Why is the Samba performance so poor with Windows Vista?

[Franklin]

Many Vista users have encountered lack of performance when performing large file transfers with the Samba Protocol.

From our research, it appears that Windows Vista is using a different embedded protocol, which results in poor performance when communicating with the Synology Server, or even Windows XP computers. This appears to be a weakness of Windows Vista, and greatly shows itself when performing large file transfers. This problem will be resolved with Microsoft releases Vista SP1, which has an updated Samba Driver to address the issue.

[shimh]

I just installed SP1 Beta (likely a RC) build 6001.17036 v.652 and I am happy to report that the poor samba performance in Windows Vista has been addressed in this build. I can achieve ave. 18-23MB/s reading from CS407 (without jumbo frame, current samba version: 3.0.20b). Therefore, it is safe to say that the issue should be resolved in SP1 final. Now it will be better if Synology can update the samba to newer version (26a or later).

[cyrillypar]

Owning an DS207 mounted with 2 500Gb raid 1 HD, I was very disappointed as my transfer rate slow down from 20Mb/s with my previous XP machine to 10Mb/s with my brand new Quad core Q6600 Vista based computer.

The tests were done in the same conditions by downloading an video file size 512Mb (Gigaethernet, Jumboframe activated 7K MTU, autonogotiation set to 1000mb/s,..)

I ordered yesterday an new DS207+ to expand my network capacity, but I hope that Synology will bring asap an solution on samba protocol, so i have not to wait a potential SP release comming from Microsoft.

[ikeke]

I ordered yesterday an new DS207+ to expand my network capacity, but I hope that Synology will bring asap an solution on samba protocol, so i have not to wait a potential SP release comming from Microsoft.

Greetings,

As Synology has nothing to do with samba protocol issue on Vista, i don't see how they could fix it. It's a problem in Windows Vista and unfortunatly, only Microsoft can fix it. So we have to wait

[sublightnova]

Such an old post and performance is mediocre at best under Vista... Any update on the situation???

[HarryPotter]

ask microsoft vista is a crap You can have a little bit hope for the SP1 as they promised speed up the network traffic

[shimh]

The issue is solved in Windows Vista SP1. No more 5MB/s cap.

[IvyLeaf]

Hi All,

I haven't updated to Vista SP1 yet (still just base Vista Business) and initially with my DS-207+ I was only getting around 9MB/sec (never down to the 5MB/sec that some users have reported thankfully) but since I can get almost 20MB/sec on an XP laptop with a gigabit adapter, I did some hunting around to try and rectify things.

Turned out that by disabling "Remote Differential Compression" in Vista, my transfers jumped straight up to 20MB/sec, the same as XP. I still have the issue that my Samba based transfers seem to burst and stall at regular intervals (this seems to happen in XP as well... almost as if the DS's Samba buffer can't keep up or something), but overall the speed is greatly improved. I do hope that Microsoft have fixed other things in SP1 as well, but for anyone reluctant to update, this fix certainly worked for me.

BTW. RDC can be found here: Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows Features on or off -> uncheck Remote Differential Compression.

As a further note, I would be interested to see if this option makes any difference on Vista SP1 if anyone gives it a try. 20MB/sec is nice, but I would LOVE to be able to get the stable 40MB/sec that I can over FTP!

Cheers,

[Svuppe]

Turned out that by disabling "Remote Differential Compression" in Vista, my transfers jumped straight up to 20MB/sec, the same as XP.

Thank you very much for this tip. It has seriously boosted the performance from my 107+ to my Vista PC. Not as much as yours, probably due to my non-raid Diskstation, but I am getting 12-14 MB/sec now. Write performance wasn't touched, but remains at its usual 18-19 MB/sec.

[Svuppe]

Not as much as yours, probably due to my non-raid Diskstation, but I am getting 12-14 MB/sec now.

And now that I got Vista SP1 installed, my read speed is further boosted to 22 MB/sec

[Toxic]

ask microsoft vista is a crap You can have a little bit hope for the SP1 as they promised speed up the network traffic

problem is when user have vista they tend to blame anything else. even SP1 update is not the solution. MS need to pull their finger out.

I noticed they have already announced WIndows 7 (the next OS after Vista) will be released upto a year before schedule. now what do that tell you about vista! hahaha

[HarryPotter]

even SP1 update is not the solution

how true !!

I just installded SP1 on a clients notebook. still horrible speed transfering date from DS to vista

[IvyLeaf]

Hmmm... I have now upgraded my main desktop to SP1 (Vista Business) and I have had a good performance boost. Initially I was getting 9Mb which jumped to almost 20Mb with RDC disabled. With SP1 I am now up to 30Mb on large transfers with peaks up to 35Mb which is close to FTP speed. My XP machine doesn't do any better than that so I believe MS have fixed whatever it was holding things back. The bottleneck now would appear to be the DS/Samba.

Cheers,
Ivan.

[celldad]

Upgraded to Vista SP1 and it did not fix my issues. Still slow in browsing photos with the viewer (about 5 sec per photo). Also Offline files is still getting errors.

[Svuppe]

Also Offline files is still getting errors.

Corrupt files? Your Vista machine wouldn't happen to be equipped with a Realtek RTL8168/8111B netword card, now would it?