Is SMBX on 10.8.2 ready for primetime?

some of my customers have such big performance problems with SMB since Apple switch to SMBX so the decided to switch to a hardware Windows server! It's really slow with bigger files.

Apple do you read this?

Yes SMBX is SMB2 only,

There are a lot of discussion on the Internet about the SMBX implementation.

At the moment the best way to use SMB on a Mac Server is to install samba (check the SMBup software)

Markus Reinhard wrote:

some of my customers have such big performance problems with SMB since Apple switch to SMBX [...]

Apple do you read this?

For the record it needs to be understood that the reason why Apple stopped using Samba and went to an in-house solution.

It was nothing to do with, not initiated by, Apple. It was due solely to the fact that Samba moved to the GPL 3 and its deliberately unworkable, antithetical to business, licencing rules which have the net result of reducing your freedom of choice.

So blame the so-called 'Free Software Foundation' and it's leader Mister.... Richard M. Stallman.

http://www.freakingnews.com/Richard-M-Stallman-Caricature-Pictures-101553.asp

There is a reason why many thinking open source developers will not use the GPL 3.

Understood - but I also believe that people should understand why Apple made the switch.

Also if you want (understandably of course) to keep the discussion purely technical then perhaps as the OP you should have set Markus straight on the facts — as he was injecting complaints into the discussion. Cheers.

Sorry if I was understood wrong, the problem is that the actual implementation of SMBX is a problem for my customers.

I don't say Apple should install samba.

Apple is selling a product which is mostly nice, but some features are not well implemented (it worked much more better before).

I don't want to manage an second system (with all the work it needs with authentication, backup...)

I really, really hope that Apple is working on a better implementation.

I agree with you Markus — I really hope and trust Apple can 'recover' from this and build us a solid SMB implementation. I'm sorry if I came across a bit 'strong'. I get frustrated that the so-called 'white knights' of the FSF actually make things worse for us as general users of software.

Anyway I don't want to hijack Hans' post anymore!

you are totally right about this, there are a lot of stumbling blocks

I'm a bit doubtful about Samba myself. How easy is it in real world to achieve OD and Kerberos auth, consistent file locking with AFP server, etc. with Samba?

As Apple has made a lot of updates since the new server version, hopefully there is coming an update for SMBX soon ;-)

For me to manage a samba installation on the same server is only a workaround for some time.

If the files get bigger, the transfer rate slows down so much that working on smb-server shares is not acceptable.(here specific with the windows software ArcGis)

They worked since some years that way on the SMB-share on the mac server without problems.

there are some copying test with some big files:

on a window server the data was transferred in about 3.5 min

on a mac mini server with 10.8.2 and SMBup installed about 4 min

on a mac mini server with 10.8.2 and SMBX they stopped the test after 8 min, only 20% transferred.

I can't say that it is representative but it shows the problem.

The windows server and the mac mini with SMBup are older hardware models for testing.

The mac mini server with 10.8.2 and Apple SMB is a model 2012 with a thunderbolt raid attached