nfs performance problem

[Wang,MinJie]

Hi all
I'm transfering data from system A to system B through nfs tool.
But it is running very slowly
I start a glance and find that the process which is transfering data is waiting for "stream" reason and all the cpu utility is spending in "system mode"
So how can I do further performance monitoring?

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Few things to check here.

lanadmin -x 0
# change 0 to the actual interface in use. See /etc/rc.config.d/netconf and lanscan for that lan0 is 0(zero)

Make sure connection speed is what it should be.

http://www.hpux.ws/?p=6

The above blog thread contains several network and general performance monitor tools. You should look for bottlenecks.

nfsstat

Check the man page, it can tell you a lot on the server side.

netstat -i
# see the man page for further possible enhancements to get the data you want. This lets you monitor transfer rates at any interval you want and can be used on both the server and client in this operation.

More on nfs tuning:
http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/aix/aixbman/prftungd/nfstuning.htm

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/systems/topic/com.ibm.aix.prftungd/doc/prftungd/nfs_tuning_client.htm
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pseries/v5r3/topic/com.ibm.aix.prftungd/doc/prftungd/nfs_perf_mon_tun.htm

SEP

[Dave Olker]

Hi,

Are you still experiencing slow performance with NFS or did you resolve your problem? I'd be happy to offer suggestions if you need help.

Regards,

Dave

[OldSchool]

and if so...what O/S and hardware are on the client side..

[Bill Hassell]

A just a note about performance...a LAN connection is very, very slow compared to modern disks. Unless your LAN is running at 1000 Mbit speed,the LAN will be slower than your disks, with NFS contributing additional overhead. With a 10 Mbit LAN, it would be normal for about 600 KB/sec or 6 MB/sec for a 100 Mbit network. Disks are usually 25-90 MB/sec.

To determine the actual speed of transfer, pick a large file that takes at least 20 seconds to transfer, time the transfer and then divide the seconds into the file size. If the calculated speed is much lower than the above numbers, transfer the same file using ftp. If the numbers are similar and still much lower than the above then check lanadmin for errors. Note also that your local server may be just fine but the remote server is alowing everything down.