[CMake] slow CMake performance configuring builds on remote SMB servers

[Philip Lowman]

Hi,

We have somewhat of a large CMake project consisting of about 25 
libraries.  Configuring on Linux over NFS is a snap taking only a few 
seconds.  Configuring on a local C:\ for the Windows build is also very 
fast only taking a few seconds.

When we go to configure a build on a remote file server (using either 
Samba or Windows XP File Sharing) we notice a dramatic slowdown in 
performance.  Suddenly, initial configuration and generation of VCproj 
files takes about 2-3 minutes as opposed to about 20 seconds with the 
hard drive.  If I nuke CMakeCache.txt and reconfigure from scratch it 
takes about the same amount of time which seems to indicate that there 
is _no_ SMB file caching going on.

Part of me thinks this is just a flaw with Windows XP but I'm having a 
hard time believing that it's really this bad.

I was wondering if anyone could report on their experiences configuring 
a build with source and binary directories located on a remote file 
server with Windows XP?

-- 
Philip Lowman
Simulation Development Engineer, Modeling and Simulation Technology
General Dynamics Land Systems
http://www.gdls.com