Slow samba revisted

[htpcdude]

I've read the other posts about samba shares to ntfs partitions having slow writes on a windows network. I've experimented and found it to be true, ext3 partitions over samba have better performance.

What I don't understand is this. I have 2 goflex home docks, one with the latest stock firmware, one with arch linux arm installed and running from a usb stick. I take a 1TB drive and partition/format it ntfs on the stock firmware unit. Writes are ~ 24MB/s. I take this drive and share it using samba on the arch linux arm unit. Writes to it are now ~ 8MB/s.

Isn't the stock firmware running some version of linux also? If it is, is it using samba to share the drive? If it is, why does it perform so much better than arch linux samba?

Have I made too many assumptions?

[kmihelich]

The stock firmware is running a commercial non-free NTFS driver, not the open-source ntfs-3g we provide. That's what the difference is from.

[xenoxaos]

This is the reason all my media drives were all migrated to ext3/4. Now internal transfers over sata hit 60MB/s+

[htpcdude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('xenoxaos', 'T')his is the reason all my media drives were all migrated to ext3/4. Now internal transfers over sata hit 60MB/s+

[WarheadsSE]

I am using a GoFlex Net, a Pogoplug V4, multiple Pogoplug Pro/V3/Classic's, a USI Topkick and an iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive : Cloud Edition

Ext4 is perfectly fine, but only for the non-boot partition. (and not on flash)

[sambul13]

I've got on average 7-8 MB/sec copy speed of large files with TeraCopy over Samba on Gigabit Ethernet to a DockStar connected USB 2.0 drive with the Plug CPU load as per Htop at 97-100% mostly to handle NTFS writes to the disk. Compare to 28-30 MB/sec copy to EXT4 with 82-97 CPU load, and 29-30 MB/sec copy to XFS with 88-92 CPU load, again mostly to handle writes to disk.

What's the NTFS commercial driver used in Pogo that gives 24 MB/sec copy speed? Is it Paragon driver for Linux embedded systems? How it can be installed on ArchLinux ARM 3.5.2 ?

Got some benchmarks for similar copy speeds from a Windows PC over NFS to the EXT4 USB 2.0 drive hooked to DockStar. For some reason its maxes at 18 MB/s vs 30 MB/s with Samba. Hope, NFS 3 can be optimized to deliver similar to Samba speed.

Another option is using an app like Crossmeta that installs on Windows PC and allows to mount some Linux filesystems in Windows and copy files btw NTFS and EXT2 or XFS via integrated with it NFS server. No USB support though.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('xenoxaos', 'T')his is the reason all my media drives were all migrated to ext3/4. Now internal transfers over sata hit 60MB/s+

[WarheadsSE]

1) iSCSI - go read the Arch wiki.
2) Internal transfers means internal transfers, ala not over the network at all.

The I can write via samba, to a PPV4, with a USB3 3TB driver, formatted ext4, at a sustained 20MB/s. I will tell you this: devices that have more memory are able to sustain higher network transfer rates, period. However, the load on the CPU will in the end be the limiting factor. The various IO buses involved greatly come into play, and the network <> SATA versus, network <> USB and network <> PCIe linked USB3 greatly alter the equations but are still only as fast as the CPU.

You are never going to get full SATA bus speed out of these devices, EVER. Do you get that? Should I say it again? I think I shall. Never, Not GONNA FARKING HAPPEN. JUST LIKE NO GUI BOOTLOADER MENU.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hat's the NTFS commercial driver used in Pogo that gives 24 MB/sec copy speed? Is it Paragon driver for Linux embedded systems? How it can be installed on ArchLinux ARM 3.5.2 ?

[sambul13]

Thanks for your comments and experience sharing.

Info on any subject is easier to find if its placed together. Thread dates are less important since discussed devices remain the same. I hit 30 MB/s speed copying large files from a Windows PC via Samba to a USB 2.0 XFS formatted HD hooked to Dockstar. Its good considering USB 2.0 limit at 35MB/s. So wonder how about SATA speed over LAN? NTFS was discussed above, its relevant when hooking a drive at times to either Pogo or Windows. And the direct bus SATA speeds were discussed above, none brought by me.

Looking at GoFlex Net with SATA II ports and Samba performance. What its max speed writing from a PC to GFN SATA drive, and how to reach the max? Is it different compare to USB 2.0 ? Yah, the devices have hardware limitations, but once a large media DB is backed up to a HD on a PC, then adding at times some more files to it via GFN is not going to overheat it, so it makes sense doing over LAN. If iSCSI can deliver higher write speed than Samba to a SATA drive, will try that.

[sambul13]

Interesting, these reports say GoFlex Home with SATA 3.5" drive attached hits 50 MB/sec speed exchanging files in both directions with Win7 PC over GB LAN. Given the same processor as other ARM5 devices, is that specific to a certain network FS used by the non-modded GFH with HipServ OS? Does it use Samba when copying files from Windows over LAN? Can anyone here confirm such speed over LAN with ArchLinux ARM upgraded GFH?