I was totally unaware of native SMB/CIFS on ZFS. This wiki doc does not mention performance differences. What kind of performance differences exist between the two?
Native SMB/CIFS through ZFS or Samba Instead
cifsfilesystemsserver-message-blockzfs
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Best Answer
In my experience the kernel mode server out performed samba with my clients. If performance is your number one concern, skip samba. That said, there are a number of limitations to the Solaris kernel-mode SMB/CIFS server, most notably:
zfs create pool/fs
a new zfs filesystem, copy data over and share it (instead of sharing an existing directory)Of course doesn't do cross-protocol locking (a file locked via SMB is also locked via NFS when
nbmand=on
is set with the in-kernel server) and doesn't do VSS integration so snapshots show up in the Windows 'Previous Versions' tab in the properties window.If you can live with the limitations of the kernel mode server and you don't need zone-level isolation, I think it's the way to go. If you're a heavy Linux/Samba user now and like some of it's unique features, feel free to stick with it. Also of note, if you're running SmartOS the choice has been made for you, they make it nearly impossible to run stuff in the global zone (with good reason) so you'll have to use OmniOS, OpenIndiana or Oracle Solaris if you hate Samba.