AFP/SMB vs. FTP

What client are you using (Mac OS X version) ?

Also, there's nothing read-only about FTP in OS X, you might mean the Finder's FTP implementation,
but it's not clear from what you've posted.

"AFP" in Win2k3 server is ancient and deprecated, and lousy for any current Mac OS (X). It was optimized for Mac OS 9 client and has never been updated since. Never use it, is my recommendation.
If you need AFP service for Windows server, look into ExtremeZ-IP. Not cheap, but good.

FTP is probably going to be fastest, but has serious security shortcomings.

In comparing AFP (on 10.4.x Server) to SMB (both a Win2k3 server and Samba on a Linux server),
transfer speeds on the same network were not hugely dis-similar, but will vary depending on read vs. write speeds and how many files vs. size of one (or fewer) large files.

Have you checked your network at all (Wireshark),
and verified that your workstation is running (at least) 100 BaseT, full duplex ?

The order of file transfer speeds using OS X:

FTP - full wire speed, saturates the connection. Reason, no Finder involved.

AFP/SMB - half wire speed maybe a little faster, depends on if it's one big file or many small files. Reason, the Finder.

sftp/scp - half AFP/SMB. Reason, encryption overhead.

And, yes, you are correct in your observation. The Finder is 'download only' with FTP connections.

He wrote, "AFP/SMB - half wire speed maybe a little faster, depends on if it's one big file or many small files. Reason, the Finder."

So no, AFP is not "half" as fast as SMB. In my own fairly informal testing, that's never even been close to true.

Please google "wire speed" and see what Mabel is referring to.
Considering that this is (well, largely) one-way traffic, wire-speed makes a nice theoretical limit.
You'd have to do quite a number of things (including have networking equipment of a certain quality) to really achieve that limit.

But the Finder is really not involved in AFP or other transfers, insofar as it initiates them and then passes things off to different APIs. Along the way there have been AFP server/client updates that have been (for example) entirely distinct and separate from the Finder.

In my own testing with an old G5 tower as the server ("gigabit" ethernet network connection),
through a sub-$1,000 24-port Gig switch, to my 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro, I'm seeing roughly 37-41 MB/sec transfers (copying from server to client).

So no, AFP is not "half" as fast as SMB.

No it's not. They transfer at roughly the same speed. The issue with them is not at the network layer, it's with the fact that whenever you transfer files to an AFP server, the Finder is involved at the server or client end creating the objects in the filesystem and it has always been the one contributing factor in the difference that you see when comparing against FTP transfers.

In network with end-to-end gigabit Ethernet, FTP will transfer to the server at roughly 70-80 MB/s and AFP/SMB will be roughly half that -for one large file. A 250 MB file will transfer in about four seconds and AFP/AMB will take about ten seconds. If you transfer a folder, of roughly the same size, with a large number of sub-folders and files it can take up to twice as long or longer if the folder contains thousands of small files. These times are pretty much in line 'davidh's' observations.

In your situation I would look to doing some very basic network troubleshooting. Run a simple ping against the server IP and let it run for a few minutes to gather some statistics. In an ideal situation, you should see no packet loss at all. One to two percent might occur if there are other users are on the system and file transfers are taking place. Any thing more than that and you have an issue with either the physical wiring or configuration of network devices like routers or switches. You'd be surprised how the simplest of config errors in a router can hose the network performance of even the most basic of networks.

Sorry but I really don't follow your thinking there, Mabel.

Honestly, (for example) the Finder is not involved on servers where I leave them at the login console.

and if I ssh in,

ps auxw | grep [F]inder

returns nothing.

The Finder in and of itself is not what is accomplishing AFP transfers.

http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/OSXTechnology_Overview/OSX_TechnologyOverview.pdf

Are you guys benchmarking AFP/SMB off of the internal OS??? If the drive is only good for up to 30-50MB/s at best, how can you say AFP is any certain speed. Share a RAID over AFP and then post your MB/s... you might get better results.

Absolutely right. Of course that's what should be done, and in such a circumstance, I've seen better speed(s) from AFP.

In my case, I was pretty specifically trying to show a low-end case/example.

my experience is that afp is much faster than smb. i have home server (freebsd) with samba (for win laptop) and atatalk - afp server - for my imac. i'm conected direct from mac to the server with gigabit cable. i dont know exactly my transfer speed but transfer 1gig file to server from mac over afp takes less than a minute, over sab more than 1.5 minute. i'm sure it's not about the server (it's 2core amd phenom x2 4ghz with 3gb ddr3/16000 ram and few sata disks), it's about the protocol.