topic Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS in Network and Storage Protocols

Speed up file transfer on CIFS

fedaynnetapp — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:32:13 GMT

Hi,

We need to trasnfer a lot of data within a CIFS share and we're wondering wheter there is an alternative to the file transfer at a file system level (NTFS). Trying to transfer the data through the Windows Explorer is quite slow and make things really awkward.

Thank you.

Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS

rmharwood — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:58:33 GMT

If this is between two Netapp volumes you can use ndmpcopy on the filer.

Richard

Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS

fedaynnetapp — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:43:55 GMT

Hi,

It's in the same volume.

I'm trying to move data within the same CIFS share.

Thank you.

Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS

stephan_troxler — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:04:07 GMT

Use Robocopy then. It's not faster but for sure more reliable then Explorer and you can schedule the task to off-peak hours.

Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS

fedaynnetapp — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:14:59 GMT

I was using robocopy and beyondcompare, but just wanted to know if there is any other faster method.

Thank you.

Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS

sahil_anand — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:43:09 GMT

ndmp copy would be the best way, you can give it try,

Check on which qtree or volume your cifs share is created:

ssh filer cifs shares

do base level copy as follows : ndmpcopy -l 0 /vol/abc/qtree/abc/xyz /vol/abc/qtreex/abc/

Give read only permission to the directories which you want to move in this case it is xyz inside abc directory.

do final copy as follows, once it is over check permission on both source and destination and set them accordingly.

ndmpcopy -l 1 /vol/abc/qtree/abc/xyz /vol/abc/qtreex/abc/

Hope this helps.

Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS

vloiseau — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:01:58 GMT

You can also use Richcopy which is multithreaded (you will have to find the right threads value)... It is not supported.

For ndmpcopy I think you can also optimize the transfer by using (if possible) dedicated interfaces if any are free on the source and destination with private IP.

Valery.

Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS

fedaynnetapp — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 06:44:04 GMT

Hi,

What's the difference among the three different levels (0, 1 and 3) of incremental backups?.

Thank you.

Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS

sahil_anand — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 07:43:43 GMT

Level 0 copy you can do it any time, you can put it as base level copying, when you start base level copy ndmpcopy command create a snapshot in volume and locks the data and copy it to destination over network.

Whereas you can say level 1 and level 2 are incremental copies and can be done sequentially, only data that has chnaged on source since base level copy was done is copied over to destination.

Please keep in mind you can not to level and level 2 copies multiple times where as you can do base level copy anytime you like, and it creates restore_symboltable file at destination which act as base for level 1 and level 2 copy.

Thanks,

Sahil

Re: Speed up file transfer on CIFS

fedaynnetapp — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 08:29:14 GMT

I think the best option would be running a level 0 and later running incrementals with applications such as Richcopy or BeyondCompare.

Thank you.