samba - Apr 2000 - Large file deletion on large directories

I am using a samba server for a large number of files. It is a MS VSS
database which splits it's data into a-z directories and generally in each
directory I have about 30,000 files. When trying to delete files from the
VSS client, the file deletion process is very slow, taking around 15 seconds
per file.

What is strange is that the processor loading is only at %60 during this,
the rest is in the idle process. The VSS client is not the culprit here, as
a check on processor status on the NT client shows that it's taking
absolutely no time while all this is going on, it's waiting on the server to
finish.

Why am I only seeing less that 100% CPU loading during this intensive task ?
What can I do to speed up this process beside adding another CPU ? I am
using samba 1.9.18p10 on Debian 2.1


-Trevor

Trevor Nuridin wrote:
| I am using a samba server for a large number of files. It is a MS VSS
| database which splits it's data into a-z directories and generally in each
| directory I have about 30,000 files. When trying to delete files from the
| VSS client, the file deletion process is very slow, taking around 15 seconds
| per file

	Just by accident, I'm looking at a related issue this week
	at work (;-))
	
	Easy answer: you're saturating the disk, so you should RAID
	the data drives across a large number of disk heads. With
	10 head, not only are the deletes  ~9 times faster, but
	you won't tie the disk up doing huge directory-reads while
	some other user is trying to access a different file.
	
	Hard answer: figure out how to hash/btree an ext2 directory without
	requiring you to newfs the disk to upgrade it to the new
	format...
	
	
--dave

--
David Collier-Brown in Boston
Phone: (781) 442-0734, Room BUR03-3632