samba dog slow

englishpremier · 5 Apr 2013 at 23:59

I've noticed that samba is dog slow on both Lion and Mountain Lion.

I can connect to my Ubuntu samba shares easy enough, but something as simple as opening a folder takes a good 3-5 seconds, and thats when the folder only contains a couple of files.

In contrast I'm also running a DAAP server to stream music from my ubuntu box to itunes and that absolutely flies.

Samba is so slow I can't even play a standard definition video on the Macbook, yet I can comfortably stream HD video via samba on my AO522 netbook.

What are my options?

bloodiedathame · 6 Apr 2013 at 07:48

Apple ballsed up Samba on Lion and ML. I understand that they run Samba 3, so don't connect to Samba shares that run a lower version. That doesn't explain the slow speeds but I did also read that 3 has suffered speed problems due to encryption and decryption processes. There are some authentications that can be disabled in the terminal which are supposed to help but I don't have a link. Will try and dig it out.

englishpremier · 6 Apr 2013 at 09:41

That shouldn't be an issue, I'm running Samba 3.6.3

I wonder if Samba 4 would fair better, or should I be looking at some other filesharing service.

What do Mac servers run?

Skyboat · 6 Apr 2013 at 11:24

englishpremier said:
What do Mac servers run?

Apple Filing Protocol. It's generally used to access network shares instead of Samba on OS X.

bloodiedathame · 6 Apr 2013 at 12:14

You could try using Pathfinder to access your Samba share, might be quicker than finder (so I've read).

englishpremier · 6 Apr 2013 at 12:22

I setup an Apple Filing Protocol server on my Ubuntu box. Took about 5 mins.

http://www.barryprice.co.uk/2012/05/04/apple-file-server-on-ubuntu-12-dot-04/

The shares are now as fast as Samba is on my other devices.

I'll run the samba server side-by-side, for a while, but if all works out I'll just stick with AFP as I don't really use Windows (eliminating the need for samba).

allosunshine · 7 Apr 2013 at 23:59

I find SAMBA to be faster than AFP when transferring files between my MBP running ML 10.8.3 and my Qnap NAS drive.

memyselfandi · 8 Apr 2013 at 03:53

I find it varies unpredictably, (using Lion/Mountain Lion and QNAP NASes). Some days performance will be great, others it will take 30secs to open a directory.