samba - Aug 2021 - Samba transfer performance

Hello all,

I am setting up a Samba file server for use in a school. I need help with
getting better transfer speeds between machines.

The file server runs on an ESXi VM. I have a second Ubuntu VM set up on the same
host for testing. The VM has two teamed 10Gb fiber channels to the LAN switch. I
also have a Mac connected with 10Gb ethernet.

Both VMs run Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Samba 4.14 from the
van-belle.nl<http://van-belle.nl> repository. I have a single share
configured on the file server and mounted on the test machines

I have done the following tests;
An iperf test gives me about 9.5Gb/s to the Mac and 15Gb/s to the second VM on
the server (traffic is routed through the vSwitch directly to the second VM).

A dd read/write test on the file server gives me about 450MB/s.
An hdparm test gives me about 8500MB/s cached, and 850MB/s buffered.

However, when I mount a share on either the Mac or the VM, the transfer speeds
tops out at about 120MB/s. I expected about 4 to8 times that speed.

Are my expectations reasonable? What else can I try?

Thaddeus Waldner

On Fri, 2021-08-13 at 19:09 +0000, Thaddeus Waldner via samba
wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I am setting up a Samba file server for use in a school. I need help
> with getting better transfer speeds between machines.
> 
> The file server runs on an ESXi VM. I have a second Ubuntu VM set up
> on the same host for testing. The VM has two teamed 10Gb fiber
> channels to the LAN switch. I also have a Mac connected with 10Gb
> ethernet.
> 
> Both VMs run Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Samba 4.14 from the van-belle.nl<
> http://van-belle.nl> repository. I have a single share configured on
> the file server and mounted on the test machines
> 
> I have done the following tests;
> An iperf test gives me about 9.5Gb/s to the Mac and 15Gb/s to the
> second VM on the server (traffic is routed through the vSwitch
> directly to the second VM).
> 
> A dd read/write test on the file server gives me about 450MB/s.
> An hdparm test gives me about 8500MB/s cached, and 850MB/s buffered.
> 
> However, when I mount a share on either the Mac or the VM, the
> transfer speeds tops out at about 120MB/s. I expected about 4 to8
> times that speed.
> 
> Are my expectations reasonable? What else can I try?
> 
Before anyone can comment, we need to see your smb.conf.

Please post the output of 'testparm -s'

Rowland