Mike Cathey wrote: > Clint, > Could you provide some examples, in terms of numbers, of some of the NFS > implementations you're using and what size of shares they work with best?
My only recent NFS experience in a production environment that would be relevant to this discussion is with my NetApp filer. There is a performance tuning section in the manual (which I can't link to since the website requires login). Here are some old white papers from Netapp (at least a few years old). These explain why a NetApp filer is so good at serving up files over NFS. File System Design for an NFS File Server Appliance http://www.netapp.com/tech_library/3002.html Accelerated Performance for Large Directories http://www.netapp.com/tech_library/3006.html This explains why NetApps are good with Large Directories (like mail spools). NFS Performance with NetApp Filers http://www.netapp.com/tech_library/3008.html This shows how performance increases relative to the addition of disks, cpu, memory, etc. I have a fairly small NFS load on my server (the majority of the filer gets used for other functions [it's not just an NFS server]). NFS benchmarking has been done for all the NetApp filers, which I surveyed before purchasing the filer (see http://www.spec.org/osg/sfs97r1/). When I first got the filer, I performed some rudimentary large file transfer tests with linux clients (really to just test linux clients since I was patching them on a regular basis). I did some pop and smtp tests a long time ago, but I can't remember my numbers. I just used the simple test programs from, http://www.stalker.com/MailTests I simulated a reasonable load for my circumstances and nothing broke ;) Since the question really just deals with large directories and nfs, I'm sure that some of the other os-specific newsgroups could provide better insight. My solution works beautifully with my 200 or so mail users and the few mailing lists I'm kicking around. Hopefully, other members of this mailing list can help with some numbers from high-load servers (I know they exist). NetApp has many case studies and other white papers online that may be of interest, as well. Later, -- Clint Bullock Network Administrator University of Georgia
