Sometimes an OS X Server will have very poor SMB file sharing performance - whilst I haven’t been able to ascertain with 100% certainty what causes it, something that may be a factor is the use of SMB 3 connections over SMB 2. SMB 3 connections can be signed and encrypted, and this can put a significant amount of overhead on the server. To disable SMB 3 at the server end, type the following in to Terminal
sudo scutil —prefs com.apple.smb.server.plist get / d.add ProtocolVersionMap # 2 set / commit apply quit
Info from https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT204021