Samba performance advice

[Benjamin Franz]

On Thu, 3 Nov 2005, Stewart Williams wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am looking for a bit of advice on performance issues serving files with my 
> FC4 samba server.
>
> The specs of my server are: 2.8ghz cpu, 1gb mem, IDE udma 100 (raid mirror), 
> 100Mbit NIC & Network.
>
> I am serving 4 users and and a few gigabytes of data, which includes:
>
> A 300mb QuickBooks file (in constant use)
> 2 users' Outlook .pst file @ about 1gb each (in constant use)
> 2 users' Outlook Express files at about 1gb each (in constant use)
> Various files including some photoshop files @ around 40-50mb each
>
> When all 4 users are working, the file access performance reduces 
> dramatically, and is very slow.

The probable bottlenecks given your specs:

1) 100 mbit ethernet is probably too slow. A *saturated* 100 mbit 
connection is only going to move 10-12 megabytes of data per second. Go to 
gigabit.

2) Disk I/O. If you want to get performance from the disks, use RAID10 
with at least 6 disks (and a couple of extra controller cards capable of 
133Mhz operation to get you down to 1 bus per physical drive or 
alternatively a 3ware board). Or carve up multiple disks so that your 
Quickbooks file is one physical disk array, your Outlook files are on a 
different disk array and your 'various' files are on a third disk array 
(again making sure you keep to the 'one drive, one bus' rule).

3) Disk cache. Add more memory. Try to get at least 2 Gigabytes of RAM 
installed. It can help hide many sins of disk performance.

4) Make sure you have everyone connected via an ethernet *switch*, not a *hub*.

> What I am asking for is a bit of advice as to whether I am try to serve to 
> much data from the one PC.

You can probably handle that load - as long as you eliminate the bottlenecks.

> Also is there anyway to monitor or find statistics of the amount of data 
> being served or the performance of the network card?

sar -n DEV

-- 
Benjamin Franz

The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.

                                                          - Donald E. Knuth