Timeouts While Browsing Ubuntu Samba Share

[Killroy]

I built a new server recently around Ubuntu Server 12.04 to replace my Windows Server 2k8 R2 with WHS 2011 VM and I am having an issue with browsing the samba share. While browsing the samba share from any of the other computers in the house (Windows 8 x64, 7 x64, Server 2k8 R2 x64) it will randomly take 30+ seconds to show me the contents of a folder. It does not actually timeout and give me an error and file transfer speeds are fine (115MB/s over gigabit), though. I have only tried to watch one bluray ISO from the server and every 20-30 minutes playback would freeze for 10-30 seconds, the audio would start playing, followed by the video rapidly catching back up with the audio after 5-10 seconds and everything would be fine again.

I have had this happen in all of the following situations:
Opening a folder for the first time
Browsing into a folder and then back out of it
Creating a folder (the delay will happen between creating the folder and being able to rename it)
Opening folders with different contents (more folders, pictures, videos, nothing...)

I am new to Linux and have a very knowledgeable friend helping me with this, but he hasn't been able to help me fix this.

The computer is the server in my signature:
e3-1225 V2, ASUS P8C WS, 16GB ECC, 160GB WD Black OS drive, 57TB (34.4TB useable)
Hard drives are in 4 drive raidz1 vdevs. All five raidz1 vdevs are in the same zpool with two spares.

Software setup:
Ubuntu Server x64 12.04
ZFSonLinux, Samba, OpenSSH & OpenVPN

I haven't really ventured from default configurations for anything and the things I have tried to fix it are:
Map the share as a network drive
Add the server to the hosts file on the client computer
Change "name resolve order" in the smb.conf file to "bcast host lmhosts wins"
Removing wins from "name resolve order"
The highest RAM usage I have seen is 10GB of the 16GB installed.

I had a similar problem with WinSCP and unchecking "Optimize Connection Buffer Size" appears to have fixed it. I will have to test this change out more tomorrow night.

I would greatly appreciate help in solving this.

Thank you in advance.

 

[kac77]

If you can afford it try getting an Intel nic and test with that. Usually the default samba configuration is fine.

 

[tazeat]

Is it a drive/zfs thing? when it won't load via samba, is the system able to browse the drive locally without issue?

Network issue, perhaps continually ping it and see if pings spike when samba loads?

 

[kac77]

Is it a drive/zfs thing? when it won't load via samba, is the system able to browse the drive locally without issue?

Network issue, perhaps continually ping it and see if pings spike when samba loads?

That's also good advice. Create a share outside of your ZFS pool and see if you have the same problems.

 

[Killroy]

If you can afford it try getting an Intel nic and test with that. Usually the default samba configuration is fine.

The motherboard has dual onboard Intel gigabit NICs but I could try an extra Intel NIC I have.

Is it a drive/zfs thing? when it won't load via samba, is the system able to browse the drive locally without issue?

Network issue, perhaps continually ping it and see if pings spike when samba loads?

That's also good advice. Create a share outside of your ZFS pool and see if you have the same problems.

I will definitely try these out, hopefully I will be able to tonight.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

 

[Killroy]

I haven't been able to try out all of these suggestions yet, but I have been continuously pinging the server in various situations. I have tried pinging the server from my HTPC and laptop while browsing the share for the first time in 12+ hours, pinging it while ripping a movie to the network, pinging it while playing back a mounted movie and pinging it while ripping a movie to and playing a movie from the share at the same time. In all of these cases, the ping shows no dropped packets, a maximum of 4ms on the HTPC (average of 0ms), and a maximum of 14ms on the laptop.

I am starting to believe that it is the Areca 1280ml powering down the drives that causes this, as I have increased the time to spin down to the maximum and it has reduced the frequency of these delays.

Is there a way to have all of the drives spin-up when the share is accessed so that the delay will only happen the initial time?