Blender rendering 10 frames of blacksmith off local drive in one instance:

[bob@thorn blacksmith]$ pwd
/home/bob/Blender/blacksmith
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$ time blender -b blacksmith.blend -s 1 -e 10 -a
Saved: render/bs0001.jpg Time: 00:09.46 (0.14) 
Saved: render/bs0002.jpg Time: 00:08.26 (0.08) 
Saved: render/bs0003.jpg Time: 00:08.35 (0.06)
Saved: render/bs0004.jpg Time: 00:08.21 (0.04) 
Saved: render/bs0005.jpg Time: 00:08.31 (0.02) 
Saved: render/bs0006.jpg Time: 00:08.18 (0.01)
Saved: render/bs0007.jpg Time: 00:08.31 (0.01) 
Saved: render/bs0008.jpg Time: 00:08.18 (0.01) 
Saved: render/bs0009.jpg Time: 00:08.31 (0.02)
Saved: render/bs0010.jpg Time: 00:08.18 (0.01) 
Blender quit 
83.63user 1.07system 1:25.09elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (590major+22720minor)pagefaults 0swaps
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

->Blender running 10 frames of blacksmith, off local drive, in 10 instances:

<Test Script>
#!/bin/bash
p=1;
while { test $p -le 10 } do {
   blender -b blacksmith.blend -f $p
   p=$[$p+1];
}
done;
</end TestScript>


[bob@thorn blacksmith]$ 
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$ time ./testscript Saved:
render/bs0001.jpg Time: 00:09.40 (0.00) Blender quit Saved:
render/bs0002.jpg Time: 00:09.46 (0.00) Blender quit Saved:
render/bs0003.jpg Time: 00:09.44 (0.01) Blender quit Saved:
render/bs0004.jpg Time: 00:09.46 (0.00) Blender quit Saved:
render/bs0005.jpg Time: 00:09.46 (0.00) Blender quit Saved:
render/bs0006.jpg Time: 00:09.46 (0.00) Blender quit Saved:
render/bs0007.jpg Time: 00:09.46 (0.00) Blender quit Saved:
render/bs0008.jpg Time: 00:09.46 (0.00) Blender quit Saved:
render/bs0009.jpg Time: 00:09.46 (-0.01) Blender quit Saved:
render/bs0010.jpg Time: 00:09.46 (0.00) Blender quit 92.95user 4.26system
1:37.21elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k 0inputs+0outputs
(6066major+96429minor)pagefaults 0swaps
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$                             


About 1.2 seconds per frame difference.  The HD light didn't come on
at all after the first call.  All the files in the cache.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Running 10 frames in 1 instance on a SMB mounted drive [//santini] over
a 10baseT ethernet:

[bob@thorn blacksmith]$ pwd
/home/bob/santini/blacksmith
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$  time blender -b blacksmith.blend -s 1 -e 10 -a
Saved: render/bs0001.jpg Time: 00:09.47 (1.31)
Saved: render/bs0002.jpg Time: 00:08.17 (0.02)
Saved: render/bs0003.jpg Time: 00:08.32 (0.01)
Saved: render/bs0004.jpg Time: 00:08.18 (0.03)
Saved: render/bs0005.jpg Time: 00:08.34 (0.00)
Saved: render/bs0006.jpg Time: 00:08.18 (-0.01)
Saved: render/bs0007.jpg Time: 00:08.34 (0.00)
Saved: render/bs0008.jpg Time: 00:08.19 (0.00)
Saved: render/bs0009.jpg Time: 00:08.34 (0.00)
Saved: render/bs0010.jpg Time: 00:08.18 (0.00)
Blender quit
83.44user 1.65system 1:28.84elapsed 95%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (590major+22720minor)pagefaults 0swaps
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$ sync
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$

There was a lot of network traffic when the command was invoked, and a small
amount at the end of each frame.

I called sync at the end to see if there was a lot of pending SMB updates.
There weren't.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Test script running 10 frames 1 per on SMB mounted dir.

I ran it once and got results identical to the second set (within 1-2 hundredths),
I realized that it wasn't a fair test, so I umountes and remounted the drive,
and tried again.

[bob@thorn bob]$ umount santini
[bob@thorn bob]$ mount santini
Password:
[bob@thorn bob]$ cd santini/blacksmith
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$ time ./testscript
Saved: render/bs0001.jpg Time: 00:09.60 (1.94)
Blender quit
Saved: render/bs0002.jpg Time: 00:09.47 (0.30)
Blender quit
Saved: render/bs0003.jpg Time: 00:09.43 (0.61)
Blender quit
Saved: render/bs0004.jpg Time: 00:09.50 (0.01)
Blender quit
Saved: render/bs0005.jpg Time: 00:09.51 (0.00)
Blender quit
Saved: render/bs0006.jpg Time: 00:09.47 (0.02)
Blender quit
Saved: render/bs0007.jpg Time: 00:09.48 (0.01)
Blender quit
Saved: render/bs0008.jpg Time: 00:09.47 (0.02)
Blender quit
Saved: render/bs0009.jpg Time: 00:09.51 (-0.01)
Blender quit
Saved: render/bs0010.jpg Time: 00:09.47 (0.02)
Blender quit
93.03user 4.99system 1:43.80elapsed 94%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (6070major+96429minor)pagefaults 0swaps
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$ pwd
/home/bob/santini/blacksmith
[bob@thorn blacksmith]$

About 0.2 secs difference on the first frame and about 0.05 secs/frame after.

Network traffic was higher (several packets at the end of
each frame, but not constant streams.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My opinion: We're sweating the small stuff - using remote FS saves alot of
work in getting the render daemon going, and will only benefit by a small
increment.  The amount of time to do the render is an order of magnatude
greater than the set-up time.

If we offer a block-size control, setting block size to 10 cuts the losses
to about 1.2% (1/10 of the 12% difference on all frames after first).