> --

BOB BUCK
SENIOR PLATFORM SOFTWARE ENGINEER

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