NFS file server performance

[Dan Yocum]

Josip,

Josip Loncaric wrote:
> 
> Linux NFS is a bottleneck in itself, even with Gigabit Ethernet.  You
> can speed up the network, but the current Linux NFS implementation has
> limitations which make it five times slower than other forms of file

Well, I think that statement requires a little more qualification: Linux
<-> Linux NFSv2 performance is quite good - up to about 8MB/s on fast
ethernet.  Linux <-> IRIX NFSv2 is slightly less than that, but not 1/5
the performance.  Linux <-> AIX NFSv2, I believe is somewhat less again,
(though I didn't have a machine to do tests on this).  Linux <->
OSF/1/Tru64 is "challenging" but again, I didn't have a machine to
perform these test.  Linux <-> Sun NFSv2 sucks under normal conditions. 
Thomas Davis gets good performance, but he's got some big E450 or
something that brute forces the data through.  Apparently there are
double caching issues between SunOS and Linux NFS server/clients.  I
don't know the details.

I performed a bunch of bonnie tests between various setups when I was
back at Fermilab and have since trashed the results so I can't quote the
exact data. 

I can't comment on NFFv3 performance since I haven't done any tests, but
I would be very interested in seeing what it is between various setups
Linux <-> Sun, Linux <-> IRIX, Linux <-> Linux (hint, hint).

Cheers,
Dan


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Dan Yocum, Sr. Linux Consultant
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