SMB browsing extremely slow, have tried caching and RSS tuning...

[DTMHibbert]

On 4/7/2023 at 1:19 PM, Emneth Design said:

 

Many thanks - if it works that should help quite a few folk.

Did this work? im suffering from really slow performance as well - browsing smb shares is horrific and im sure transferring files has taken a hit to. - maybe since i updated to 6.12 rc 1/2/3

[Manuel-DG]

I'm considering buying a key (I'm on trial). Migrated from Windows Storage Server 2008 and after the initial learning period I think I was happy with the result but after put the server on production in the office... SMB directories listing is literally broken, unusable.

 

This distro is very popular. Lot of people talk wonders about it. How this so basic, so evident, so common use case is ignored in that way?

[Hoopster]

53 minutes ago, Manuel-DG said:

SMB directories listing is literally broken, unusable.

You need to provide a lot more information than just "SMB is broken" to receive any informed help in resolving your issue.  How is it "broken?"  Also, it is a good idea to post diagnostics when seeking help as that provides additional information about system configuration.

[PSteward]

@Manuel-DG Switch to disk shares, after doing that all my SMB issues were solved (so far). User shares SMB can move individual files but expect constant freezing in Windows explorer when just trying to view folder contents. 

There is a thread on speeding up things and one the first items it to stop using user shares.

 

Thanks,

 

--Phil

[dam448]

Just migrated two weeks ago from QNAP to unRAID v6.11.5.

I was so excited until this major SMB issue.

 

I access my "user shares" folders on Windows 10.

Browsing and transfering data is way faster with my QNAP device.

I'm disgusted.

 

The only solution that work for me is to enable "disk shares".

Everything is back with acceptable performance.

 

Unfortunately, that does not resolve the main issue.

 

Something new on this subject ?

[JohnXeon]

Had this exact same issue when accessing SMB folders on unRAID from my windows machines. I was running Windows Server 2019 with no issues but i wanted to switch to unRAID. Thankfully I noticed the SMB issue before purchase, found THIS thread and rolled back to Windows Server (thank god I had a server image and a full data backup on an NTFS drive).

The "right click -> Properties" was unusable...

[NeverDeleteSomething]

Possibly there is a workaround acceptable to me in the meantime. In the latest version of Unraid (6.12) the FUSE file system can be bypassed for a share. At least that's how I interpret the release notes. Unfortunately, I have not yet come to test but voluntary before.

From the release notes:
The advantage of setting up a bind-mount is that I/O bypasses the FUSE-based user share file system (shfs), which can significantly increase performance.
Source https://unraid.net/blog/6-12-0-stable#:~:text=ZFS Pools-,Unraid 6.12.,data within the ZFS pool.
 

[Dikkekop]

On 3/13/2023 at 3:37 PM, trott said:

I add the following in my samba extra config,  it helps a lot:

ea support = no
store dos attributes = no

My problem: slow smb browsing got fixed (acceptable) using this from almost a minute to instant(exept when disk is spindown, but thats normal) and defragging xfs disks. defrag took about 2 days per disk. fyi my disks are almost 10 years of age. Spindown 30 mins. Unraid 6.12.3

 

 

thnx

Edited August 7, 2023 by Dikkekop
added gif

[dlandon]

There are several things that can affect SMB performance.  Some of these things are:

• Network issues.
• SMB configuration.
• Unraid array configuration.

I've seen a lot of mis-configured and poor network configurations.  This can have an impact on what appears to be SMB issues.  The biggest issue with networking I see is users trying to set up Jumbo frames and don't get it right.

 

The way you have your shares set up can affect performance.  The "Allocation Method" for distributing files in the array can have an impact.  I believe the "High-water" method tends to be faster.

 

As for SMB configuration, Unraid configures SMB to be most compatible.  Making the SMB Extras adjustments suggested above can help in a particular situation, but would not be the "most compatible".  The "store dos attributes = no" setting turns off the following settings if they are on:

        map archive = Yes
        map hidden = No
        map readonly = no
        map system = No

These are the default Unraid settings, so the only one that is changed is the "map archive".  This is the DOS file system archive bit.

 

As for the "ea support = no", this disables extended file attributes.  Extended file attributes are used on xfs and btrfs file systems in Linux and turning this off may impact their operation in Unraid depending on what applications are using the Unraid files and if they need extended attributes.

 

So while I appreciate that maximum SMB speed is desireable, applying these "tweaks" to Unraid is not in the best in the interest of compatibility.  You are free to do these tweaks in SMB Extras for your particular needs with the understanding of the potential downside.

 

The calls for action "why don't the Unraid devs fix this", is a tough one for Limetech:

• Samba is open source software that Limetech has no control over.
• The Samba team has to pretty much reverse engineer SMB because Microsoft is not that forthcomming about SMB functionaliy.
• Limetech configures SMB the best it can based on keeping the most compatibility.

If we can come up with SMB configurations that can help with responsiveness and maintain compatibility, we can definitely implement that.

 

There is one SMB setting I've implemented in UD that might help.  If someone can spin up a UD disk and share it with SMB and let me konw if the browsing is improved I can work on implementing that in core Unraid.  The setting is:

vfs objects = dirsort

An SATA disk would be best because USB disks tend to be slower.  Be sure to have MacOS compatibility turned off because it blocks this setting.

 

You can't set this manually in SMB Extras because it overwrites other "vfs objects" settings in SMB since SMB Extras are global settings.  The downside to the setting is that there is more processing time to sort the directories.  I suspect this is similar to the Windows indexing.

 

EDIT: Another setting to try is "Case-sensitive Names" in Share Settings.  Read the setting Help by clicking on the setting description and see if a different setting will help.