Simulate CIFS/SMB/SMB2 client requests. File server capacity planning and performance troubleshooting are critical aspects of high-level network administration. Central file servers and distributed client workstations are now the norm in most corporate networks. This structure reduces storage capacity requirements, centralizes backup, increases the availability of files, and simplifies the document revision and review process. However, because data storage and access are centralized, performance limitations impact the entire network population. Accurately projecting the number of users that hardware can support under a specific workload, and understanding when and where bottlenecks occur, are critical to making efficient improvements to the server configuration. File server capacity planning tools can be valuable in choosing new hardware for purchase, identifying the capacity of existing hardware, locating existing bottlenecks, and planning for resource expansion in advance of resource exhaustion.
The throughput capacity of a file server can be expressed either as the maximum number of operations per second or a maximum number of users supported by the configuration. These values are influenced by several factors, some of which include processor speed, available memory, disk speed, network throughput and latency, and the speed with which SMB requests are processed.