If you need faster copy and write speeds than you’re finding with Samba, NFS is a great option. Just remember that NFS isn’t quite as flexible as Samba.
NFS stands for Network File System and is yet another way to share directories over a network. NFS has been around since the mid-80s and although it’s not quite as easy to use as Samba, it’s still a valid protocol for sharing files and folders.
But why would you choose NFS instead of Samba? One of the biggest reasons is that NFS is considerably faster than Samba. This is especially true when sharing larger files. I’ve witnessed Samba shares drag to a painfully slow crawl for no apparent reason. With NFS, that’s far less likely to happen.
The two main downfalls of NFS is that it’s not quite as easy to use as Samba (which is why a lot of people opt to go the SMB route) and that it doesn’t include any means of access control. Because of that, only use NFS on machines and networks that you trust are secure. And if you need better performance for LAN-based sharing, NFS is a great option.
Let me show you how it’s done.
