SMB & NFS performance benchmark w/ZFS on HP Microserver Gen10
Having recently setup my first ZFS install on a HP Microserver Gen10, I wanted to find out if there was any real differences in performance between SMB and NFS when running on 1Gbit. I also wanted to find out how much difference single vs dual channel RAM made.
The model used in this article is the Opteron X3216 (dual core) base model, and is tested with two RAM configurations, 8GB (single channel) & 16GB (dual channel) on a 1Gbit LAN.
The ZFS pool is configured as a mirror, running on the default SATA controller, and is comprised of:
- 1x 1TB Seagate Ironwolf (ST1000VN002)
- 1x 1TB WD Red (WDC WD10EFRX)
UPDATE: Unfortunately the graphs in this article are no longer available due to issues with google drive. However the article will remain online for reference.
Summary
SMB & NFS speeds are similar when configured correctly on a 1G network, with sequential performance remaining the same between 8 & 16GB RAM. In my testing, NFS write performance may be slightly slower than SMB, however this could probably be improved with tweaking. Increasing RAM size however may benefit IOPS both locally, and with NFS and SMB when running ZFS.