Re: CIFS is slooow, gvfs is fast

["J.A. Magallón" <jamagallon@ono.com>]

On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:14:46 +0530, Suresh Jayaraman <sjayaraman@suse.de> wrote:

> (Cc linux-cifs@vger.kernel.org)
> 
> On 10/22/2010 05:05 AM, J.A. Magallón wrote:
> 
> > I have a very strange behaviour with windows networking.
> > I have an HTPC, which I access from my Linux desktop. It runs Windows 7.
> > Network is GigaBit, routed by a Linksys WRT320N running latest DD-WRT.
> > I setup an automount path under /net/htpc with CIFS filesystem.
> > I can also access the drives in HTPC via gvfs from Gnome DE.
> > 
> > Problem: speed is _VERY_ different.
> > R/W through the automount point (CIFS fs), is roughly 7-8 MB/s (ridiculous
> > for gigabit speeds).
> > R/W through Gnome/gvfs (kind of fuse) goes around 35 - 40 MB/s (400 Mbits/s),
> > that look much better.
> 
> What is the kernel version In which you are seeing the problem? I'm not

Its just new 2.6.36 final, mandriva distro kernel.

> seeing this on 2.6.36-rc4. Do you have a wired interface as well? Are

Yes, boxes are all wired to the 320N router, at gigabit speeds.
Just to double check, I also probed with my netbook with 100Mb ehternet.
The effect is less obvious, but writing to the Win7 box through the
cifs automount path goes at 3.5-4.0 Mb/s, and with gvfs it reaches
7.5 Mb/s.

> you sure that both are using the same network path?
> 

If you mean hardware network path (cabling, router), yes.
For file paths, CIFS fs is under /net/htpc/media, and gvfs uses a mount
point on '~/.gvfs/media on htpc'.

And here comes the weird part. To rule out the desktop environment factor,
I tried a dd in both paths. On /net, I get 16.6 MB/s, and on
~/.gvfs/xxx, I just get 5.5 MB/s. I really don't understand anything...
things get reversed depending if you use a gui or commandline.

Weird, really weird...

-- 
J.A. Magallon <jamagallon()ono!com>     \               Software is like sex:
                                         \         It's better when it's free