I appreciate the feedback that some of you have provided already - now I 
am trying to move forward and make things work smoother.

When I set up out servers I tried to set some parameters that would 
maximize performance, but didn't focus on it too hard because it is out 
of my area of knowledge and they were overpowered for what we needed at 
the time.

Now we are running programs that are taxing the current setup and I need 
to make things work a bit more efficiently.

Specifically we have up to 8 people running software that will request 
3-5 3MB files every 30 to 60 seconds.  We are seeing it take anywhere 
from 1 to 5 seconds to load the images - this is variable on each request.

I don't have the knowledge or experience to be able to optimize our 
current environment - I know enough to be dangerous.

I've tried to tweak some settings, but without the knowledge and 
experience I feel like I am shooting in the dark.


I have a few questions about how to optimize our network.
below the questions is some specific details on our network setup.


Specifically:

What network specific parameters can/should be tweaked?
     Windows domain server?
     Linux file server?
     Windows XP Client computers?
     Switch?

Are there Samba parameters that I should be looking closer at?

Is there anything else mostly parameter wise that I should be looking at?

Would upgrading the hardware on the file server give better performance?

Would upgrading to 64 bit on the file server give better performance?



I understand it is difficult to get a good picture of what I have set up 
here, but here is some information that hopefully will help.


Our software utilizes small sqlite databases on the server (1 per job)
The software will request at one time 3-5 large image files (2MB-3MB) at 
a time every 30 to 60 seconds.

We are seeing delays in retrieving the images from 1-2 seconds up to 5 
seconds.  In the past we have had delays of minutes - but that has not 
shown up in a couple of weeks.

I can post config files if it helps.


Current setup -

24 port simple managed switch
     Dell PowerConnect 2724

old windows server 2003 (Pentium D I believe)
     1x 1GB ethernet to switch
     resides 1m from switch

ok linux file server (32 bit 3 GHz quad core2 w 4GB)
     Linus From Scratch installation with only needed services running
     2x 1GB ethernet to switch (round robin bonding)
         switch is set to aggregate these 2 ports
     resides 1m from switch
     runs Samba 3.0.25a with windind to use Active Directory Domains
     RAID setup
	drives in pairs RAID1 hardware mirrored (3Ware controller)
	multiple RAID volumes added together via LVM
	JFS filesystem


10 Windows XP boxes connected through wall wiring max 50' from switch
     all computers 1GB ethernet
     all core i7
     wall wiring mixture CAT 5 and CAT 5e
     all data files reside on the file server

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