Time to move ~1TB data on a network share VS local drive. Windows Server

[djoye]

I had a drive connected to a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM, moving ~1TB data around when it was connected locally to that VM was instantaneous. I disconnected that drive and connected it to a Server 2012 R2 server and am connecting to it from the Server 2008 R2 server as a network drive. Now when moving ~1TB data around on the same drive, it takes significantly longer.

Data is being moved around on the same drive but it's taking longer than before, the drive was previously local to the Windows OS, but it's now a network share. Is this typical?

 

[B00nie]

I had a drive connected to a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM, moving ~1TB data around when it was connected locally to that VM was instantaneous. I disconnected that drive and connected it to a Server 2012 R2 server and am connecting to it from the Server 2008 R2 server as a network drive. Now when moving ~1TB data around on the same drive, it takes significantly longer.

Data is being moved around on the same drive but it's taking longer than before, the drive was previously local to the Windows OS, but it's now a network share. Is this typical?

Well usually the bandwith and latency of local SAS is going to be a lot higher than network so you're going to have some overhead. Moving should be practically instant but copying slow.

 

[tedych]

How many files are you moving around? And I guess you spcifically "move" the data inside of the same partition.
Test with just one very big file and move it around to rule out if the issue is caused by a bottleneck when dealing with LOTS of files.

 

[x509]

I had a drive connected to a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM, moving ~1TB data around when it was connected locally to that VM was instantaneous. I disconnected that drive and connected it to a Server 2012 R2 server and am connecting to it from the Server 2008 R2 server as a network drive. Now when moving ~1TB data around on the same drive, it takes significantly longer.

Data is being moved around on the same drive but it's taking longer than before, the drive was previously local to the Windows OS, but it's now a network share. Is this typical?

Why not just store the data on a local drive?

 

[djoye]

How many files are you moving around? And I guess you spcifically "move" the data inside of the same partition.
Test with just one very big file and move it around to rule out if the issue is caused by a bottleneck when dealing with LOTS of files.

Thousands, if not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. Moving one large file within the same volume (like a 4-9GB disc ISO or multiple disc ISOs is fast), the file sizes are smaller files, probably no more than double-digit megabyte sizes. I know that transferring smaller files over a network is typically slow, but I wasn't sure if moving files around on the same volume on a network share would exhibit the same issue. I'm guessing acknowledgement is being sent between to the 'local' machine and the remote network share instead of all logic being handled on the network share's host machine after the request is made.

Why not just store the data on a local drive?

The user wanted this drive to be available to other machines and be able to reboot the VM that was initially hosting the drive, so the drives got moved to a dedicated file server.

The user has access to the file server, so I suggested they login to the file server to perform the move instead.

 

[PliotronX]

Sorry I'm having a brainfart, you are saying that when the data was local to 2008 R2, moving files managed by the 2012 R2 machine was faster than when it is now local to 2012 R2 and moving files managed by the 2008 R2? Or that the sharing over the network is a new thing? What I am thinking is that you just need to perform bigger data management from the 2012 R2 machine where the data is now stored locally. Despite advances in SMB2/3 it is still going to be significantly slower than a localized transfer method or even iSCSI (which can't or rather shouldn't be shared amongst multiple nodes).

 

[djoye]

Sorry I'm having a brainfart, you are saying that when the data was local to 2008 R2, moving files managed by the 2012 R2 machine was faster than when it is now local to 2012 R2 and moving files managed by the 2008 R2? Or that the sharing over the network is a new thing? What I am thinking is that you just need to perform bigger data management from the 2012 R2 machine where the data is now stored locally. Despite advances in SMB2/3 it is still going to be significantly slower than a localized transfer method or even iSCSI (which can't or rather shouldn't be shared amongst multiple nodes).

- When the data was local to 2k8R2 VM, the drive (virtual disk) hosting the data was connected to that 2k8R2 VM. -- Fast move on same drive volume
- Drive is now locally connected to a 2012R2 VM file server and the user of the 2k8R2 VM now connects the drive via SMB. -- Slower move of 1TB data consisting of small/medium-sized files on same drive volume

Your mentioning SMB 2/3 got me searching, couldn't find much regarding performance but I'll probably tell the user that he should consider a newer Windows Server OS that supports SMB3 just for the sake of possibly seeing a benefit. I ran the file server best practices analyzer on the 2012 R2 server and made adjustments according to that tool when I initially setup the server, but I think at this point the best I can do is apply whatever SMB tweaks might be relevant. I probably also need to create a virus scanner exception.

 

[PliotronX]

Along with SMB3, the newer OS introduces VHD sharing. Admittedly I have not messed with it but that may help set up between hosts if it does what I am imagining.