For the type of workload you described (single user, 10 MB files), I would be very surprised if you see any difference between protocol implementations (samba or smb/server). We will be focusing on performance soon but initial feedback for that type of workload is that it's a wash, and the server is not being driven hard enough to see any limitations - partly due to the limited request rate from a single client. In order to judge things, you'd need to add additional clients and look for changes in performance and network utilization.
I would also be surprised if a switched fast ethernet network would be saturated with your workload and configuration in a small, general purpose Windows workgroup environment. I don't think you mentioned which version of Nevada you are using but there are people using smb/server successfully with Mac's. If you are not using build 83, an upgrade may help. Alan -- Aaron wrote: > A few weeks ago I decided to use Solaris as the basis of my home NAS. After > learning about the benefits of ZFS I just couldn't let myself use anything > else. > > Setting up the RAIDZ storage (4x500GB in my case) is the easy part. The hard > part is making all that storage available to the Windows and Mac clients on > my network. So I set about reading all about it. It took me a while to > realise that "Samba" and "SMB" were not the same thing. I see things more > clearly now that I have made that distinction! What isn't clear though is the > performance difference between these two, specifically with a very fast link, > i.e. gigabit ethernet. I tried to find a performance comparison, but came up > with nothing. > > I am not interested in how each performs as a multi-user database server, or > as a domain controller for a large number of users. I care about single-user > raw speed in a small workgroup environment. That is, how fast can I read and > write big (>> 10 MiB) files to and from this thing, assuming that only one > user is doing this at a time. > > Because it looks good on paper, I tried CIFS/SMB (i.e. > svc:/network/smb/server) first, but I am not impressed. It wouldn't saturate > fast ethernet, nevermind gigabit. Not only is the performance abysmal, but I > can't make the Mac play nice with it. I just get error -36 or error -50 when > trying to connect. Thanks Apple for such informative error codes. So far it > doesn't look good for CIFS. I don't much care that it is in-kernel and a > "first class citizen" and all that. Make it work and make it fast and we'll > talk. > > Next I'll try Samba. > > When I have some real numbers to publish, I will. With my test results I will > also publish a step-by-step to setting up each service. Has anyone else done > a comparison like this? Would you like to share your results, or perhaps any > tips, tricks, or tweaks to improve performance of either SMB or Samba? > > p.s. Details of my Solaris box: > O/S: SXDE 1/08 (64 bit) > CPU: AMD X2 at 2.4 GHz > Asus M2A-VM motherboard (AMD 690G) > 2 GB DDR2 dual channel RAM (minus 128 MB for MB video) > On-board Realtek Gigabit ethernet on PCI-express (rge driver) > 1 x 80 GB PATA disk for O/S > 4 x 500 GB SATA disk (Seagate Baracuda 7200.11, 32 MiB cache) for RAIDZ > - RAIDZ writes using dd from /dev/zero at about 75 MiB/s > - RAIDZ reads using dd to /dev/null at about 150 MiB/s > - ftp read in excess of 50 MiB/s (limited by disk speed on receiving end) > > p.p.s. I asked this question elsewhere but someone pointed me here, so if you > notice the duplicate threads, that's why. > > > This message posted from opensolaris.org > _______________________________________________ > storage-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/storage-discuss _______________________________________________ storage-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/storage-discuss
