Networking -  Slow NAS connection - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 06:27:51 pm
content: Here's a question for you IT guys.I recently purchased a NAS server, but when it, along with my computer, to my router, I am only getting speeds of roughly 10MB/s. The NAS, the ethernet card in my computer, and the router, are all Gigabit supporting devices. I have connected the PC to the router via a Cat6 cable, and the NAS to the router via a Cat5e cable. I have confirmed that the settings are correctly set-up in the NAS as well as in Windows (PC) for Gigabit baud rates. However, the settings menu for my router/modem is too complex, with options for things like "Jumbo Frames" etc. I did turn the firewall off though, so I don't imagine port forwarding is an issue?Can I bypass this router entirely by simply connecting my computer and the NAS to a switch?

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 06:33:15 pm
content: Yes.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 07:10:26 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on January 23, 2014, 06:27:51 pm1. Please change the topic to something more specific2. Give people a fighting chance to help you by giving the make & model of the NAS, and explaining how you measured the 10MB/s3. The switch in your router is just a switch, most of the settings won't affect it at all, so it's probably not the problem

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 07:36:25 pm
content: QuoteNAS: Synology DS1513+HDD: 2X WD RED 3.0TBRouter: Motorolla SBG6580Ethernet: Unknown (from Alienware R3 @ 2011) -- Confimed gibabit compliant, and set to auto-negotiate baud rate in Windows 7In the Synology OS (DSM 4.3), files were copied from within "File Station", and the speed was displayed in the "Resource Monitor" widget. The reported speed was consistant with how long it took to copy a 1GB file. The highest speed I was getting was around 15MB/s, but it averaged at around 10MB/s. Large files copied more quickly than lots of small files with the same space footprint.

author: Fabiusp98
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 07:41:41 pm
content: It's not the maximum speed of the hdd or his controller?

author: amwales
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 07:45:32 pm
content: At first reading your 10MBs it sounded suspicious, too close to 100Mbs sounds like a negotiation problem.Can you try an FTP transfer from the NAS to your PC and let us know what speed you achieve?CIFS/SMB can incur some overhead.

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 07:51:33 pm
content: try to send ONE big file (like an ISO of a CD or DVD for example) from the pc to the nasthen try to send the home directory of your pc (or "my documents" under windows)the big file should be way fasterif yes then it is an SMB issue : it does not like big array of thousands of small filesif not, then it is an hardware : try to connect the pc directly to the nas, or try other cables.

author: amwales
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 07:56:15 pm
content: Connect the NAS directly to the PC with one of the nerwork cables, since its Gige you dont need cross over or any special cables. You will most likely have to assign it an IP address or find out what its using since your PC will not be acting as a DHCP server. From looking at the specs on the NAS it can easily max out the network at 100MBs so that's not your bottleneck. You would expect a reasonable throuput 90MBs from the drives, what about the destination drive your are copying the data to?

author: sync
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 07:56:50 pm
content: 10-15MB/s sounds reasonable for coping files within the the NAS. These are slow harddrives (access time) and probably a slow NAS.Copy a large file from the NAS to a PC. It should be much faster.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 07:57:31 pm
content: QuoteThe thing here is that, when I send one big file, I get transfer speeds of 10MB/s. When I transfer lots of small files, I get transfer speeds of only a few KB/s. However, I should be getting speeds of >100MB/s, at least for the big files.I've been reading on the net, and I've come accross everything from 4k cach files in the HDD, to 'Jumbo Frames', to setup problems. I am going to try FTP when I get home, and if that still doesn't work, I'll recable everything and try a different configuration

author: amwales
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 08:01:33 pm
content: I doubts its the HDD'Benchmark Results: The WD Red 3TB hard drive had an average read speed of 112.4MB/s with a burst speed of 345.3MB/s and an access time of 22.0ms. The read performance is fairly linear and started out at 112.4MB/s on the outer edges of the platters before slowing to 62.8MB/s on the inner sectors.' -http://www.legitreviews.com/wd-red-3tb-nas-hard-drive-review_2092/3I doubt its the NAS, that looks like a good one'In our SMB-based data transfer tests, the DS1513+ achieved a large file write speed of 105.4MB/s and a read speed of 94.8MB/s, which produced an average of 100.1MB/s. The speeds produced in our small file read and write tests are always significantly slower, but the DS1513+ compared well to similarly specified rivals, with a write speed of 18.2MB/s, read speed of 25.1MB/s and an average speed of 21.7MB/s.' -http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/network-storage/1301245/synology-diskstation-ds1513Most likely the router or the ethernet on the PC.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 08:01:33 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on January 23, 2014, 07:36:25 pmThis uses WebDAV... try direct SMB access, that should be faster.(And don't forget to fix the topic... "Networking"? Lame.)

author: PA0PBZ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 08:05:50 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on January 23, 2014, 07:57:31 pmNever. 100MB/s equals roughly 1000Mb/s = 1Gb/s, which is the maximum speed of your network.(yes I know, a byte is 8 bits, but that's the way it is including the overhead)

author: sync
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 08:09:44 pm
content: Quote from: amwales on January 23, 2014, 08:01:33 pm22ms access time is slow, very slow. Forget the sequential read/write performance. It's the access time which matters. While coping within the disks there will be a lot of seeking. Which cost 22ms every time.

author: sync
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 08:22:32 pm
content: Quote from: PA0PBZ on January 23, 2014, 08:05:50 pmAbout 118MB/s is achievable. Use NFS between a Linux client and a Linux server with a good performing storage (battery backuped SAS controller, external storage array). Good network cards are also needed. All professional stuff. And of course this is only for coping one large file. Using many small files slows down everything.

author: amwales
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 08:46:10 pm
content: PA0PBZ - unfortunately you can get around 120MBs throughput on Gige, honestly.Sync - agreed 22ms is slow, but still for a large non fragmented file you should see good performance from those drives.You would expect a couple of hundred KBs on 4k random IOs but from the benchmark posted I would expect >100MBs from a singleone of those drives for a large file.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 09:00:38 pm
content: Quote from: sync on January 23, 2014, 08:22:32 pmYou can also get roughly that performance with regular boring cheapo gear, as long as it's not total shit. Don't need SAS nor expensive (aka professional) nics. If you're going to spend money that way you're better of buying a bunch of good sata disks + mobo with sata3 + ebay-ed infiniband as storage. Definitely cheaper, and definitely more iops and raw bandwidth for your money. Yes yes, no battery backup. Or just use journals and live somewhere where power quality is good.That of course being within the context of it being a home network where you just want good + reliable performance on the cheap, not an enterprise solution with 100+ users and 99.999% uptime.That said, all the nas boxes targeted at home users I've seen so far have been a bit underwhelming regarding price/performance...

author: sync
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 09:02:45 pm
content: Quote from: amwales on January 23, 2014, 08:46:10 pmIt depends. As local disk in a PC and with a good file system (NOT Windows NTFS) you can get close to the sequential disk performance. But copying files within disks means reading and writing at the same time. Therefore a lot of seeking which slows down. And a NAS make this worse because of the network file system and it's not allowed to cache writes as aggressively as locally on a computer.

author: amwales
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 09:28:13 pm
content: Just a thought. You said you had 2 disks could we assume that you set them up as a RAID 1, in which case it could be synchronizing the data on two disks, does the NAS report the status, degraded, synchronizing? That would introduce IOs causing seeks while you are performing your network copy and would affect performance.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 10:14:28 pm
content: QuoteActually, it is 800Mb/s, 80% of the theoretical maximum, which I think is doable. However, also I believe in Full Duplex mode you get 2Gb/s theoretical max?However, I am only getting 10MB/s. I have narrowed it down to my PC. I borrowed a switch from a friend, and it blinks green when connected at 1000Mb/s, and orange when connected at 100Mb/s. It is blinking orange for the Cat6 cable (and I tried switching cables) plugged into my PC's ethernet card. The model is 'Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller' (it's on-board though).

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 10:48:00 pm
content: other thoughts :- over fragmented windows 7 hard drive source : try to duplicate a large file on the pc - how much does it take compared to the copy to the nas of the same file ?- antivirus software that check everytime each byte you manipulate on the pc and slows the transferts ? try to disconnect the antivirus and then copy a large file to the nas.

author: sync
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 11:06:44 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on January 23, 2014, 10:14:28 pmIt should be doable with reading a large file from the NAS. Maybe not with SMB(V1) but FTP. Writing is a different story.QuoteWhat connection speed reports your operation system?

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 11:21:06 pm
content: QuoteI currently have it set to "Auto Negotiate", but I tried manually setting it to "1Gb/s Full Duplex" and it made no difference. I also installed the newest driver.QuoteNope. I tried FTP using FileZilla with a large file, and it was still caping out at 10MB/s.QuoteI don't have any anti-virus software installed, and I have firewalls turned off in Windows, my router, and the NAS. There's also no antivirus software currently installed on the NAS itself. Fragmentation isn't the issue

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 11:38:40 pm
content: Before getting into that ... if the orange blinky means 100 mbit link, and you get the orange blinky and not the green blinky ==> you have 100 mbit. If that is the case that means you'll get about 12 mbyte/s max. If so then you should look at the link + autonegotiation, not ftp vs smb vs whatever.Sometimes a short non-crap cable can help. Direct connection between nas box + pc might help. Or just try a different network card on the PC instead of the onboard (RTL?) chipset.Short version: no use looking at anything else before you get 1 gbit link.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 11:43:08 pm
content: I just found something else out. When I go to Start --> Control Panel --> Network and Sharing Center --> Change Adapter Settings, and I right-click on my LAN connection and select "Status", it reads speed as 100.0Mbps? Is this just a Windows setting that I'm not configuring properly?

author: sync
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 11:47:07 pm
content: Probably the network interface on your PC is broken. I saw this several times. This is maybe caused by mechanical stress on the port and a connection is broken. Then it can't get the 4 pairs needed for 1Gb/s. 100Mb/s only need 2 pairs. Test it with another network card.

author: akkarin
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2014, 01:08:39 am
content: Have you created the cables yourself? Try different cables if you haven't yet.Whats the model and brand of the switch you are using?

author: sync
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2014, 01:17:14 am
content: Quote from: akkarin on January 24, 2014, 01:08:39 amDon't trust self made ethernet cables!

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2014, 01:42:10 am
content: never trust the switches in routers.they are invariably crummy and when one port falls to slow speed the others typically follow.Get a good mulitport ethernet switch. There is a lot of crap out there, even amongst brand namesMultiport switches are typically built around 5 lane ic's. an 8 port switch connects to 5-lane ic's together so you have 4 lanes of one ic and 4 lanes of the other.Code:ic 1 ic 21234 ---|--- 43211234 5678 < outside portsSo there is a bottleneck ! blasting data from port 1 to 2 simultaneous with from port 5 to 6 has no impact.send data from 1 to 5 and 2 to 6 and now the connection between the two chips needs to be share between two datastreams ! so your overall dataflow tumbles.with 16 port siwtches it even gets worse ! they use one chip to feed 4 others. in certain combinations the internal backbone gets overloeaded and your throughput tumbles.real switches employ a different topology and do not have this internal bakcbone bottleneck. I have a Dlink and a Trendnet at home that do not have this problem. i can pump data over the gigabit links simultaneously without the backbone ever slowing down.2) The same goes for NAS devices. there is a lot of crap NAS boxes out there that keel over once you start loading them. These are invariably running some linux distro on an underpowered processor.I have good experiences with the LG NAS boxes as well as the WD Mybook devices (turn off twonky on WD).Stay away from those NAS boxes that have all kinds of 'servers' . DLNA, itunes, torrent clients and all the other crap. Especially boxes that use Twonkymedia are a disaster. Twonkymedia is one of the most unstable media servers out there. it can go easily in a deadlock trying to build or rebuild it's 'database'. It has a tendency to hog the NAS cpu and make the entire box slow. Disable that shit if it is on your NAS. a NAS should only be serving files through SMB.3) DO NOT MAKE your own ethernet cables ! too many times it goes wrong. wrong pairs being used , improperly crimped and overall flackyness. you can run your own ethernet cables in the wall and terminate them with the proper wall jack if you use the correct punch down tool and follow the rules. i did this and used a fluke ethernet tester to verify all my loops. i had 3 out of 27 loops that were 'flaky' , cutting and re-setting the wires at the terminal blocks fixed that. on one it was a dead pair (no galvanic contact) , on another a wrongly wired pair (pairs flipped). the third had too much loss. i had left too much slack between pairs.cutting the end and re-punching them in the contact blocks solved that.ethernet needs to be done properly for it to work right.

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2014, 07:33:37 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 24, 2014, 01:42:10 amI dont agree with that in the fact that this is a recent gigabit router...I would agree if it has been a 100mbit not recent router.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2014, 07:46:31 am
content: it may have physical gigait ports but that thoes not mean the router hardware/firmware can actually handle a gigabit datastream. the switch may be able to handle gigabit transfers , but to be able to actualy route a 1 gigabit link between the wan and lan ports requires serious hardware. A true gigabit capable router costs in the 200 to 300$ price range.

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2014, 10:11:35 am
content: that's why I asked the OP to use a direct wire from the pc to the nas...

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2014, 07:11:15 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 24, 2014, 01:42:10 amHow is this possible, when they use the same switch ICs as switches? I have tested plenty of crappy routers, and have never seen one where the switch didn't work.QuoteCan you name a current product that is built this way? It doesn't make sense since an 8 port chip is cheaper than 2 5 port chips.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2014, 07:12:06 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 24, 2014, 07:46:31 amNot relevant to the OP since he is just transferring files on his LAN...

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2014, 08:27:04 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on January 24, 2014, 07:11:15 pmMy guess is this was a datapoint from somewhere in the previous decade.Anyways, router and/or switch backplanes have zilch to do with the OP's problem. With a bit of luck it's just a dodgy cable, which is easy enough to fix: get a decent molded cable. Could be a crappy driver install, but who the hell knows. If you suspect that, you could grab a knoppix or debian/ubuntu/whatever image, and boot from usb stick. Or burned dvd if that's how you roll. Those will detect all mainstream network devices, and if the network card is okay you should now see the happy blinky led for gbit link. If so, then you have reduced it to windoze driver issues. If this also shows 100 mbit link, AND you are sure the cable is okay then you probably have a dodgy realtek. In that case get a decent intel gbit nic (usually free with a packet of cornflakes) and you should be good to go.

author: Shock
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2014, 03:40:18 am
content: Always test large files, around a gig is a good test (remember it may cache).If you have a modern OS it should show link speed (in hardware and software) of at least the lowest hardware speed present.Expect about 40 MB/s (megabytes per second) for gigabit connections (adjust upwards for disk speed).Use the process of elimination.Make a network share on another PC and try.Replace the cable and try.Bypass the router and try.Update the drivers (the real vendor ones) and network card (or bios) firmware and try (you will be surprised).If it's not that it's configuration or software.Fixed.

author: David_AVD
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2014, 04:16:47 am
content: Definitely check the Ethernet cables, especially if you made them yourself. A broken wire or split pairs will definitely cause speed / reliability issues.