I have SQL 2008 R2 supporting a SharePoint 2010 environment. Some of the files will be stupidly large (i.e. 200mb). While Remote Blob Storage will be added to our platform in the future, I want to understand what reasonable performance might look like in getting a 200mb file to the user.
The network between the SharePoint WFE is only one part. Simply reading the blob from disk and passing it through the SharePoint layer MUST take some time, but I have no idea how to calculate this (or what additional information people need to help out)
Any suggestions?
That’s a very complex question and requires knowledge of the environment in which you are working. The network as you rightly say is one aspect but there are many others. Traffic congestion, QoS, SQL Server versions, setup, hardware, etc Then there are issues with how the Web Front Ends are handing off the data and the HTTP pipe to the user, the browser in use, etc, etc.
Have a look at installing the Developer Dashboard for SharePoint 2010 and you’ll be able to see all of the steps in fecthing and delivering files and how long each one will take you. You’ll be quite surprised at how detailed the path is.
SharePoint 2010 Developer Dashboard