Windows 10 NFS Client vs SMB: Performance Benchmarking and Migration Considerations for Cross-Platform Enterprises


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With Microsoft ending Windows 7 support, many enterprises face a pivotal infrastructure decision. Our transition to a dual-OS environment (Windows 10/Ubuntu 18.04) revealed surprising performance characteristics between these file sharing protocols.

Our benchmarks using a 10GB test file showed:

# SMB3 (Windows to Linux)
avg. transfer rate: 112 MB/s
latency: 4.2ms

# NFSv4.1 (Windows to Linux) 
avg. transfer rate: 187 MB/s  
latency: 2.1ms

NFS requires careful UID/GID mapping when crossing OS boundaries. This PowerShell snippet handles Windows-to-Linux user mapping:

# Configure NFS client mapping
Set-NfsMappingStore -EnableLocalPasswordSync $true
New-NfsMappedIdentity -UnixUserID 1001 -WindowsAccount "DOMAIN\user1"
Enable-NfsShare -Name "Engineering" -Permission ReadWrite

While SMB inherits Windows ACLs naturally, NFS requires explicit translation. This often-overlooked registry tweak preserves Linux permissions:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ClientForNFS\CurrentVersion\Default]
"AnonymousUid"=dword:000003e8
"AnonymousGid"=dword:000003e8
"EnablePermissions"=dword:00000001

We retained SMB for:

  • Legacy applications requiring SMB-specific features (Oplocks)
  • Mixed environments with macOS clients
  • DFS namespace dependencies

Meanwhile, NFS excelled for:

  • Engineering teams working with large binary assets
  • CI/CD pipelines requiring low-latency access
  • Scientific computing clusters

The Windows NFS client logs cryptic errors. This event viewer filter helps isolate issues:

<QueryList>
  <Query Id="0" Path="Microsoft-Windows-NFS-Client/Operational">
    <Select Path="Microsoft-Windows-NFS-Client/Operational">*[System[Level=2]]</Select>
  </Query>
</QueryList>

For enterprises considering the switch, we recommend maintaining both protocols during transition. The performance gains from NFS are substantial for certain workloads, but SMB still holds advantages in heterogeneous environments.

With Microsoft ending Windows 7 support, our organization completed the migration to a dual-platform environment running exclusively on Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04. This standardization presents new opportunities for optimizing our network file sharing architecture.

The Windows 10 NFS client (Services for NFS) offers several technical advantages:

# Example mounting NFS share in Windows 10 PowerShell
mount -o anon \\nfsserver\share Z:

However, Samba through SMB protocol still maintains compatibility benefits:

# Traditional Samba mount in Linux
sudo mount -t cifs //sambaserver/share /mnt/share -o username=user

In our testing between Ubuntu 18.04 and Windows 10 systems:

  • NFS showed 15-20% better throughput for large files (>1GB)
  • SMB exhibited lower latency for small file operations
  • NFS required additional tuning for optimal Windows performance

NFS permissions map differently between Unix and Windows:

# Windows NFS client permission configuration
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ClientForNFS\CurrentVersion\Default
"AnonymousUid"=dword:000003e8
"AnonymousGid"=dword:000003e8

Key factors when replacing Samba with NFS:

  • Active Directory integration requirements
  • Legacy application compatibility
  • Existing automation scripts using SMB commands
  • Encryption needs (NFSv4 supports Kerberos)

We implemented a transitional configuration supporting both protocols:

# /etc/exports sample configuration
/share *(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)
/share *.domain.com(sec=krb5p,rw,sync)

# Corresponding smb.conf
[share]
path = /share
read only = no
guest ok = no

Essential commands for maintaining mixed-protocol environments:

# NFS debugging
nfsstat -m
showmount -e nfsserver

# Samba diagnostics
smbstatus
testparm -s