Why is CIFS performance measured in MBps, while NFS performance is measured in IOPS?

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It may sound incongruous, but there isn't a good benchmark tool to measure CIFS performance in a meaningful manner like IOPS over the network.

NFS has the SPECbench SPECsfs tool, which is relatively complex in generating workload and adjusting the working set size. There isn't a complement for CIFS that is public. Some people have run VeriTest's Netbench against it to determine MBps, but that isn't very useful in most environments. The Storage Performance Council is currently working on a new benchmark to address this issue, which will be called SPC-3.

Check out www.storageperformance.org to catch up on what's going on, and join to help with specifying and developing the benchmark if you can. It's an open organization that welcomes individuals.

This was first published in September 2005

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