Hello All, I have been doing some research to find a method to increase the performance of writes to the hard drives in my servers. I am running Samba and all writes to the server hard drives are taking at least 3 to 10 times (It varies) the amount of time it took to write such files on our older Windows NT 4.0 File Server. The following information is provided to keep this issue on track... It is not a NIC or network issue. Reads of files from those drives take place almost instantly. I have been able to copy an entire 700MB CD-ROM ISO image off of the server in less then 3 minutes, yet writing a 5 MB file to the server will take approximately the 3 minutes, or more. I have also optimized the smb.conf file as best as it can be. This resulted in a gain of approximately 15 seconds. This happens regardless of how busy the server is in serving files to other users as I have tested this while all PCs were in use on the network and also when none were in use. In some of my searching, I have read that ReiserFS has faster write performance then Ext3FS. So, I blew away the "share" partition on our test server, recreated that with ReiserFS and rebuilt the share. So far, I have only seen a few seconds of speed increase. (The other odd thing is that the Windows Explorer file copy progress bar is much more consistent to the ReiserFS share then the ext3fs share.) I have a few ideas about why there is a slowdown and a few ideas of what could possibly increase performance. However, I am at a loss as to how to implement those changes or how to verify that they are even possible. (Except by asking this list.) My Google searches have come up dry with actual methods (ie. Commands to look at or actually use.) to implement some performance enhancements. All they say are things like, change ext3fs's method of writing the journal from the stock "conservative" method to the much faster, yet slightly dangerous, method. There is just no mention of how that is done. I have read through the man pages and there is nothing that leaps out and says, "This is the command that alters the ext3fs journal method." From what I read, so far, about the two journaling methods it is a VERY acceptable risk for the potential performance increase. (It is even more acceptable if it can be setup only to affect the share partition, which is also its own separate drive.) There are a few other ideas that I have, but after thinking those over, they would likely be far more of a hassle then they would be worth. Are there any suggestions for increasing HD Write performance, while still using a journaling FS? At this time, I do not have the resources and additional funds to rebuild the hard drives using XFS or JFS. So, it has to be ReiserFS or ext3fs. Thanks for any assistance! Regards, Robert Adkins II IT Manager/Buyer Impel Industries, Inc. 586-254-5800
Sorry... I sent this to the wrong list. It was meant for a more general Linux list. Regards, Robert Adkins II IT Manager/Buyer Impel Industries, Inc. 586-254-5800 -----Original Message----- From: samba-bounces+radkins=impelind.com@lists.samba.org [mailto:samba-bounces+radkins=impelind.com@lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of Robert Adkins II Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 10:02 AM To: samba@lists.samba.org Subject: [Samba] Ext3fs/ReiserFS Performance Enhancing Hello All, I have been doing some research to find a method to increase the performance of writes to the hard drives in my servers. I am running Samba and all writes to the server hard drives are taking at least 3 to 10 times (It varies) the amount of time it took to write such files on our older Windows NT 4.0 File Server. The following information is provided to keep this issue on track... It is not a NIC or network issue. Reads of files from those drives take place almost instantly. I have been able to copy an entire 700MB CD-ROM ISO image off of the server in less then 3 minutes, yet writing a 5 MB file to the server will take approximately the 3 minutes, or more. I have also optimized the smb.conf file as best as it can be. This resulted in a gain of approximately 15 seconds. This happens regardless of how busy the server is in serving files to other users as I have tested this while all PCs were in use on the network and also when none were in use. In some of my searching, I have read that ReiserFS has faster write performance then Ext3FS. So, I blew away the "share" partition on our test server, recreated that with ReiserFS and rebuilt the share. So far, I have only seen a few seconds of speed increase. (The other odd thing is that the Windows Explorer file copy progress bar is much more consistent to the ReiserFS share then the ext3fs share.) I have a few ideas about why there is a slowdown and a few ideas of what could possibly increase performance. However, I am at a loss as to how to implement those changes or how to verify that they are even possible. (Except by asking this list.) My Google searches have come up dry with actual methods (ie. Commands to look at or actually use.) to implement some performance enhancements. All they say are things like, change ext3fs's method of writing the journal from the stock "conservative" method to the much faster, yet slightly dangerous, method. There is just no mention of how that is done. I have read through the man pages and there is nothing that leaps out and says, "This is the command that alters the ext3fs journal method." From what I read, so far, about the two journaling methods it is a VERY acceptable risk for the potential performance increase. (It is even more acceptable if it can be setup only to affect the share partition, which is also its own separate drive.) There are a few other ideas that I have, but after thinking those over, they would likely be far more of a hassle then they would be worth. Are there any suggestions for increasing HD Write performance, while still using a journaling FS? At this time, I do not have the resources and additional funds to rebuild the hard drives using XFS or JFS. So, it has to be ReiserFS or ext3fs. Thanks for any assistance! Regards, Robert Adkins II IT Manager/Buyer Impel Industries, Inc. 586-254-5800 -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: http://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
Finding out how to tune the EXT3 journaling method would be good. That information has eluded my searches as well... However, before you fiddle with your file system, you should really investigate what your problem really is. Unfortunately, you assertian that you do not have network problems because you can download a file quickly is not at all true. Many network problems can affect traffic one way moreso than the other. There is no reason that writing a 10MB file to a Samba share should take more a 10 seconds. (Mine goes in a bout 5 seconds, and my Samba server hard drive writing speed is actually *very* slow) If it's taking you over a minute to transfer 5 MB, something is very very wrong. On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, Robert Adkins II wrote: Hello All, I have been doing some research to find a method to increase the performance of writes to the hard drives in my servers. I am running Samba and all writes to the server hard drives are taking at least 3 to 10 times (It varies) the amount of time it took to write such files on our older Windows NT 4.0 File Server. The following information is provided to keep this issue on track... It is not a NIC or network issue. Reads of files from those drives take place almost instantly. I have been able to copy an entire 700MB CD-ROM ISO image off of the server in less then 3 minutes, yet writing a 5 MB file to the server will take approximately the 3 minutes, or more. I have also optimized the smb.conf file as best as it can be. This resulted in a gain of approximately 15 seconds. This happens regardless of how busy the server is in serving files to other users as I have tested this while all PCs were in use on the network and also when none were in use. In some of my searching, I have read that ReiserFS has faster write performance then Ext3FS. So, I blew away the "share" partition on our test server, recreated that with ReiserFS and rebuilt the share. So far, I have only seen a few seconds of speed increase. (The other odd thing is that the Windows Explorer file copy progress bar is much more consistent to the ReiserFS share then the ext3fs share.) I have a few ideas about why there is a slowdown and a few ideas of what could possibly increase performance. However, I am at a loss as to how to implement those changes or how to verify that they are even possible. (Except by asking this list.) My Google searches have come up dry with actual methods (ie. Commands to look at or actually use.) to implement some performance enhancements. All they say are things like, change ext3fs's method of writing the journal from the stock "conservative" method to the much faster, yet slightly dangerous, method. There is just no mention of how that is done. I have read through the man pages and there is nothing that leaps out and says, "This is the command that alters the ext3fs journal method." From what I read, so far, about the two journaling methods it is a VERY acceptable risk for the potential performance increase. (It is even more acceptable if it can be setup only to affect the share partition, which is also its own separate drive.) There are a few other ideas that I have, but after thinking those over, they would likely be far more of a hassle then they would be worth. Are there any suggestions for increasing HD Write performance, while still using a journaling FS? At this time, I do not have the resources and additional funds to rebuild the hard drives using XFS or JFS. So, it has to be ReiserFS or ext3fs. Thanks for any assistance! Regards, Robert Adkins II IT Manager/Buyer Impel Industries, Inc. 586-254-5800 -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: http://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
> -----Original Message----- > From: Larry McElderry [mailto:larry@ptcoupling.com] > Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 10:45 AM > To: Rashkae; Robert Adkins II > Cc: samba@lists.samba.org > Subject: RE: [Samba] Ext3fs/ReiserFS Performance Enhancing > > > I tend to agree. Perhaps a duplex mismatch between > hub/switch and NIC?Just to add: A duplex mismatch can cause late collisions that will *not* always be reported as errors in the Ethernet stats. A common symptom is that pings or small transfers go well, but large ones crawl or grind to a halt.
Hi, i probably know the solution. I've run into the same trouble. The main trouble is the big difference between the server's CPU and the client's CPU somehow. However, the folowing option will probably fix it: socket options = [...] SO_SNDBUF=2048 SO_RCVBUF=2048 try 4096 as well. Tell me if that helped. Bye, Szenty