[mythtv-users] NFS or SAMBA for Video Stream

[Michael T. Dean]

Chris Gardner wrote:

> I am running mythtv with a separate video server.  I currently have it 
> connect with a smb share.  The only problem is a quick pause in movies 
> every 5 minutes or so.  Not really a bother, but is a tweek to smb 
> available or would nfs do better?

Most "real world" observations you'll get are from people who have not 
properly tuned their Samba servers or who are running their Samba 
servers on the same machine as a properly tuned NFS server (since Samba 
and NFS differ, they actually require their hosts to be configured 
differently for maximum performance).

That being said, the reason most will tell you that NFS is faster than 
Samba is because it's much more challenging to properly tune a Samba 
server than an NFS server--so they're actually relatively rare.  In 
truth, however, a properly tuned Samba server can be as fast as--or even 
faster than--a properly tuned NFS server.

So, for the easy way out, go with NFS.  For maximum performance, you may 
want to consider Samba.  However, the performance difference is unlikely 
to be sufficient to be used as a deciding factor.

Good reading on the subject: 
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/chapter/book/appb_01.html

Mike