[Samba] Samba transfer performance

[Thaddeus Waldner]

Hello all,

I am setting up a Samba file server for use in a school. I need help with getting better transfer speeds between machines.

The file server runs on an ESXi VM. I have a second Ubuntu VM set up on the same host for testing. The VM has two teamed 10Gb fiber channels to the LAN switch. I also have a Mac connected with 10Gb ethernet.

Both VMs run Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Samba 4.14 from the van-belle.nl<http://van-belle.nl> repository. I have a single share configured on the file server and mounted on the test machines

I have done the following tests;
An iperf test gives me about 9.5Gb/s to the Mac and 15Gb/s to the second VM on the server (traffic is routed through the vSwitch directly to the second VM).

A dd read/write test on the file server gives me about 450MB/s.
An hdparm test gives me about 8500MB/s cached, and 850MB/s buffered.

However, when I mount a share on either the Mac or the VM, the transfer speeds tops out at about 120MB/s. I expected about 4 to8 times that speed.

Are my expectations reasonable? What else can I try?

Thaddeus Waldner