linux-kernel - RE: Ext3 vs NTFS performance

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Date:	Fri, 4 May 2007 12:52:30 -0700
From:	"Cabot, Mason B" <mason.b.cabot@...el.com>
To:	"Phillip Susi" <psusi@....rr.com>
CC:	<linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: Ext3 vs NTFS performance

> 
> Cabot, Mason B wrote:
> > I've been testing the NAS performance of ext3/Openfiler 2.2 against
> > NTFS/WinXP and have found that NTFS significantly 
> outperforms ext3 for
> > video workloads. The Windows CIFS client will attempt a poor-man's
> > pre-allocation of the file on the server by sending 1-byte writes at
> > 128K-byte strides, breaking block allocation on ext3 and leading to
> > fragmentation and poor performance. This will happen for many
> > applications (including iTunes) as the CIFS client issues these
> > pre-allocates under the application layer.
> 
> This is rather hard to believe so I think some more information is in 
> order.  Specifically, how do you know that it is the windows 
> kernel that 
> is issuing these writes and not the application?  Under what 
> application 
> access patterns does it do this?
> 
> This is just rather hard to believe seeing as how, iirc, the CIFS 
> protocol has commands to extend the file size properly rather 
> than with 
> this hack, and unless it is asked to by the application, the 
> cifs client 
> should not be trying to extend files.
>

Philip:

the best response I can offer is that we have traced the application's
file system accesses and seen no such one-byte writes occuring at that
level. They are generated somewhere below the application. Additionally,
while we have observed iTunes on Windows issuing these one-byte writes,
ethereal traces for iTunes on Mac OSX show no such behavior. Because of
these observations I think it is reasonable to conclude that the Windows
CIFS client is generating the one-byte writes.

thanks,
Mason
 
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