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Samba Beats Windows IT Week Labs Test Results
jmhowitt writes "Tests by IT Week Labs
show the latest version of the open-source Samba file and print server software is 2.5 times faster than Windows Server 2003 in the same role.
The news comes as many firms are grappling with the consequences of Microsoft ending support for NT4, coupled with uncertainty about when Microsoft will next update Windows. The performance difference between Windows Server 2003 and Samba 3 has increased dramatically compared with Samba 2 and Windows 2000 Server."
Now where are the numbers to back it up?
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I read a while ago about some of the SAMBA developers having a better grasp of how the services / protocol all tie together, than the M$ employees doing the development. Most of the current M$ team inherited code from the older versions of the OS, and they are merely building on top of this codebase. The SAMBA team have had to reverse engineer the protocol. So it seems to make sense therefore, that should you understand it better, you can sqeeze more out of the service on the whole. It therefore appears that it can only get better and better as they develop .. .. And with it being opensource, bugs are easier to find ...
I also don't know how many developers are on the samba team in total (contributors / developers), but I would almost start assuming more than the manpower assigned by M$ to this area of code for Windows
I know this is more of a AskSlashdot question...
My impression of Linux/Unix systems has always been that each host has it's own set of user accounts and if I have 3 hosts it means that I have to maintain 3 sets of passwords. With NT4/Win2000, my servers share a common userspace so that you only have to maintain a single user account. Is there something under Linux/Unix that does this?
How easy is it to drop a Samba server into an existing Win2000 network? Our Novell 5 server is starting to show it's age (file/printing only) and I'm starting to wonder whether to move to a later version of Novell, switch to Linux/Samba, use a NAS device, or just load up another Win2000 server.
(With the security issues this year with Windows, however, I'm not sure I want to make Windows our main file server.)
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
I'm a networking, sysadmin, programmer (mostly programmer) consultant for small businesses in Sarasota, Florida. Most of my customers are small businesses (less than 12 people) and are looking for ways to keep costs down.
After proposing a new 2.4GHz server with Win2k3, they were sticker shocked and decided to not hire me for the job. Then one of THEM mentioned Linux (which I love and hav used for 5 years). I told them that I use Linux in my software development practice, and we could consider this as an alternative for File Server (Samba), centralized security (ldap) and backups (Mandrake backup utility). We're also using VNC (realvnc.org) for remote desktop. I can also easily SSH and do remote X session from my office, or use VNC.
It's been up for a week now, and they LOVE IT! It's fast, flexible, and you cant beat the price. And I've learned my Lesson to be mention Linux even when they specifically ask for Windows (I'm not a pushy sales person, but I do believe an presenting choices to my customers)
They wanted to outsource their IT department (the owner doesn't ever want to worry or think about their IT issues), so we made a deal that allows me to keep their systems updated, but doesn't force him to hire an on-site IT person.
Speed was NOT an issue for the Samba server, since they mostly use MS Office (win xp pro workstations) documents. However, this was a great step for them to embrace and support open source software (I donate to several projects in turn).
I hope this story might help somebody who is considering doing something similar. I'm happy to answer any questions about our experiences.
-Scott James
Suncoast Linux - Sarasota, FL