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User profile for user: Seth Goldin
Seth Goldin Author
User level: Level 1
14 points

How's SMB in High Sierra?

Hi there,


Before deploying High Sierra in my facility, I'm curious as to how SMB3 is running on High Sierra.


Specifically:

  1. Does High Sierra still require manually disabling client signing via /etc/nsmb.conf for acceptable performance, or has Apple fixed the performance for when client signing is required?
  2. If we do still need to manually disable client signing for acceptable performance, does an upgrade from Sierra to High Sierra delete the /etc/nsmb.conf file? Will we need to recreate it?
  3. How is the connectivity for High Sierra clients connected to Linux and FreeBSD servers running Samba? Are the connections reliable?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Sep 26, 2017 10:03 AM

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User profile for user: Seth Goldin
Seth Goldin Author
User level: Level 1
14 points

Posted on Sep 27, 2017 5:16 PM

Just wanted to follow up here. SMB seems to be working OK. Some more details about what I learned:

  1. The driver for a Sonnet Twin 10G is compatible, but a fresh install of the kernel extension now requires authorization.
  2. Small Tree also has compatible drivers.
  3. I'm connected to a FreeNAS server running Samba, and it seems to be working OK.
  4. I did a clean install, so I can't confirm if the nsmb.conf file is preserved with the normal update process. It's probably a good idea to back up your file before updating, if yours is large and has a lot of settings.
  5. It is still necessary to disable client signing via /etc/nsmb.conf.
    1. This is, quite frankly, ridiculous. The fact that Apple believes that it's acceptable to set a system default which throttles 800 MB/s to 60 MB/s just shows how little they really care about their professional customers.
    2. I'm curious to see how Apple will respond to the frustrated newbie iMac Pro customers in December, who will be excited to use the built-in 10 GbE port, but will have to figure out how to disable client signing by creating esoteric preferences files. I hope the Apple engineers fix this for the sake of the Apple support team, so that the support team doesn't have to field endless questions from people who are expecting 800 MB/s speeds are only getting 60 MB/s.
    3. The fact that their default client signing is so terrible with SMB is especially rich since they've deprecated AFP, which wasn't throttled by default. Whereas before they might have directed users to AFP for acceptable performance, now they they're just going to frustrate users with this client signing nonsense.
    4. How many support calls are just going to end with the techs telling customers that networking is complicated and that Apple can't really diagnose third-party server performance!?
    5. 😠
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User profile for user: Seth Goldin
Seth Goldin Author
User level: Level 1
14 points

Sep 27, 2017 5:16 PM in response to Seth Goldin

Just wanted to follow up here. SMB seems to be working OK. Some more details about what I learned:

  1. The driver for a Sonnet Twin 10G is compatible, but a fresh install of the kernel extension now requires authorization.
  2. Small Tree also has compatible drivers.
  3. I'm connected to a FreeNAS server running Samba, and it seems to be working OK.
  4. I did a clean install, so I can't confirm if the nsmb.conf file is preserved with the normal update process. It's probably a good idea to back up your file before updating, if yours is large and has a lot of settings.
  5. It is still necessary to disable client signing via /etc/nsmb.conf.
    1. This is, quite frankly, ridiculous. The fact that Apple believes that it's acceptable to set a system default which throttles 800 MB/s to 60 MB/s just shows how little they really care about their professional customers.
    2. I'm curious to see how Apple will respond to the frustrated newbie iMac Pro customers in December, who will be excited to use the built-in 10 GbE port, but will have to figure out how to disable client signing by creating esoteric preferences files. I hope the Apple engineers fix this for the sake of the Apple support team, so that the support team doesn't have to field endless questions from people who are expecting 800 MB/s speeds are only getting 60 MB/s.
    3. The fact that their default client signing is so terrible with SMB is especially rich since they've deprecated AFP, which wasn't throttled by default. Whereas before they might have directed users to AFP for acceptable performance, now they they're just going to frustrate users with this client signing nonsense.
    4. How many support calls are just going to end with the techs telling customers that networking is complicated and that Apple can't really diagnose third-party server performance!?
    5. 😠
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User profile for user: Hans Vallden
Hans Vallden
User level: Level 1
19 points

Feb 12, 2018 11:17 PM in response to yousurname

Wanted to share my 2 cents to this thread, which, by the way, is the top result when you Google "high sierra smb performance".


I recently upgraded my desktop computer from a 2010 Mac Pro to iMac Pro and my home server from a 2008 Mac Pro to a 2014 Mac Mini. Naturally I also upgraded my server OS to High Sierra. My old server had an internal SATA disk shared over AFP. New server has a Thunderbolt 3 disk attached via a TB2 adapter and shared over SMB. I also added a second gigabit ethernet connection to both computers via a TB3-ethernet adapter.


I have done performance analysis of several combinations using Helios LanTest:

  1. old desktop & old server both with 1 x gigabit using AFP
  2. new desktop & old server both with 1 x gigabit using AFP
  3. new desktop with 2 x gigabit & old server with 1 x gigabit using AFP
  4. new desktop & new server both with 1x gigabit using SMB (unmodified conf)
  5. new desktop & new server both with 2 x gigabit using SMB (unmodified conf)
  6. new desktop & new server both with 2 x gigabit using SMB (packet signing turned off)


My findings are:

  • SMB write/read performance is worse than AFP in all combinations. Best AFP performance was ~61/82MB/s in setup #3. Best SMB performance is ~60/71MB/s in setup #6
  • Performance difference between 1 x gigabit and 2 x gigabit is surprisingly small. Local write/read speed at server is roughly at the disk's capacity of 220-240MB/s so it seems Thunderbolt isn't the bottleneck. My guess is nothing else matters when SMB caps out.
  • Performance difference between unmodified SMB conf and packet signing turned off is HUGE. ~44/14MB/s vs. ~60/71MB/s. Incomprehensible how Apple can ship out products with such terrible default network disk sharing performance with NO optional protocols.
  • SMB write/read performance is worse than AFP all-round. The areas where SMB offers some improvement are opening/closing files and directory reading speed.


I'll summarize my results paraphrasing Dire Straits: Money for Nothing. 😀

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User profile for user: Daniel Stranathan
Daniel Stranathan
User level: Level 1
70 points

Sep 27, 2017 2:02 PM in response to Seth Goldin

When upgrading in-place to 10.13 (High Sierra) from 10.12.6 (Sierra build 16G29), my customized nsmb.conf file was intact.


As a side note, I appears that my cutomized sysctl.conf file is also intact, too (both files live in the /etc directory).


I haven't looked at Apple's default settings in High Sierra, nor have I attempted to to do an in-place upgrade from older versions of macOS & OS X (i.e.; El Capitan, etc).


I typically use the folliwng SMB client settings in my environment (for accessing our EMC Isilon SMB3 storage cluster running OneFS 8.x)


[default]

streams=yes

file_ids_off=yes

signing_required=no



Hope this helps.

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User profile for user: Daniel Stranathan
Daniel Stranathan
User level: Level 1
70 points

Sep 27, 2017 12:13 PM in response to itsrainingben

Ben


No, just good 'ole 10/100/100 copper Ethernet and Wi-Fi (WPA2 Enterprise). We have a (Mostly) Cisco network stack here.


I haven't done too much SMB testing thus far. Still experimenting with imaging/deployment, software compatibility, and Active Directory/Kerberos.


I just noticed that the High Sierra Finder now shows mounts in the Sidebar (under Devices). I never thought "Connected Servers" (under Shared) was very useful.

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User profile for user: yousurname
yousurname
User level: Level 1
9 points

Nov 25, 2017 4:22 AM in response to Seth Goldin

I do not agree with your initial statement


"Just wanted to follow up here. SMB seems to be working OK."


For me it is not and you gave the reason yourself with your other statement


"This is, quite frankly, ridiculous. The fact that Apple believes that it's acceptable to set a system default which throttles 800 MB/s to 60 MB/s just shows how little they really care about their professional customers." This is absolutely correct.


The lack of performance is not the only trouble with this SMB implementation. We are not upgrading to "Low Speed Sierra" unless SMB is fixed or AFP is reactivated.

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User profile for user: ajmicek
ajmicek
User level: Level 1
4 points

Dec 21, 2017 3:10 PM in response to Seth Goldin

So Sierra has this issue with automounter / auto_master / autofs SMB shares where permissions change per folder on unmount (I think after AUTOMOUNT_TIMEOUT as specified in /etc/autofs.conf (default is 10 minutes)) and they disappear from the Finder.


These disappeared folders can still be browed with sudo ls ~/mountpoint/disappeared_folder - so I know the connection is good - but I can't access them as anybody other than root AND I can't change their permissions AAAND it is driving me CRAZY. Has this been solved in High Sierra? I assume that's what you are referring to when you say "Are the connections reliable?"


Would love your thoughts!

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How's SMB in High Sierra?

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