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Q241432: NFS Server Performance Tuning Parameters for Services for UNIX

Article: Q241432
Product(s): Microsoft Windows NT
Version(s): 
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbenv
Last Modified: 10-AUG-2001

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Windows NT Services for UNIX Add-On Pack 
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SUMMARY
=======

You can tune the NFS Server component of Services for UNIX (SFU) to some degree
for improved performance, especially when a large number of files or folders is
being shared.

MORE INFORMATION
================

The performance of large Windows NT NFS file shares (exports) is related to the
following factors:

- Inode entries must be generated for all possible file names. For MS-DOS
  compatibility, the NTFS file system always generates another file name for
  any name that does not conform to the normal MS-DOS 8.3 file name
  specification. However, it takes some time to verify that these automatically
  generated file names are unique within the folder. If you can reasonably
  restrict file naming to the 8.3 convention, you should do so.

- The size of the inode file directly relates to the speed at which it can be
  parsed. It is important to keep this file entirely in memory. For each drive
  on the Windows NT NFS server, you should set the Inode Cache Size setting to
  adequately hold the number of inode entries required for all of the files
  shared by NFS for all NFS shares on that particular drive. Typically, the
  minimum inode file requirement is:

  ((the number of files shared + the total number of folders within all of the
  shares) * 2)

Keep the number of folder levels to a minimum to reduce the size of this cache.

- Increase the number of directory cache pages to provide storage in memory for
  all of the folder information on all NFS shares on the server. The number of
  directory cache pages required is also proportional to the number of folder
  levels for each NFS share. The fewer the levels, the smaller the number of
  cache pages required. These are 4-kilobyte (KB) pages, so the maximum amount
  of folder information that can be stored in memory is 4 megabytes (MB). If
  you need more storage, the folder information is not cached, but is read
  directly from disk (which slows performance). It is important, for fast
  performance, that all directory information be read from cache.

- Disable all symbolic link support. Symbolic link support degrades performance
  and should be disabled if not needed.


Additional query words:

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Keywords          : kbenv 
Technology        : kbWinNTsearch kbWinNTServicesUnix
Version           : :
Issue type        : kbinfo

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