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User profile for user: mefran
mefran Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

SMB/CIFS browsing slow with folders with many files

My NAS (Buffalo Linkstation HG) SMB/CIFS browsing from OSX is slow when a folder has many files in it, with ball spinning for more than 30 seconds before listing folder contents depending on how many files the folder has.

But accessing the same Linkstation from Windows XP is fast. Even Windows XP inside OSX (using Parallels) is fast.

Since the same machine but inside Parallels is fast seems not a network issue to me. Maybe some setting in OSX could help, or some setting in smb.conf inside the Linkstation (I can change it by using Openlink, a non official firmware).

Also, AFP folder browsing is fast, but not using it because the one included with the Linkstation has filename length limitations to be compatible with OS Classic.

Anyone had a similar problem accesing a SMB/CIFS share?

Thanks.

Macbook (Core 2 Duo) Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Jan 28, 2007 8:49 AM

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User profile for user: Rick Van Vliet
Rick Van Vliet
User level: Level 5
6,372 points

Posted on Jan 28, 2007 10:03 AM

Does this "folder with many files" contain a large number of pictures?
Images often show up as the icon for the file, which can take a long time for a folder with many IMAGE files.

Is this what might be happening?
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13 replies
User profile for user: BDAqua
BDAqua
User level: Level 10
245,495 points

Jan 28, 2007 11:08 AM in response to mefran

Might try...

1. Disable IPv6 on Mac OS X (System Preferences->Network->Configure->Configure IPv6->Off)
2. Uninstall ipv6 on Windows XP via command line: netsh interface ipv6 uninstall
3. On MAC OS X, set ACK no delay by adding
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY to your /etc/smb.conf file. Or sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0 in Terminal.

4. Make sure Ethernet on the Mac is not Auto but 100/Full Duplex.
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User profile for user: mefran
mefran Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Jan 28, 2007 4:26 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua: tried all that with no luck. No IP6, 100mbps, 1000mbps, manual speed, delayed ack (I already tried that before coming for help here). Nothing...

For example a folder with 1100 files makes the ball spin for more or less 30 seconds.

Is this normal? Someone accessing a Windows share from OSX with a more than 1000 files folder that could test?

Thanks.
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User profile for user: amasih71
amasih71
User level: Level 1
0 points

Jan 29, 2007 10:36 AM in response to mefran

I have been having the same exact problem, except that I'm not using a NAS; I'm simply accessing an SMB share on Windows Server 2003.

I've tried all of the suggestions listed below, and as near as I can tell, it started slowing down for me once I upgraded to 10.4.8. In fact, I reinstalled OS/X on another MacBook Pro, which brought it down to 10.4.6, and the performance is MUCH better. Might just be coincidence, but before the reload, her computer would take upwards of one minute for the beachball to stop spinning. This was on a file share that had about 2300 files (some of them pictures), but if we looked at it in Parallels using XP, it was very fast.

I'd LOVE to find out what is causing this before I decide to downgrade my MBP down to 10.4.6 to see if it will fix mine.
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User profile for user: JAhonen
JAhonen
User level: Level 1
15 points

Jan 29, 2007 12:59 PM in response to mefran

For whatever it's worth my Mac Mini with OSX 10.4.8 has no problems accessing SMB share folder with 2000 files. Opening the folder in Finder takes about 4 seconds.

The server is a Linksys NSLU2 NAS appliance that is running Linux 2.6.16 and Samba 3.0.23c. The only performance tuning done on the Samba configuration is "socket options = SO_KEEPALIVE SO_SNDBUF=16384 SO_RCVBUF=16384". I haven't done any tuning on the Mac networking side.

Interestingly I'm pretty sure that when I tried various things in smb.conf I found that adding TCP_NODELAY actually made sharing slower.
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User profile for user: JAhonen
JAhonen
User level: Level 1
15 points

Jan 31, 2007 10:35 AM in response to JAhonen

I just tried sharing the same folder contents (basically 2000 dummy files with .txt extensions) from a Windows machine. The result is that the share is even a bit faster. The main reason for this is of course that the CPU power of a Windows PC far outweighs the Linksys NSLU2.

I also tried connecting to the same folder from a MacBook Pro (again running 10.4.8) over a wireless (54g) connection. That seems to work about 1.5-2 times slower, the folder opening in about 6-7 seconds.
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User profile for user: Ken Mikos
Ken Mikos
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jan 31, 2007 1:22 PM in response to mefran

I have the exact same issue although I am using a different NAS (Dlink DSM-G600). I have a folder with my music files in it. The total number is somewhere is around 5,000. The delay is extreme. It often takes over 20 minutes before the list appears. On a windows PC it appears within a couple of seconds. It does seem to be related to the number of files in a folder. The more files, the longer it takes. Other folders on the NAS load very quickly. Any help is always appreciated.
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User profile for user: Rick Van Vliet
Rick Van Vliet
User level: Level 5
6,372 points

Mar 8, 2007 3:19 AM in response to Bruno Kriener

There was a suggestion out here recently to disable Bonjour's Name Resolution...but connecting to the remote drive by IP address, instead of name.
Like so:
Connect by IP address, and it should bypass Bonjour name resolution. Hit command-K, and in the window that pops up type
afp://<ip-address>
where <ip-address> is the IP of the host you want to connect to. For example, if the IP address of the Aiport basestation hosting the drive is 10.0.0.1, you would type:
afp://10.0.0.1
This was a long fix for a slightly different problem http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=877397&tstart=0

Worth a try.
Aso consider if thisis a large folder full of pictures - mac seems to think it needs to generate thumbnails of all those image files...think of the network and CPU time needed for that.
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User profile for user: Cory Rudder
Cory Rudder
User level: Level 1
5 points

May 22, 2007 6:37 AM in response to Bruno Kriener

What I did to fix this problem is: from the terminal login as the root user. type sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0

This fixed the slow browse and load speed from win2003 server.

If it does work you can then create a sysctl.conf file with 'touch /etc/sysctl.conf' then echo net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0 > /etc/sysctl.conf then type cat /etc/sysctl.conf to verify.
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SMB/CIFS browsing slow with folders with many files

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