smb vs ftp for NAS drive

I have a buffalo linkstation NAS drive connected to my router.
I can access this drive via smb or via ftp.
Bot work fine and I have no complaints.

I have a question regarding speed of transfers though.

Using the ftp protocol in Dolphin I tend to get transfer speeds nearly twice that of using smb.
For example - transferring a .avi file from the NAS to my local computer on a wireless N router - ftp I get transfer speeds of approx 9mb. Using smb transfer speeds max out at approx 3mb.

Is this an expected behaviour?

Here is my smb.conf if any help

[global]
	workgroup = farcusnet
	netbios name = ThinkPad
	passdb backend = tdbsam
	name resolve order = bcast host lmhosts wins
	printing = cups
	printcap name = cups
	printcap cache time = 750
	cups options = raw
	map to guest = Bad User
	usershare allow guests = Yes
	usershare max shares = 100
	usershare owner only = false
	use client driver = yes
	include = /etc/samba/dhcp.conf
	wins support = Yes
	add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd  -c Machine -d /var/lib/nobody -s /bin/false %m$
	domain logons = No
	domain master = No
	security = user
	ldap suffix = 

[homes]
	comment = Home Directories
	valid users = %S, %D%w%S
	browseable = No
	read only = No
	inherit acls = Yes

# [profiles]
#	comment = Network Profiles Service
#	path = %H
#	read only = No
#	store dos attributes = No
#	create mask = 0600
#	directory mask = 0700

[users]
	comment = All users
	path = /home
	read only = No
	inherit acls = Yes
	veto files = /aquota.user/groups/shares/
[groups]
	comment = All groups
	path = /home/groups
	read only = No
	inherit acls = Yes
[printers]
	comment = All Printers
	path = /var/tmp
	printable = Yes
	create mask = 0600
	browseable = No
[print$]
	comment = Printer Drivers
	path = /var/lib/samba/drivers
	write list = @ntadmin root
	force group = ntadmin
	create mask = 0664
	directory mask = 0775

## Share disabled by YaST
# [netlogon]
#	comment = Network Logon Service
#	path = /var/lib/samba/netlogon
#	write list = root

So I just did a test on an all wired setup with 1 GB network and 10 GB data folder of files and I am getting around 25mb on everything (does vary some based on the file size). I have not tried wireless but I wonder about a wireless to wireless as opposed to a wireless to a wired NAS or just what the exact configuration might be there. I would do an all wired check to see if the wireless connection is the issue perhaps. On the smb side, I only map NTFS partitions and the smb portion was a Linux to Windows transfer while the NAS was a 1.5 TB Buffalo (Storestation I think it is called) to Linux transfer. I am using openSUSE 11.4 64 bit and current samba version.

Thank You,

Is it possible to set up samba to use tcp for transfer of file ? Because if not I would not recommend it for NAS of any large files. I used samba over ipsec VPN for backup of virtual machines and 50% of the backups were broken. Once I switched to nfs over tcp everything is perfectly fine.

Best regards,
Greg

Samba does use TCP. UDP is for name resolution by nmb.

Ah so it must have been the poor VPNs fault because together with switching to NFS I also copied the files without ipsec and not over the public internet :slight_smile:

Best regards,
Greg