Server File Sharing unstable on mac and windows network on Mavericks and OSX Server 3.0

Ha! Well I'd be nervous because I run kerio mail server on a few machines, so don't want to mess with that.

@Patrick, AFP is "broken" in that is can no longer sustain high-bandwidth network transfers. You can some of my original testing via this thread, but the long story short:

- Via 10.6 Server, our AFP network read/writes, on average, are 95 MB/s reads, 70 MB/s writes.

- Via 10.8 Server, our AFP network read/writes, on averaige, are 95 MB/s reads, 95 MB/s writes.

- Via 10.9 Server, our AFP network read/writes, on average, are 40 Mb/s reads, 95 MB/s writes.

I haven't updated the thread posted above, lately, but for my continued testing (when Apple was responding to my bug reports), I ended up taking one of our Xserves, along with a Mac mini, for dedicated testing. The Xserve is dual boot between 10.8 Server and 10.9 Server, so the same hardware, network, client, etc. is used for all testing at this point (and, via Apple, my testing now includes a wide range of tests, from manual clocking of 10 GB dmg files right up through a whole series of command line and GUI-based network speed testing tools). Across the board, the results are always the same—toss 10.9 Server into the mix, and high-bandwidth network transfers can't be sustained.

For less intense network transfers, this issue is probably never seen (as it takes about 45 seconds before the network transfer hits the wall then drops to a crawl), but with high-bandwidth transfers, it's unbarable. And since high-bandwidth network transfers is required, for us, I'm unable to upgrade to Mavericks Server knowing our transfer times would take twice as long as they do now. I've been dealing with this issue for almost two months now (at times, running tests on a daily basis, though now, I've pretty much given up on Mavericks Server, only testing when a new seed has been released, and have moved-forward with Mountain Lion Server, since I don't need SMB support).

So, that's what I mean when I say AFP is "broken". 8)

Also note: From my testing, this actually seems to be an issue with Mavericks Server, as using Mavericks client or Mountain Lion Server or Mountain Lion client (or earlier client/server versions), there are no issues. It's only when adding Mavericks Server into the mix does the issue present itself.

I have test the AFP and SMB speed. It is both around 60-65 MB Read / Write.

I use a MacMini 4,1 as server with its internal drive, with 16 GB RAM. Running on a Gigabit Switch. I run the test with Helios LanTest. 10 times.

I will test it also on my server from a client still running 10.9.2 to see if i got a broken AFP there.

It is a new MacMini server running 10.9.2 with 16 GB RAM and a Promise R6 RAID.

Yea, I've run that too. Just did it again now (I use the 10 Gigabit Ethernet network setting, just to raise the cap up to 110/increase the files transfer size to 3000 MB as the 300 MB test is too short to get accurate results on my network). Using Mavericks client (13D61) as the source, I get the following results.....zzzzzzzz...sorry...I feel asleep there waiting for the Mavericks testing to complete (I lie, I actually stopped the x10 testing on Mavericks early because it was taking so long and I needed to get back to work...)

Mountain Lion Server = 94.1 MB/s READ, 99.9 MB/s WRITE (average of x10 tests)

Mavericks Server - 35.7 MB/s READ, 91.4 MB/s WRITE (average of x5 tests)

Pretty much consistent with my previous tests. With Mountain Lion Server, my limiting factor is my network (as I max out the gigabit ethernet, when taking into account AFP overhead). With Mavericks Server, my limiting factor is Maverick Server, dropping the READ speeds down from 94.1 MB/s (Mountain Lion Server) to 35.7 MB/s (Mavericks Server).

I was using Mavericks (13D61) for the client in both tests, so, again, this points to a Mavericks Server issue (versus Mavericks client).

What kind of drive is in your server? Is it a single 5400? 7200? SSD? RAID? It's possible your speed limitations are a result of your HD (but, that's just a guess).

Thanks,

Kristin.

My research server is a internal disk 5400 rpm. The machine of the client is a R6 RAID 5 on thunderbolt. Wil check it tomorow. I don't gave jet a 10Gbit network.

You don't need to have a 10 Gigabit Ethernet network to run that test in Helios—select a 10 Gigabit Ethernet network just changes the testing parameters. For example, the Gigabit Ethernet network, you're only testing a 300 MB file transfer—that's too small a file for my testing and doesn't give accurate results for our environment. Switching to the 10 Gigabit Ethernet network setting just changes that to a 3000 MB file, which is a little better (though, in my actual testing, I'm doing 10 GB and 30 GB file transfer tests).

k.

Will try that, aure you using the latetst version of helios ? (i think so)

Running on the 10.9.2 server a test of helios, under AFP i get 100MB read and write transfer on the new server. I did the 3 GB file test for 10Gbit network.

Sorry guys - performance tuning for a buggy system leads to a fast crashing system.

I want a reliable server - than it could be tweaked for performance.

Bye,

Christoph

10.9.3 is out and according to the changelog it “improves reliability of copying, editing and inspecting permissions of files on an SMB file server“.

Curious to hear if it fixes some of our problems.

All installed, immediately see an improvement, not getting errors when copying multiple files to/from an SMB share.

Testing the original problem I was having with Office documents when the SMB connection would drop, hopefully if that stability improves and lock files reduce, we may have a slightly usable product!

Updated server to 10.9.3 and all looks good so far. Really glad since my vacation starts in a few hours and did not want to go back to old Xserve running 10.6.8.

Think I will leave my 100 clients on 10.9.2 until I return just in case something unknown has been introduced.

Anyone experiencing any issues?

I just tested my 10.9.3 with my Windows 7 machine. The SMB is still crashing under heavy load. No changes here.

10.9.3 so far seems to have solved at least some of our problems, It has only been out publicly a day or so but I have seen a lot less noise in the log and have not had the file locking issues with MS Office that we were having daily prior to the update. I hope that they have nailed this but I am very cautiously optiomistic at this point. If this Isn't fixed I will likely spin up a VM of Linux or Windows server to take over filesharing duties and use the mac as Hypervisor/Storage.