HOW-TO: Setup Windows NFS/Services fot UNIX (SFU)

Also see this HowTo guide for information on setting up Microsoft's Services for Unix (which includes both an NFS server and client). Three things:

• You will need to install “Server for NFS Authentication”
• You will need to map the windows user “Guest” to the unix user ”<unmapped> -2”
• Disable NFS v3 Support with Belkin Adapter ¹⁾

1. NFS or CIFS throughput test using 'cat' (PC→WDTV)

$ cd sharename_on_pc
$ ls -l (to obtain filesize in bytes)
$ time cat movie1.avi > /dev/null
   real    4m 13.10s
   user    0m 1.04s
   sys     0m 24.93s

or

$ time dd if=/sharename_on_pc/movie1.avi of=/dev/null bs=8k
$ time dd if=/sharename_on_pc/movie1.avi of=/dev/null bs=16k

to calculate the speed of network transfer: (filesize in bytes)/(real time in seconds)*8/1000000 = and the result is in Mbps (megabits per second)

Make sure the file is on network share and not on local WDTV storage and is big enough (~100MB). You should test each file only once to make sure it is transferred over network and not copied from WDTV cache.

— droopysk 2009/03/12 09:15

2. throughput test using iperf

 # ./iperf -c 192.168.2.151
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  Client connecting to 192.168.2.151, TCP port 5001
  TCP window size: 16.0 KByte (default)
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  [  5] local 192.168.2.29 port 41278 connected with 192.168.2.151 port 5001
  [  5]  0.0-10.0 sec  28.1 MBytes  23.5 Mbits/sec

You need to install iperf on both the WDTV and another machine. For Linux or Windows, you can obtain iperf from here. For WDTV, you can install iperf via optware.

3. or you can try wget http transfer test but you need local webserver or very fast and near Internet webserver only very fast internet lines are useful because you may provide lower results and bottleneck is your ISP connection and not USB LAN adapter

wget -O /dev/null xxx.xxxx.com/big.jpg 
--2009-03-12 16:57:21--  http://xxx.xxxx.com.jpg
Resolving xxx.xxxx.com... xx.xx.xx.xx
Connecting to xxx.xxx.xx|xx.xx.xx.xx|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 2418473 (2.3M) [image/jpeg]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[======================================>] 2,418,473   --.-K/s   in 0.006s

2009-03-12 16:57:22 (382 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [2418473/2418473]

Testing configuration

• iMac with OSX 10.5.6 with samba sharing of folder in root (even journaled)
• Airport extreme (ethernet wired to iMac and WDTV).
• Apple USB/Ethernet adapter (plugged directly in USB port of WDTV).
• Passive HUB in other USB port of WDTV with 2 USB HFS+ disks and 1 USB FAT32 flash drive (the latter with the ext3-boot firmware) attached.
• WDTV firmware ext3-boot 0.8.5.3:

Testing enviroment (TSST Corp 2GB USB2 FAT32 flash drive, LaCie 500MB USB2 HFS+ drive,

• via FTP to HFS+ disks - read 19,6Mb/s write 30Mb/s
• via FTP to FAT32 flash 2GB drive - read 15,85Mb/s write 12Kb/s ???

via Streaming

• 720p MKV nominal BitRate 5070Kbps 5refFrames OK
• 720p MKV BitRate 7252Kbps 6refFrames OK
• 1080p MKV nominal BitRate 4000Kbps 8refFrames OK (some pixelation at decoding)
• 1080p MKV nominal BitRate 6000Kbps 1refFrame OK

Notes:

• Only samba sharing of a folder in the root directory of the iMac works
  (for example xmount 192.168.1.36/SharedDirectory ShareName CIFS), other deeper nested shares like Users/folder/SharedDirectory do not work.
• Both guest or user/password access works.
• NFS sharing (via NFS Manager SW) doesn't seem to work.
• MediaLibrary on the WDTV side can be On or OFF.
• No symbolic links within the shared folder work for the WDTV.
• Placing the ext3boot firmware on a HFS+ drive doesn't work.

— Netdata 2009/03/08 18:55

How to enable NFS under MacOSX

All tests using ext3-boot-0.3 distribution and a USB2 hard drive, using a 200-meg file. Test stats performed using “time dd … bs=16384” and calculating bits/sec. I used a 200meg file to minimize caching (the box has 128 meg of memory, of which 70meg is commonly cache buffers).

• hfs+: Read speed 50mbit/s, write speed 70mbit/s
  • copy file 3.6mbit/s (odd, right? You'd think it would move at least 25mbit….)
• ext2: Read speed 11mbit/s, write speed 8mbit/s
  • copy file 5mbit/s
• ntfs: Read speed (ntfs read-only driver) 6mbit/s
• ntfs-3g driver: 4.2mbit/s Read speed 2.8mbit/s
• fat32 on cheap usb stick (Feiya Technology Corp) - read speed 50mbit/s write speed 1.1mbit/s

My new network dongle is a Trendnet TU2-ET100.

• cifs-mounted file share: read speed 20mbit/s, write speed 4mbit/s (why is writing so much slower? Weird)
• nfs-mounted file share: read speed 33mbit/s, write speed 22mbit/s (oh yea)

— Zorander 2009/02/18 08:51