Mac OSX CIFS Share - poor performance

[netappbd9]

This weekend we have tried moving a Windows 2003 File Share that we use for Mac Design work. We have previously used a product called Extreme Z-IP to help with compatibility with the OSX Clients. Using Robocopy we transferred the data and today brought a vFiler and CIFS Share online. The Mac clients (all OSX 10.6) could connect via SMB but the performace was appalling. It was taking 6-8 minutes to open a 50MB Illustrator file (even when there were only a couple of us testing). We have, therefore, postponed the migration. Has anyone any experience connecting OSX clients via SMB? We are using Data OnTap 8.01 on an IBM nSeries 6040. I have read the one document I could find but it does not detail any major poor performance issues. Being new to NetApp we are unsure what to look for and how to troubleshoot this further. How can we use sysstat etc to target CIFS issues? We did expect some minor compatibility issues using CIFS but were assured that we would not have any major issues with Mac clients. Any hep much appreciated.

Jon

[shaunjurr]

Previous threads on such Mac OSX topics refer to this thread:

http://www.macwindows.com/snowleopard-filesharing.html#112210b

Perhaps some client-side adjustments will help you as well.

[netappbd9]

Hi,

Thanks for getting back. We have tried those suggestions to no avail. At present we are struggling where to go as there is very little current information on the subject. We may resort to putting a Windows server inbetween to try and resolve this problem. Unless anyone has any ideas where to look/troubleshoot?

Jon

[shaunjurr]

Hi,

I'll just try to take a stab at this again and hope I'm not irritating the crap out of you.  While I do use Mac and I have helped a little with a University installation, I haven't done anything in the last few years. I just use NFS at home.

Basically, as you probably know, the streams method of handling files is sort of broken in the unix/windows world.  If you were using streams files before, then the migration probably should have been done with a Mac instead of robocopy.

You might look at DAVE/ADmitMac and see if a test license is possible.  The software does on the client side what your Z-IP software does/did.  The DAVE software is sort of supported, IIRC

NFS (without the streams fork) is a pretty good option if you have an NFS license. You might be able to obtain one for testing, if not.

There is at least one Mac related bug in ONTap 8.0.1, but it doesn't look like it directly applies to you.  If you have the chance, running 8.0.1P1 or 8.0.1P3 might help (as a sort of unscientific wild guess).

The last option is, of course, to try to sniff the relevant network connections.  I don't know how busy your filer is, but you have alternatives on both sides when using a Mac: tcpdump on the Mac side and pktt on the filer side.  Wireshark should give you a chance to examine things even as a semi-layman.  If not, it is a good basis for opening a case with IBM/NetApp.

So, now I'll shut up.  I wish you luck.