Very slow build when files are located on fileserver?

Unity Engine
1

Hello, I’ve noticed something weird in Unity 4.3. We keep all of our files on a fileserver that is mapped to a Drive Letter [ie, goto computer then map network drive]. When we do a build it takes a very long time. When I move all the files locally, the build is super quick.

I’ve done a little bit of poking around with wireshark, and I believe our file server is using SMB2 protocol. When I’ve run some speed tests, its very fast 40+ MB/s. Anyone have any idea why the build takes so long, when the files aren’t local?

Also we are running Windows 7.

Best,
-Dave

2

What kind of time difference are we talking about in minutes ?

3

Okay, I actually measured it now. Its 4 minutes 16 seconds when building with the files located on the file server, and 17 seconds when located locally. It seems to spend most of its time stuck at “Building Assets for Scene 0”.

4

I’ve looked into this further. It seems unity is only reading and writing in small chunks (7168 bytes to be specific).