Re: Why is network reading slow?
 
Peter Olcott wrote:
"Hector Santos" <sant9442@nospam.gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:%23OQCOfNlKHA.1824@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
Peter Olcott wrote:
By File Copy, you mean DOS copy command or the CopyFile() 
API?
 >
I am using the DOS command prompt's copy command.  This is 
fast.
The problem is the contradiction formed by the fact that 
reading and writng the file is fast, while reading and not 
wrting this same file is slow.
I am currently using fopen() and fread();  I am using 
Windows XP.
True, if the DOS copy command is fast,then I believe the code you are 
using is not optimal.  The DOS Copy is using the same CreateFile() API 
which fopen() also finally uses in the RTL.  So you should be able to 
match the same performance of the DOS Copy command.
Have you tried using setvbuf to set a buffer cache?
Here is a small test code that opens a 50 meg file:
// File: V:\wc7beta\testbufsize.cpp
// Compile with:  cl testbufsize.cpp
#include <stdio.h>
#include <windows.h>
void main(char argc, char *argv[])
{
    char _cache[1024*16] = {0};  // 16K cache
    BYTE buf[1024*1]     = {0};  // 1K buffer
    FILE *fv = fopen("largefile.dat","rb");
    if (fv) {
        int res = setvbuf(fv, _cache, _IOFBF, sizeof(_cache));
        DWORD nTotal = 0;
        DWORD nDisks = 0;
        DWORD nLoops = 0;
        DWORD nStart = GetTickCount();
        while (!feof(fv)) {
             nLoops++;
             memset(&buf,sizeof(buf),0);
             int nRead = fread(buf,1,sizeof(buf),fv);
             nTotal +=nRead;
             if (nRead > 0 && !fv->_cnt) nDisks++;
        }
        fclose(fv);
        printf("Time: %d | Size: %d | Reads: %d | Disks: %d\n",
                GetTickCount()-nStart,
                nTotal,
                nLoops,
                nDisks);
     }
}
What this basically shows is the number of disk hits it makes
by checking the fv->_cnt value. It shows that as long as the cache 
size is larger than the read buffer size, you get the same number of 
disk hits.  I also spit out the milliseconds.  Subsequent runs, of 
course, is faster since the OS API CreateFile() is used by the RTL in 
buffer mode.
Also do you know what protocol you have Samba using?
-- 
HLS