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Configuring the metadata cache for SMB shares

Metadata caching enables file attribute caching on SMB 1.0 clients to provide faster access to file and folder attributes. You can enable or disable attribute caching on a per-share basis. You can also configure the time-to-live for cached entries if metadata caching is enabled. Configuring metadata caching is not necessary if clients are connecting to shares over SMB 2.x or SMB 3.0.

Note
SMB 1.0 is disabled by default in Lenovo Data ONTAP.
  • How SMB metadata caching works
    When enabled, the SMB metadata cache stores path and file attribute data for a limited amount of time. This can improve SMB performance for SMB 1.0 clients with common workloads.
  • Enabling the SMB metadata cache
    You can improve SMB performance for SMB 1.0 clients by enabling the SMB metadata cache. By default, SMB metadata caching is disabled.
  • Configuring the lifetime of SMB metadata cache entries
    You can configure the lifetime of SMB metadata cache entries to optimize the SMB metadata cache performance in your environment. The default is 10 seconds.