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Date:      Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:38:39 +0100
From:      Nenad Mihajlovic <nenad@venturis.hu>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   FreeBSD SAMBA file server performance - strange behaviour
Message-ID:  <20080225163839.0ynsnyqygwgs84cg@venturis.hu>

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Hi all,

Recently I have received the reuest from the colleague to create the =20
homebrewn NAS for his small office, so I started checking the possible =20
options, and having good, stable and long relationship with FreeBSD =20
I've settled again for it.
Machine is not something special, Pentium D with 1G RAM and single =20
SATA150 disk, 3Com 1G server card in the PCI slot, connected to the =20
desktop though 1Gbps unmanaged switch.
If needed I'll provide the full config and setup information.

After installing the bare FreeBSD 7.0RC3 and Samba 3.x.xx - whichewer =20
was included in the packages - I wanted to have the job done quickly, =20
the machine appeared on the network and everyone seemed to be happy =20
and live happily everafter.
Until dear friend of mine started using the machine to do the actual =20
work - basic editing of the wedding videos.

When trying to upload the single file to file server, he was getting =20
the varying speed of 5-13 MBps, from his machine to file server - =20
which is unacceptably low for any kind of transfer speed.

Interestingly enough, when he tried to copy _TWO_ files to file =20
server, the transfer speed vould jump to the 25-27 MB/sec and keep =20
permanent, without much fluctuation.

After I tried to copy the files from one directory to another, iostat =20
has shown me the speed in excess of 29 MB/sec while copying the files =20
between two directories on the same server, so the disk access should =20
not be the problem.

On the other hand, i experienced that when i try PING on the File =20
server's IP address from the fileserver, i get performance increase in =20
the transfer speed - the bigger the traffic i generate, the better the =20
results, which max out at 25-27 MB/sec with flood ping.

Has anyone else experienced any similar behaviour?

Regards,

Nenad




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