Combining directories from multiple servers on a single mountpoint
Test Results
Table 2 lists the IOzone results for NFS and SSHFS from the previous article with the results for the five SSHFSM test sets:
- Baseline: Use all system and SSHFS-MUX defaults
- OPT1: SSHFS-MUX mount option tuning
- OPT2: OPT1 with TCP tuning
- OPT3: OPT2 with stronger encryption (aes-128)
- OPT4: OPT3 with compression turned on
Table 2
Results of Five Test Sets for All Six Test
Sequential | Random |
|||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Test | Write (MBps) | Re-write (MBps) | Read (MBps) | Re-read (MBps) | Write IOPS | Read IOPS |
NFS |
||||||
Baseline |
83.996 |
87.391 |
114.301 |
114.314 |
13,554 |
5,095 |
TCP optimizations |
96.334 |
92.349 |
120.010 |
120.189 |
13,345 |
5,278 |
Baseline |
||||||
SSHFS |
43.182 |
49.459 |
54.757 |
63.667 |
12,574 |
2,859 |
SSHFSM |
43.207 |
52.068 |
54.746 |
63.437 |
12,848 |
2,892 |
OPT1 |
||||||
SSHFS |
81.646 |
85.747 |
112.987 |
131.187 |
21,533 |
3,033 |
SSHFSM |
85.904 |
88.210 |
112.963 |
130.861 |
20,447 |
3,315 |
OPT2 |
||||||
SSHFS |
111.864 |
119.196 |
119.153 |
136.081 |
29,802 |
3,237 |
SSHFSM |
113.567 |
120.037 |
119.072 |
136.104 |
29,802 |
3,038 |
OPT3 |
||||||
SSHFS |
51.325 |
56.328 |
58.231 |
67.588 |
14,100 |
2,860 |
SSHFSM |
54.595 |
61.111 |
67.107 |
67.379 |
13,958 |
2,670 |
OPT4 |
||||||
SSHFS |
78.600 |
79.589 |
158.020 |
158.925 |
19,326 |
2,892 |
SSHFSM |
83.120 |
86.599 |
156.035 |
155.923 |
19,439 |
2,767 |
To help visualize the data, the six bar charts in Figures 6-8 plot the results for all five test sets, one for each test.



Comparing the performance of SSHFS and SSHFSM is rather interesting. In general, the performance is quite close except in a couple of instances. For example, in the sequential write tests, SSHFSM is sometimes up to 5 percent faster than SSHFS. SSHFSM in the OPT4 results for the sequential re-write test is almost 9 percent faster than SSHFS. For the sequential read, re-read, and random read IOPS, SSHFS is sometimes slightly faster than SSHFSM. However, this comparison might not be that useful because the "spread" of the performance results is unknown, and one can't conclusively say one is faster than the others.
Comparing SSHFS and SSHFSM performance to NFS is perhaps more useful from a qualitative standpoint. When all the SSHFMS and TCP optimizations are used, SSHFS and SSHFSM has better write performance (sequential write and re-write, and random write IOPS). Even if a stronger encryption is used, which requires more computational capability, SSHFS and SSHFSM can be just as good or better than NFS for write tests. However, read performance for SSHFS and SSHFSM is worse or only close to NFS performance until compression is turned on (compression turned on results are OPT4). A remarkable result is that SSHFS and SSHFSM performance for the random read IOPS test is never better than about 60 percent that of NFS.
Summary
SSHFS has great potential as a shared filesystem. It encrypts data in flight, it allows users to control what filesystems they mount, and it only requires an open SSH port (port 22). With some tuning, you can get SSHFS performance on the same level as NFS, except for the random read IOPS performance. However, the price you pay is data encryption or decryption on both the client and server.
In the pursuit of even more performance, I tried SSHFS-MUX. SSHFSM is derived from SSHFS and has been extended to allow several directories to be mounted in a single mountpoint. I didn't test this feature, but I did test the performance of SSHFS-MUX relative to SSHFS. Although the tests I ran here are not as extensive as those I would perform for benchmarking, casual testing allowed me to gauge general performance differences. In some cases, SSHFS-MUX was a little faster than SSHFS, but it was fairly small, only about 5 percent for some cases.
For anyone considering using SSHFS, SSHFS-MUX, with its ability to combine directories from different servers into a single mountpoint, is a definite option.
Infos
- SSHFS: http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html
- "SSHFS – Installation and Performance" by Jeff Layton: http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/Sharing-Data-with-SSHFS
- SSHFS-MUX: https://code.google.com/p/sshfsmux/
- Dun Nan research: http://web.yl.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~dunnan/
- Dun Nan: http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/people/dun
- IOzone: http://www.iozone.org/
- Arcfour: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RC4
- Arcfour cipher speed: http://superuser.com/questions/32884/sshfs-mount-without-compression-or-encryption
- "OpenSSH ( SSHD ) Speed Optimization For Long Distance Data Transfer" by Nix Craft, http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/sshd-server-optimization.html
« Previous 1 2
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Find SysAdmin Jobs
News
-
The Next Major Release of Elementary OS Has Arrived
It's been over a year since the developers of elementary OS released version 6.1 (Jólnir) but they've finally made their latest release (Horus) available with a renewed focus on the user.
-
KDE Plasma 5.27 Beta Is Ready for Testing
The latest beta iteration of the KDE Plasma desktop is now available and includes some important additions and fixes.
-
Netrunner OS 23 Is Now Available
The latest version of this Linux distribution is now based on Debian Bullseye and is ready for installation and finally hits the KDE 5.20 branch of the desktop.
-
New Linux Distribution Built for Gamers
With a Gnome desktop that offers different layouts and a custom kernel, PikaOS is a great option for gamers of all types.
-
System76 Beefs Up Popular Pangolin Laptop
The darling of open-source-powered laptops and desktops will soon drop a new AMD Ryzen 7-powered version of their popular Pangolin laptop.
-
Nobara Project Is a Modified Version of Fedora with User-Friendly Fixes
If you're looking for a version of Fedora that includes third-party and proprietary packages, look no further than the Nobara Project.
-
Gnome 44 Now Has a Release Date
Gnome 44 will be officially released on March 22, 2023.
-
Nitrux 2.6 Available with Kernel 6.1 and a Major Change
The developers of Nitrux have officially released version 2.6 of their Linux distribution with plenty of new features to excite users.
-
Vanilla OS Initial Release Is Now Available
A stock GNOME experience with on-demand immutability finally sees its first production release.
-
Critical Linux Vulnerability Found to Impact SMB Servers
A Linux vulnerability with a CVSS score of 10 has been found to affect SMB servers and can lead to remote code execution.