Slow SAMBA file transfer speeds

[Hypnosis4U2NV]

I got my PogoPlug running SAMBA to two NTFS formatted USB 2.0 drives.. When I transfer files between the two devices from my WIN7 machine, the sustained transfer speeds are < 4.5 MB/s..

Is there anyway I can get the speeds to bump up to USB 2.0 specs?

[WarheadsSE]

100Mbps network adapter
480Mbps usb specification

100 < 480.

Although NTFS fuseblock sucks

[Hypnosis4U2NV]

Thanks WarheadsSE for the reply..

Win7 -> GigE Router -> GigE Switch -> Pogoplug GigE

I should be able to get higher speeds than just <4.5 MB/s..

[WarheadsSE]

Samba + NTFS + USB + Non-Windows = absolute suckage

I do not know how many times I must re-iterate this.

[radengr]

I *think* part of the problem is the file isn't actually transferred directly between the two drives, but is going to your Windows 7 machine and back. That means you are really getting 9MB/s out of the network link. That doesn't seem to bad to me for a two way link on a pogoplug.

Are these large files? Because large files will copy faster. Why don't you see what speed to you get if you copy a large file to or from your Windows 7 device? For reference a ReadyNAS NV+ typically gets about 25 – 40 MB/s on GigE. I would guess you would see about 15MB/s on a pogoplug at best (but that is a complete guess).

You could try the usual suggestions (change your MTU [1] and enable Jumbo frames) to see if that helps at all. I'm not sure the pogoplug supports jumbo frames though.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_transmission_unit

[WarheadsSE]

NTFS.

[Hypnosis4U2NV]

Warhead is right, the NTFS file system is not really supported by Linux due to it being proprietary of Microsoft Windows.. If I want to get a boost in transfer speeds it appears that my only solution may be to change the file system of the drives from NTFS to EXT.. I was pointed to the following http://www.ext2fsd.com/ in order to access the data on a EXT file system through Windows if I wasn't going through a Linux machine..

So I guess my only options are leave it be the way it works or change the file system..

[WarheadsSE]

For those that want specific proof:
- ssh into the plug
- run top
- initiate a samba transfer to an NTFS/HFS+ formatted partition
- initiate a samba transfer to an ext3/4 (or other natively supported fs) formatted partition.

Watch memory and cpu usage for the fuseblock, as well as for smbd.

[Hypnosis4U2NV]

Thanks WarheadsSE.. I'm going to order another drive to convert to EXT and keep the data backed up between both different file systems.. I will respond back to this thread when I get a drive, format it to EXT and perform some speed tests..