Filer does extra work, to serve a filer request:
1) filer: lookup directory in memory, this should be very fast
2) filer: lookup file "1.jpg" via leveldb
3) filer: proxy the request to weed volume
4) Volume server returns data to filer
5) filer: give the data back to client
Just compare one single file performance is not really meaningful. Put lots and lots of files under one filer folder, and randomly access one of them. Filer can handle it with fairly consistent speed without much speed degradation. That's where the power of filer shines.