This content was auto-generated from Fusion SMB documentation and is pending SME review. Please verify accuracy before using in partner-facing contexts.
Fusion SMB — Product Overview
Tuxera Fusion SMB is a high-performance SMB file server for Linux that delivers enterprise-grade file sharing with the performance, security, and availability features that modern organizations demand.
What Is Fusion SMB?
Fusion SMB is a commercial, multi-threaded SMB server stack built from the ground up for performance on Linux. Unlike open-source alternatives, Fusion SMB is developed by an official Microsoft SMB technology partner and patent licensee, ensuring full protocol compliance and interoperability with Windows clients.
It is designed for organizations that need to serve files to Windows, macOS, and Linux clients from Linux-based infrastructure — whether on-premises NAS appliances, enterprise file servers, or clustered storage environments.
Core Capabilities
Highest-Performing SMB Implementation
Fusion SMB delivers up to 25 GB/s throughput — roughly 10× the performance of Samba (~2.5 GB/s) in comparable configurations. Production deployments have saturated 100 Gbps, 200 Gbps, and even 400 Gbps network links. This is achieved through:
The 400 Gbps figure is from partner training sessions (Aaron Kennedy, May 2025). Please confirm the latest approved throughput claim for external-facing materials.
- Multi-threaded architecture with configurable I/O thread pools (VFS data/metadata, transport tx/rx, crypto)
- SMB Multichannel support for aggregating multiple network connections
- SMB Direct (RDMA) for kernel-bypass, ultra-low-latency data transfer
- Zero-copy read operations to minimize CPU overhead
Recent benchmarks demonstrate 24.4 GB/s at 8MB I/O on a single 200GbE ConnectX-6 link — with 400GbE ConnectX-7 testing underway.
Enterprise Security
- Kerberos authentication with full Active Directory integration
- SMB encryption (AES-128-CCM, AES-128-GCM, AES-256-CCM, AES-256-GCM)
- Message signing for data integrity
- Windows ACL support for granular access control
- Audit logging for compliance and forensics
Continuous Availability & High Availability
- Active-Active clustering — distribute load across multiple nodes with automatic failover
- Active-Passive clustering — standby node takes over seamlessly on failure
- Persistent file handles — clients reconnect transparently after a node failover
- Scale-out architecture for growing capacity by adding nodes
Versatile Interoperability
- Runs alongside NFS on the same Linux server
- Supports SMB 2.x and SMB 3.x dialects (configurable per deployment)
- Compatible with all major Windows versions, macOS, and Linux SMB clients
- Small footprint — suitable for embedded systems and NAS appliances
Active Directory Integration
- Native AD domain membership
- Forest and cross-domain trust support
- LDAP and Kerberos service discovery with site awareness
- Support for TLS binds with non-AD LDAP servers
Supported Platforms
Fusion SMB runs on Linux and is deployed across:
- Enterprise file servers — high-throughput centralized storage
- NAS appliances — embedded and purpose-built storage devices
- Clustered storage — scale-out multi-node environments
- Hyperconverged infrastructure — integrated compute and storage nodes
Upcoming: SMB over QUIC
SMB over QUIC support is on the Fusion SMB roadmap, bringing encrypted transport without requiring a VPN — aligning with Microsoft's own SMB over QUIC support in Windows Server 2022+.
SMB over QUIC was referenced in partner training (May 2025) as "coming later this year." Please confirm current timeline and whether this should be mentioned in partner-facing materials.
Latest Release Highlights (26Q2 — Version 3026.4)
- SMB over QUIC
For full technical details, see the Fusion SMB Documentation — Features Overview.