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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-343 => Topic started by: Clayton on June 13, 2011, 12:30:44 AM

Title: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 13, 2011, 12:30:44 AM
I have a PC with 1GB LAN also 1GB LAN Switch which my NAS is connected to, but transfer speeds are very poor, around 6.85 MB/second.
Most of the files I am transferring are around 350MB in AVI format.
Anyone having the same problems or have made it go faster?
cheers
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: JavaLawyer on June 13, 2011, 04:27:26 AM
By chance, is your PC running Windows 7? I've read about (and personally experienced) an issue where transfer speeds between the DNS-343 and Windows 7 PCs intermittently drops to the 4 to 6 mbps range. Rebooting the PC restores the transfer speeds (10-15 mbps for 100 mbps LAN) until the issue occurs next time. For me, this issue recurs once every few weeks. I have no transfer speed issues on non-Windows 7 boxes.

If you are using a Windows 7 PC, try testing transfer speeds on a non-Windows 7 box on the same network port to validate the issue.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 21, 2011, 07:20:20 PM
Yes, I am running Windows 7 x64, I'll try and find a XP machine and do some transferring
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: JavaLawyer on June 23, 2011, 08:19:29 AM
Yes, I am running Windows 7 x64, I'll try and find a XP machine and do some transferring

I suspect your transfer rates will increase if you switch to a different OS. Post your results after you test throughput on another box.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 23, 2011, 05:07:44 PM
I have done one test today but not from a XP machine.
I'm transferring 246GB of files from my NAS to a USB drive connected to my Windows 7 machine and the transfer speeds are around 10.5MB/second while also transferring 90GB of movies to my NAS from PC, not sure what the speed is with these files as I am using KLS Backup software to sync.
what should be a acceptable speed in MB/second for GB LAN?
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: JavaLawyer on June 23, 2011, 05:36:47 PM
There's a bandwidth monitor application I've been using for the past 5+ years called "DU Meter" (www.dumeter.com). You can download a 30 day trial.  The app will provide you with the instantaneous and average throughput up/down and cumulative.

I can't speak speak for GB LAN, but my 100 MB LAN throughput falls between 10 to 15 mbps. Your measured throughput on a GB LAN will be limited by the HDDs, overhead from RAID 5 (RAID 5 slows down transfer speeds), and limitations of the DNS-343 itself.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: skrupka on June 23, 2011, 05:54:44 PM
Nice program.  This is my results using the same program on a GBE connection.

201.00 Mbps    0.20 Gbps
25.13 MB/s

This is uploading to the NAS from my PC and Windows 7 x64 pro machine with a 7200.11 rpm drive.  No RAID.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: skrupka on June 23, 2011, 05:59:36 PM
Going the other way is quicker :

   301.00 Mbps    0.30 Gbps
   37.63 MB/s    0.04 GB/s
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 23, 2011, 07:13:30 PM
Hells Bells, that's fast, I'll run a test later, my configuration on PC is 3TB SATA3 7200.11 connected to a Highpoint Rocket Raid 620 SATA3 6GB's pci-e card to NAS 4 x 2TB 5900 RPM drives in RAID5
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 25, 2011, 09:26:36 PM
Skrupka, I think you have your settings wrong in DU Meter, try changing the data transfer rate unit settings in options to Bytes per Second (kB/sec) then test again, should be around 5-6 MB/second.
I'm getting the same readings even transferring from a XP machine with GB LAN, so it has to with the NAS.
no Major, but initial backup of 1.8TB is 3-4 days, I had to do this twice becuase of a RAID 5 rebuilding issue after updating to firmware 1.05b01
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: skrupka on June 26, 2011, 02:58:13 AM
I still get the same results.  It doesn't matter what measurement is used.   i.e inches to centimeters ....  your setup is not giving you correct speeds.  I'm also using Jumbo Frame support 9000k if that helps.   it only takes a few seconds to copy a 1 gig file.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: skrupka on June 26, 2011, 03:05:52 AM
http://postimage.org/image/1dmnr1mw4/ (http://postimage.org/image/1dmnr1mw4/)

Here is a screenshot.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 26, 2011, 02:19:28 PM
ok, my bad, however I uploading to the NAS at around 4.5 MB/s, jumbo frames and 1000 is set in the NAS, must be some sort of limitations with a RAID configuration, started a 1.00TB folder tansfer yesterday morning at 5am and still have 580GB left to transfer, 28 hours later.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: JavaLawyer on June 26, 2011, 02:43:00 PM
ok, my bad, however I uploading to the NAS at around 4.5 MB/s, jumbo frames and 1000 is set in the NAS, must be some sort of limitations with a RAID configuration, started a 1.00TB folder tansfer yesterday morning at 5am and still have 580GB left to transfer, 28 hours later.


On a 100 MB LAN, you should be seeing throughput somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15 MB/s, and for a GB LAN, the throughput should be substantially greater. Something is amiss.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 26, 2011, 06:01:14 PM
hmmm, what I wonder?
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 26, 2011, 11:31:54 PM
Tried transferring from my laptop with GB LAN and now getting around 20.5 MB/second, found this post on Google about my NIC card in the Dell Precision T3400

"May be the motherboard and LAN architecture are not designed properly. the basic concept of any onboard device is that, it uses bus arbitration. it is the technique to use the system bus as per the interrupt so as to avoid collisions if any as system bus is shared by all the devices connected to a computer system. this is a clear hardware issue. the dell motherboard's architecture is somewhere not supporting LAN architecture. the best solution is to use PCI ethernet adapter untill dell improvers the motherboard architecture!"

So am going to buy a PCI or PCI-E GB LAN card and give that a try.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: JavaLawyer on June 27, 2011, 05:25:18 AM
It looks like you've found a partial solution, but the numbers are still below the typical low end for your GB connection.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: skrupka on June 27, 2011, 09:11:45 AM
I'm also using a dedicated PCI network card (Belkin) I found that the speed was faster than my mainboard adapter.   Maybe using 9000k Jumbo Frames will get you close to 25 MB/s which is the speed I get copying to the NAS.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: JavaLawyer on June 27, 2011, 09:23:52 AM
I'm also using a dedicated PCI network card (Belkin) I found that the speed was faster than my mainboard adapter.   Maybe using 9000k Jumbo Frames will get you close to 25 MB/s which is the speed I get copying to the NAS.

From my understanding, on a GB network connection, the throughput should fall between 25 to 35 MB/s.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: skrupka on June 27, 2011, 10:55:05 AM
From my understanding, on a GB network connection, the throughput should fall between 25 to 35 MB/s.

Yes, exactly as i quoted in the thread earlier I get 25 MB/s upload and 35 MB/s download from the NAS.  Did you read the whole thread JavaLawyer? Or are you just stating that I've reached optimal transfer speeds? Because what you posted earlier is that you only know the speed you get on a 10/100 Ethernet connection, are you privy to new official facts from D-Link? You stated there is a difference in speed between operating systems i.e XP to Windows 7.  That doesn't seem to be the case.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: JavaLawyer on June 27, 2011, 12:23:47 PM
Yes, exactly as i quoted in the thread earlier I get 25 MB/s upload and 35 MB/s download from the NAS.  Did you read the whole thread JavaLawyer? Or are you just stating that I've reached optimal transfer speeds? Because what you posted earlier is that you only know the speed you get on a 10/100 Ethernet connection, are you privy to new official facts from D-Link? You stated there is a difference in speed between operating systems i.e XP to Windows 7.  That doesn't seem to be the case.

There is a known issue some users with Windows 7 PCs are experiencing where transfer rates drop well below 5 MB/s. The root cause and resolution are unknown.

As far as the GB data threshold I stated in my last post, I recalled reading transfer speed discussions on the DNS-323 forum a year ago and revisited those threads to refresh my memory. Hardware wise, the DNS-323 and DNS-343 are essentially the same device, save the extra two HDD ports. That said, the throughput on the DNS-323 and DNS-343 should be the same. The throughput numbers I quoted were the approximate range measured by DNS-323 users who tested the transfer rates for their particular devices.

Another point to be noted: The DNS-323 outsold the DNS-343 many times over, so the DNS-323 user base is much larger and consequently there are many more threads posted on transfer speeds and other issues than you'll find here. The DNS-323 forum is a good resource for issue resolution.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 28, 2011, 03:30:41 PM
Finally got around to installing a PCI GB NIC, but I now can not access the NAS nor via the web interface but I can access everything from my laptop, strange!!
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Clayton on June 28, 2011, 04:06:49 PM
I've figured out why it wasn't connecting, the NIC driver settings had a maximum jambo frames setting of 7000 set and the NAS was set at 9000, so I changed the NAS settings to 7000 and tested the transfer speeds, wait for it....................... now I am getting around 2.5MB/second worst off than before.
I'm using a Realtek PCI GBE Family Controller, my laptop is using a Intel Gigabit Controller, so I might buy a Intel NIC controller and see how that goes
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: seattle web guru on October 09, 2011, 08:10:08 PM
Its not your NIC or machine. Its more likely the NIC on the DNS343. I have had the exact same problem for months. 4 computers, all the same. I spent sooooooo much money replacing routers this year, cause thats what everyone says it is... It is not.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: Locster on November 30, 2011, 02:40:43 PM
I'd resolved myself to accept a transfer speed between 6 and 10MB/s regardless of OS or connection type. The reasoning I'd heard was that the processor on the 343 was not powerful enough to do RAID5 calculations fast enough to saturate the unit's 1Gb NIC.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: blairblends on January 02, 2012, 12:51:10 AM
I went through this sort of struggle about a year ago, and let me tell you what I found out (if this helps).

I felt like I should be getting faster than the speeds I was, because I could copy to my MacBook, for example, at speeds of like 75 MB/s with no issue.  For the NAS, read would peak in the 20s, write would never go over 10 to 12.  I felt like something was off...

So, I went out and got a new gigabit switch and a gigabit card for my machine (making my whole network gigabit).  All link speeds at 1Gbps.  Great!

I put the settings on the DNS-343 and computer to match with the JUMBO packets, then did some speed tests.

Things had improved to where reads (depending on the size of the file) often peak around 30-45 MB/s (megabytes per second).  My write speeds still hover around the 10 MB/s rate.

The long and short of it is that the DNS-343 just isn't the fastest unit out there.  Having now scanned the posts in this and other forums, I can tell you that once you get into that 30ish MB/s range for reads, you're in the top tier.

I'm still not EXACTLY sure why writes are so slow (and reads are sort of a "C-" grade), but I'm sure someone can explain.  For me, it's really not much of an issue since I'm patient and I just use the NAS for backups.  But still, I'm a curious geek.

That's just my experience, hope it helps.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: JavaLawyer on January 02, 2012, 05:06:04 AM
blairblends - Thank you for sharing your throughput metrics. I have similar performance on my two DNS-343s. The throughput ceiling appears to be a bottleneck related to the DNS-343 hardware rather than LAN topography/configuration. My DNS-343s are configured as Standard Volumes. Users who use RAID 5 may experience a slight further drop in throughput due to the overhead carried by RAID.
Title: Re: Transfer Speeds
Post by: kenfong on January 05, 2012, 06:17:39 PM
I am running 7x64 systems with the following results:
write to 343: 25MB/s
read from 343: 35MB/s
based on 1G wired network.

I had slow transfer rate (5MB/s) when started using 343 even with 1G wired network. I found out 343 need to configure to use JUMBO frame (9K). I had to change my network card to use JUMBO frame as well. (I purchased a new network card which allow me to configure the JUMBO frame feature.) Furthermore I found out my 1G router is part of the problem as well. It could not handle JUMBO frame. So I added a better switch, and my 343 and PC are on connected via the switch instead of the router.

hope this will help.