Why is NFS so slow??

Doug Crompton (wa3dsp@marconi.crompton.com)
Sun, 22 Mar 1998 12:28:39 -0500 (EST)


I have always noticed NFS to be extremely slow over my dialup connection
to another site. I thought it might be that the remote site was using an
old kernel - 1.2.8 - but they recently upgraded to 2.0.33 and I am using
the same.

Watching my modem lights the packets seem to have delay - one packet sent,
response is delayed, etc. The delay is in Ms. but significant.
Communications to this same host using other TCP/IP services utilizes the
modem bandwidth. The (NFS) communication is certainly channel friendly but
when it takes 30 seconds to get a 20K file and the same to get directories
it becomes a real drag.

I have asked others about this but the response is always "NFS is just
doggy" I don't buy that - what goes? Anything I can do/try? I have played
with some of the RW sizes but see no significant difference.

Doug

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