slow network drive performance + shared site manager

[jamroom]

First off let me say thank you for producing such an excellent FTP client - it's fast and efficient, and works very well

I've run into 2 issues that I am trying to work through, and was hoping for some guidance:

- All of the files I upload on a daily basis sit on a shared network drive (3ghz SATA attached to Debian 4 server, running latest, shared with Samba) - Windows Explorer can browser this shared drive at a speed that makes it feel like a local drive - very fast. However, when inside FileZilla, the response time when moving around in directories on this shared drive is _very_ sluggish - a screen refresh will often take 10 seconds. I've disabled my Virus Scanner, and am not really sure where else to look, but it's really slowing me down.

- I'd like to move the Site Manager XML file to the shared drive as well - I checked the fzdefaults.xml file, and followed the steps inside to the best of my ability - first exported the site manager, saved it as fzdefaults.xml on the shared drive, then modified my "personal" filezilla.xml file in my $HOME\Applications\FileZilla directory with the correct Config path - however, this didn't seem to work and I believe I must be overlooking something obvious here.

And help or insight into these 2 issues is appreciated.

Thank you!

- Brian

[botg]

- All of the files I upload on a daily basis sit on a shared network drive (3ghz SATA attached to Debian 4 server, running latest, shared with Samba) - Windows Explorer can browser this shared drive at a speed that makes it feel like a local drive - very fast. However, when inside FileZilla, the response time when moving around in directories on this shared drive is _very_ sluggish - a screen refresh will often take 10 seconds. I've disabled my Virus Scanner, and am not really sure where else to look, but it's really slowing me down.

Which version of FileZilla? Which Samba version?

I'd like to move the Site Manager XML file to the shared drive as well - I checked the fzdefaults.xml file, and followed the steps inside to the best of my ability - first exported the site manager, saved it as fzdefaults.xml on the shared drive, then modified my "personal" filezilla.xml file in my $HOME\Applications\FileZilla directory with the correct Config path - however, this didn't seem to work and I believe I must be overlooking something obvious here.

Other way around. fzdefaults.xml always has to reside in FileZilla's program directory.

[jamroom]

Thank you for the quick response -

- FileZilla version 3.0.9.2
- Samba version 3.024

If the fzdefaults.xml file is to be located in the FileZilla's program directory, does that mean I should install FileZilla to the shared drive?

Thanks!

- Brian

[botg]

That's your decision where you want to install FileZilla.

[boco]

You can install it anywhere you want, as long as fzdefaults.xml itself references to the shared drive with FZ's configuration data.

[jamroom]

You can install it anywhere you want, as long as fzdefaults.xml itself references to the shared drive with FZ's configuration data.

Thank you.. so just to make sure I understand it correctly, I would:

- place fzdefaults.xml in the C:\Program Files\FileZilla FTP Client directory on my PC's
- place the sitemanager.xml file that currently resides in my $HOME\Application Data\FileZilla directory on the network drive (there are other XML files located there too - do I move them as well?)
- update the fzdefaults.xml file with the proper Config path to the sitemanager.xml file.

I apologize if this seems intuitive and easy to you guys - I did try to follow the instructions in the fzdefaults.xml.example file, and this is as far as I made it.

Thank you!

- Brian

p.s. any hints on how to improve the performance of reading from a network drive?

[botg]

The settings directory location can only be moved as a whole.

As for the performance, try updating your Samba version, 3.0.24 is over a year old.

[jamroom]

The settings directory location can only be moved as a whole.

As for the performance, try updating your Samba version, 3.0.24 is over a year old.

3.0.24 is the latest version available for Debian.

If the root of the problem was with Samba, then I would expect to see slow network drive browsing performance in all my applications (windows explorer, etc.). I'm currently trying to move off of SmartFTP - recent changes to that client has made me look elsewhere - and the new additions to FileZilla 3 are really helpful to me (ability to limit number of simultaneous connections on a per site basis is the big one) - however, even in SmartFTP the network browsing is just as fast as windows explorer. I know I don't have much to go on, but here's a description of what "appears" to be happening - not sure if it helps or not:

- I browse to the network drive - there are around 200 files and folders in this directory, and it takes about 5 seconds to list the contents (I can see it "moving down" as it adds the entry to the screen). Note that even browsing local folders (i.e. C:\temp) with a comparable number of files is also a bit slower then windows explorer - is FileZilla inspecting each file in away that is more intensive then what Windows Explorer would do?

- If I grab a file and drag it over to the remote window to transfer, the entire interface "freezes" (the small icon in the very upper left turns white, the whole app becomes unresponsive) for about 5 seconds - I then see the network drive list "refresh", and only after the full refresh is done does the transfer start.

Hopefully that is helpful in some way - I'd love to get this solved, and hopeful there is some setting I am overlooking, or your experience can help point in the proper direction.

Thanks!

- Brian

[botg]

Are you using any virus scanners or so-called "security solutions"? What happens if you disable them for a test?

[origin2]

[system configuration]

FileZilla version: official releases 3.0.0 - 3.0.10
Shared SMB server version: MS Windows 2000 server



[problem]

Hi,

Though this is an old post, but I recently encountered same problem...

Before switching to the official releases of FileZilla 3, I am happy with all older versions of FileZilla 2 releases,
all of them behave *normal* while coming to listing speed of directories on locally mounted SMB shares from windows server.

But now, the listing speed terribly slow. This is especially obvious when the remote SMB directory has lots of subdirectories to list.
It is totally normal if it comes to listing *files only* -- I have tried to list a local SMB share w/ 1000+ files, it just displays on fly.
I have also observed that FileZilla 3 will generate a huge network flow over the SMB during listing directories, yet not when listing files.

The FileZilla 3 version I've tried were 3.0.0 - 3.0.10, all of them encounter same problem.
The SMB server is windows 2000 server edition.

I switched to FileZilla 3 mainly because of better support of UTF-8, and before the official release of FileZilla 3, I have tried some unstable releases,
none of them showed similar problem, nor did all versions of FileZilla 2.

I can't recall which version of FileZilla 3 pre-official beta I've used, but I believe it is sometime around 2006-12-13.

Is there any option in current version 3 settings that can solve this SMB directory listing performance problem?



Thanks

[LifeSteala]

Yes I too have acquired this wonderful FTP software. Best I've ever used in my time.

I too experience very slow network browsing speed inside FileZilla. Via explorer its fine. Other FTP softwares is fine, just FileZilla is slow. I have v3.1.2. I have a Storage Server running XP with 250gb Storage drive. I installed FileZilla on my main PC which is Vista.

Any fixes?

[botg]

Browsing mapped network drives works just fine for me, must be something related to your system. Feel free to run FileZilla in a profiler to figure out the slow code path.

[m1do]

Same here.
At work we have all documents in a server and network access in FileZilla is just awfully slow.
Operating system: Windows Vista SP1
FileZilla: 3.1.2 (the latest, but since I've changed to 3.0 that it happens)

I'm starting to think about changing to another FTP client.

[botg]

Stop complaining, get the source and fix the problem.

[da chicken]

Keep in mind that Vista has a known issue with network performance. It was supposed to be fixed in SP1, but I've heard reports that it hasn't been.

I know in RTM that Vista would sacrifice network speed in order to keep playing audio files consistently.