Re: [uug] NFS vs SAMBA

[David Smith]

Here's the explanation for the CS slowness. Our file server (which runs 
both NFS and Samba) has some hardware problems. We've tried every 
possible configuration option known to man, including tracing through 
the kernel source code. The slow-down during the CS 124 final was 
amplified by the fact that their exam submission script was inefficient 
and caused our LDAP servers to also take a serious hit. We can't simply 
take down the machine during the middle of the semester and install a 
new one since it's our most mission critical machine. Even a reboot 
could cost us several hours of down-time for fsck'ing. We can't afford 
that. We have about 200 Linux NFS clients hitting the NFS server and 
about 150 Windows Samba clients hitting the same server at any given 
time. We are currently testing a brand new server that will replace the 
current file server. My stress tests thus far have been very positive. 
It's a 4-CPU (hyperthreaded) Xeon 2Ghz box  with 15,000 RPM SCSI drives.

What I can tell you about Samba vs. NFS: The SMB protocol requires a 
pretty beafy box because it does a lot of computation. NFS is just raw 
UDP traffic that uses RPC. Not much computation involved there. If I had 
a large deployment of Linux boxes, I would not use Samba to mount shares 
between the machines. I would definitely go with NFS.

--Dave

Kekoa Vincent wrote:

I would like to know which would be faster in a mounted environment.  I
hear Samba could offer better performance.  I think in the Talmage labs
they connect to a NFS server(I dunno), and during CS142 finals it was
way frustrating, because when basically every computer in the building
is using the network drive the system(network? i dunno) was painfully
slow.  I don't know if this is NFS or what, but I remember how it was
the worst. Although I'll never be using more than 8 computers on my
network, it would be nice to know what I should actually use for the
best performance(mainly speed) to mount my Linux boxes(I'll run Samba
for the windows ones).  I'd appreciate any opinions, or other alternate
suggestions.
 



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