Is it better to use NFS or SMB to serve files on a LAN using the Raspi?

Question

I have a Raspberry Pi Model B w/ 256MB of RAM. I want to use it for serving my printer (via CUPS) and some files to my local machine (Mac). But I also want to tinker a bit with it, so I want to have some resources left when I work locally on the machine. So I wonder which protocol to use for the files: SMB or NFS? Which one is less resource intensive? Are there other advantages? I have used both before on bigger hardware than the Raspi.

mbauer · Answer 1 · 2013-03-24T17:26:02.540

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I used both, NFS and SMB. NFS to connect the RPI with my Ubuntu Laptop and SMB for my Windows Desktops. Both are working stable and fast. With SMB I got read rates about 10-11mb/s and with NFS only about 7-8mb/s. In my opinion SMB was also easier to configure.

edited Mar 24 '13 at 17:26

answered Mar 22 '13 at 14:51

mbauer

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3

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 10 '13 at 14:42

I now opted for SMB. It seems to work fine so far, it works well with OS X and Windows machines. And it does not seem to utilize the CPU too much. Since I am only dumping data on the shares, and am not hosting home directories or anything like that, I think this is the best solution.

Is it better to use NFS or SMB to serve files on a LAN using the Raspi?

2 Answers2