Performance Penalty with increasing number of NFS exports

Question

We are using NFS for distributing users HOME through our network. Currently we simple export the complete folder containing all HOMEs. Thus each users home is in the end

/home/SERVER/USER

Now I like to move to a "each HOME export" scheme. so that the users get real

/home/USER

This would increase the number (aprox. 50) of exports and therefor the number mount events on the network drastically.

How serious do you consider the performance penalty of this? Which important server settings have to be made beside of the number of server threads?

Answer 1

Merely having NFS mounts in place doesn't have a noticeable impact on performance, in my experience. I had a setup running with hundreds (it was a bad idea, I know), and the number of NFS mounts wasn't a problem. df output... now that was a problem.