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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-323 => Topic started by: elementwang on July 29, 2009, 02:34:26 PM

Title: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: elementwang on July 29, 2009, 02:34:26 PM
i'm very disappointed in the file transfer speed of my network.  i have dlink655 (gigabit router) as my router, my network adapter is intel gigabit network, Hard Drive is Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB and i use cat6 cable. i'm only getting about 5.8-5.9 MB/second (files>2G) from PC to router to dns323. what is wrong? any idea?
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: D-Link Multimedia on July 29, 2009, 02:50:21 PM
First step in diagnosing would be hook the 323 up directly to your intel card. Test throughput and see if it is still slow. If it is, its your card. If not then it points to the network.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on July 29, 2009, 04:26:54 PM
The DNS-323 is capable of over 20MB/sec on gigabit (and can hit 30+ MB/sec on gigabit with jumbo frame) - BUT - you need to remember that the DSN-323 is only one part of the file transfer process.  Don't assume that the average desktop with a gigabit network card can deliver gigabit speeds, it may not.

Just as an example - I can transfer files between my DNS-323 and my IBM server at approximately 24MB/sec (no jumbo frame) but to my gigabit equipped Dell desktop, the speeds average 6.5MB/sec
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: elementwang on July 29, 2009, 05:19:30 PM
First step in diagnosing would be hook the 323 up directly to your intel card. Test throughput and see if it is still slow. If it is, its your card. If not then it points to the network.

Thanks, when i hook the 323  up directly to my intel card, i got about 6.1-6.33 MB/second, still is very slow. as you said, my network adapter is something wrong? it is came with motherbord.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: elementwang on July 29, 2009, 05:26:51 PM
The DNS-323 is capable of over 20MB/sec on gigabit (and can hit 30+ MB/sec on gigabit with jumbo frame) - BUT - you need to remember that the DSN-323 is only one part of the file transfer process.  Don't assume that the average desktop with a gigabit network card can deliver gigabit speeds, it may not.

Just as an example - I can transfer files between my DNS-323 and my IBM server at approximately 24MB/sec (no jumbo frame) but to my gigabit equipped Dell desktop, the speeds average 6.5MB/sec

so can i say gigabit network for home is a romantic vision?

by the way my old NDAS from Ximeta that is 100 ethernet but the average speed is 16 MB/sec. that is why i complain about the speed of 323
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: kawabunga18 on July 29, 2009, 08:20:57 PM
i'm very disappointed in the file transfer speed of my network.  i have dlink655 (gigabit router) as my router, my network adapter is intel gigabit network, Hard Drive is Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB and i use cat6 cable. i'm only getting about 5.8-5.9 MB/second (files>2G) from PC to router to dns323. what is wrong? any idea?

Haven't read the whole thread but ... did you hard set the interface on the NAS to gig? I think the default is auto.

-Kawa-
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: elementwang on July 29, 2009, 09:59:04 PM
Thanks Kawa, i do set the 323 to gigabit mode (1000Mbps) and jumbo frame 9000, but nothing changed.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: Piotr on July 29, 2009, 11:03:56 PM
(...) that is 100 ethernet but the average speed is 16 MB/sec. that is why i complain about the speed of 323

Sorry, but it's simply not possible.12.5 MB/s is the theoretical maximum of 100 Mb/s networking.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on July 30, 2009, 05:19:50 AM
so can i say gigabit network for home is a romantic vision?

by the way my old NDAS from Ximeta that is 100 ethernet but the average speed is 16 MB/sec. that is why i complain about the speed of 323

Think about it - in reality, anything over 100 mbps IS gigabit.

As to the romantic vision - if you wanted to you could implement a gigabit network in your home and install equipment capable of utilizing it's bandwidth, but in my opinion, the average home doesn't need it, in fact the average business doesn't need it.

Let's face it - to most home users, the network is just a way to share a broadband internet connection and the broadband connection IS the bottleneck.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: Energata on July 30, 2009, 07:16:38 AM
I am also getting 4-6 MB/s between my main workstation and my 323. Transferring to my other system on the GB network yields speeds anywhere between 75 MB/s - almost 100 MB/s. GB Network is set on the admin, as is Jumbo frame size set to 9000. High quality cat6 cables are being used.

2 x 1.5TB Seagate drives 7200.11

Very disappointed....
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on July 30, 2009, 09:47:47 AM
I am also getting 4-6 MB/s between my main workstation and my 323. Transferring to my other system on the GB network yields speeds anywhere between 75 MB/s - almost 100 MB/s. GB Network is set on the admin, as is Jumbo frame size set to 9000. High quality cat6 cables are being used.

2 x 1.5TB Seagate drives 7200.11

Very disappointed....

Time to start troubleshooting - in the situation you describe the DNS-323 is capable of delivering approximately 30MB/sec
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: Energata on July 30, 2009, 01:07:37 PM
Time to start troubleshooting - in the situation you describe the DNS-323 is capable of delivering approximately 30MB/sec

I agree. Do you have any recommendations fordem, that I can add to my list?

Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: mig on July 30, 2009, 03:12:54 PM
I agree. Do you have any recommendations fordem, that I can add to my list?

What are your transfer speeds if you disable jumbo frames on the DNS-323?
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: jmonfar on July 31, 2009, 02:02:54 AM
Having as main computer a laptop with internal 100Mb/s ethernet, connected to the NAS through a Zyxel with 100Mb/s lan ports, was already measuring speeds of 8-9MB/s, not bad for theoretical limit of 12.5MB/s for 100Mb/s lan, considering protocol overhead and other inefficiencies.

So the first point is that 4-5MB/s for Gigabit is definitively VERY poor.

I later tried to upgrade the computer to Gigabit; not finding a expresscard Gb adapter, first tried a Belkin USB to ethernet gigabit capable adapter. Saw, frustrated, that speeds in direct cable connect 'upgraded' to only 11-12MB/s, barely below 100Mb/s limits. I know that USB can offer only half the bus speed than gigabit needs (480Mb/s vs. 1000Mb/s); but we can expect that the NAS itself will hit his own bottlenecks much lower than that, and USB should have been able to handle way more than the DNS can feed. It's not reasonable to expect 10x improvement with gigabit, but 20-25% is not worth the investment in adapters and gigabit capable switch (or router).

Another interesting point is that the USB adapter offered jumbo frames, but not other important optimizations, like checksum offload or large send optimization. CPU usage was going through the roof during transfers. Returned it.

Later tried a Netgear PCBUS(PCMCIA 32) Gb adapter. PCBUS bandwidth matches almost exactly gigabit. Most important, the card chipset (Realtek) offered checksum offload and LSO, even if the jumbo frames did go only up to 3k (or 7k with latest Realtek -not Netgear- drivers).

That made the difference: speed jumped up to 25MB/s either with direct cable connection or through a small gigabit D-Link switch. That's 3x improvement, and really makes worth the investment. It's consistent or higher with what I have read here and in reviews can be seen with DNS-323 with gigabit. And CPU usage is not higher than observed with 100mb/s.

At this point I guess that the disks, RAID and DNS CPU and buffer are hitting their limits, and no gigabit can help more. But it's a pretty good performance, for the DNS price point. You don't need to settle for less.

So, the second point, is that the ethernet adapter or port can make a big difference, and that not all labelled gigabit ports will really offer Gb speeds, be it for HW or driver problems.

Finally, even for a HW capable adapter, some tuning can be needed. Had the DNS initially configured with 9k Jumbo frames, and found that setting the PC adapter to 7k frames (the maximum) slowed down the transfers to 10Mb/s like speeds. That should not be that way: both devices should negotiate and settle to the lower common size, ant that's all. But in practice, had to set the DNS to 7k, too, and all was going up to the speeds avobe noted (over 25MB/s). Look also to the typical Windows TCP/IP window optimizations that Google can help to locate. Had all of them in place from before, but suspect that if not they could have limited transfers to below than the DNS can do.

Final morale is that there can be a number of bottlenecks: ethernet adapter HW, drivers, operating system TCP/IP optimizations, disk subsystems (in BOTH the PC and the DNS), network interconnect (direct cable, switch, router). You will slown down to match the lowest one in your setup. And you'll need to raise ALL of them above what the DNS can offer (25-30MB/s) to get the most of it.

In your case, it's likely something is not right in the PC network setup, or internal disk subsystem.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on July 31, 2009, 05:49:44 AM
If I could just add one single thing to jmonfar's excellent post ...

File size makes a significant difference.

For every file transferred, a certain amount of disk "housekeeping" must occur, storage blocks (sectors if you like) have to be marked as used and directory entries have to be created - these activities take place at what are essentially fixed locations that are often not adjacent to the location where the data is being written and the disks' read/write heads must swing backward & forward, and whilst this is happening, no data is being read or written.

The time taken to transfer a single 2GB file will be significantly less than that required to transfer 1000 x 2MB files, even though the volume of data can be considered to remain the same.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: garyhgaryh on August 01, 2009, 09:22:47 PM
There's been about a dozen post about the subpar performance of our nas' gigabit network.
I've concluded that I will get no more than a fast running 100mb/sec network.  and most say, if I get 101mb/sec then I am running a gigabit.  Whatever. 

I'll see an average of about 12-13MB/sec and that's all I'm going to expect from the dlink 323/321.
Yes, sometimes I get more (18MB/sec and sometimes less, but it averages out to 12-13MB/s with
my setup).
Gary
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: Tank_Killer on August 03, 2009, 11:42:54 AM
Re-Paste of gigabit networking article

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gigabit-ethernet-bandwidth,2321.html

some good infomartion there
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: FragaGeddon on August 03, 2009, 01:55:20 PM
Re-Paste of gigabit networking article

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gigabit-ethernet-bandwidth,2321.html

some good infomartion there
Will have to give that a read after, Thanks.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: garyhgaryh on August 03, 2009, 11:00:09 PM
Re-Paste of gigabit networking article

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gigabit-ethernet-bandwidth,2321.html

some good infomartion there

Excellent article Tank!
Thanks!
Gary
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: Polaris on August 10, 2009, 07:09:08 AM
I'm running a dlink 323 with 2 hitachi desktar 1tb drive with 1.07 firmware and cheap cat5e gigabit capable cable through a 5 port dlink gigabit router and have excellent transfer speed. Roughly I got 1gb per min of file transfer.

Performance on reading the nas 323 from a PS3 with more than 8gb HD mkv is stellar, so speed is pretty fast from reading and writing overall. Some lagging expected when doing both at the same time like watching and file transfer which is pretty normal.

I will guess most bottleneck on performance have also to do with fast i/o response from the sata drive. I opt the hitachi because of its overall performance and was very satisfied.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: sonci on December 09, 2010, 06:10:41 AM
I wonder if anyone realised that tranfer speed get really low when yo`re downloading,

especially if you have high bandwith internet connection,
try your tranfer speed with bittorrent disabled..

Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: krenkey on December 10, 2010, 04:04:57 PM
Using Alt-f i get transfer speeds of 18MB/Sec consistantly on a giga lan pervious to alt-f i was getting 8 to 9 MB/sec if i ftp into the box i get 20MB/sec plus windows explorer i get 18MB/sec
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: DariusVE on January 10, 2011, 10:51:19 AM
Hi all!

I was reading the thread and i was moving file from my pc to the nas  with a 8 to 9MB/s so i change some parameters on the nas and my pc.

My home network is:
D-Link DIR-655 wireless router
Trendnet Greennet Gigabit switch TEG-S80G
Trendnet NIC gigabit card TEG-PCITXR

all on certified Cat5e cable working at 1000gb.

First: set thte jumbo frames on the nas to it's maximum value: 9000b
Second: set the nic to full duplex
Third: set the maximum jumbo frame on the nic to 7kb

now i'm moving 37GB from my seagate 1TB externar usb hdd to my nas at 15,7MB/s!

I'll get some Cat6 patch cords and test again.

my 2 cents.

Edit:
My nas firmware it's 1.09 version
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: mpdava on January 10, 2011, 08:28:57 PM
Here is a tip from my brother to improve your NAS transfer speed. My brother is an electrician and he works for a company that makes computer chips.

If you want to copy files from the NAS, place the NAS in an elevated area, maybe on top of the desk or a chair BUT leave your router somewhere on the floor. With the help of the gravitational force, electrons will flow much much faster down to the router and from there to your computer. The only thing you have to pay attention to, is the speed of the router. If the router is slow and can't keep up with the sudden drop of electrons, the network cable may swell next to the router port. This can happen because all the electrons bunch in together there waiting to pass through the router (just use some sticky tape to reinforce the network cable in the problem area). If you want to copy files from the computer to the NAS ... just reverse the setup: router on the chair and the NAS on the floor. 

   

Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: HSishi on January 11, 2011, 03:14:48 PM
Ooo kaaaay -.- ... your brother missed one fact: electrons just don't travel from top to below, they travel back (closed circuit). So if they ARE faster when travelling downwards, they ARE slower when travelling back upwards.

//HSishi
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: jamieburchell on January 12, 2011, 03:38:26 PM
If you want to copy files from the NAS, place the NAS in an elevated area, maybe on top of the desk or a chair BUT leave your router somewhere on the floor.

My broadband is much faster than in other villages because we live in a valley (my dad is a retired electrician)...
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: Wiggs on January 13, 2011, 05:48:02 AM
Here is a tip from my brother to improve your NAS transfer speed. My brother is an electrician and he works for a company that makes computer chips.

If you want to copy files from the NAS, place the NAS in an elevated area, maybe on top of the desk or a chair BUT leave your router somewhere on the floor. With the help of the gravitational force, electrons will flow much much faster down to the router and from there to your computer. The only thing you have to pay attention to, is the speed of the router. If the router is slow and can't keep up with the sudden drop of electrons, the network cable may swell next to the router port. This can happen because all the electrons bunch in together there waiting to pass through the router (just use some sticky tape to reinforce the network cable in the problem area). If you want to copy files from the computer to the NAS ... just reverse the setup: router on the chair and the NAS on the floor. 

This is the funniest post I have read in a long time!  :D

Regards,

Wiggs
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: jamieburchell on January 13, 2011, 04:50:22 PM
This is the funniest post I have read in a long time!  :D

Had I have known that height makes all the difference, I would have mounted my router on the roof of the house. :D
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: crishna on January 17, 2011, 03:37:11 PM
well, i've been having the same issue... using gigabit ethernet, pluged in directly to my computer, static ip both sides, and the xfer speed is like 10~14 mb/s .... BUT as i read your stuff, i though of something, and indeed, the NAS CPU is peaking at nearly 100% usage on the samba process... there is our bottleneck.

(http://pages.infinit.net/crishna/nas.jpg)
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on January 18, 2011, 03:07:36 AM
crishna - I like your approach - you're thinking.

I'm going to post an image that I'd like you to think about - the only thing it has in common with yours, is the Window's networking graph, which displays significantly higher throughput - 27 MB/sec - apparently my CPU can handle twice the throughput that your can.

(http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/5527/dns323la4.th.jpg) (http://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dns323la4.jpg)

This is a composite of three screen captures assembled in MS Paint, because I couldn't capture all three images in one shot.

The background is an SNMP graphing tool called PRTG (www.paessler.com), it reads the bandwidth figures from my network switches, the one that's open is the graph from the switch port that feeds my DNS-323.

Directly below that is the output from a little utility called NASTester - if you search the DNS-323 forum, you should find a link to another site that you can download it from.  Basically what it does is create a test file, of a size that you choose (up to 2GB) on a local drive and then measure the time it takes to transfer it across the network to a mapped drive, it then calculates the average transfer speed and displays it - you can tell it how many iterations and it will loop as required and list each run and then give you the average, and then it reverses the two end points and repeats, so you get both write speeds & read speeds.

To the left of that is the WIndows task manager showing roughly 25% throughput on a 1GB connection.

Sorry, I don't have shell access to the DNS-323, so no cpu utilization..

The point here is you could get better speeds than you're getting - you need to figure out why you DNS-323 won't deliver.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: crishna on January 18, 2011, 05:24:12 AM
my best guest, would be that you have 2 drives, in stripe 0 .... i have 2 drive, in stripe 1 (mirror)...
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: 47th_ronin on January 18, 2011, 07:38:59 AM
hmm, samba daemon on dns-323 shows up to 14% cpu usage during file copy and menumeters shows transfer rate 6-7 megabytes/s. cables are ok, switch elimination will be next step..
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on January 18, 2011, 08:25:04 AM
my best guest, would be that you have 2 drives, in stripe 0 .... i have 2 drive, in stripe 1 (mirror)...

No - if I recall correctly that was a RAID1 array.

Think carefully about this - if - as you surmise, the CPU is the bottleneck - would RAID0 provide any performance benefits?  NO - RAID0 writes the data to each disk alternately and will provide enhanced performance ONLY if the disks are the bottleneck.

You can run your own tests, but when last I checked, there was no benefit to RAID0 on the DNS-323.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: 47th_ronin on February 04, 2011, 01:34:47 PM
another note: copying file FROM osx 10.6 imac TO dns-323 (two WD2500AAKS-00L9A, raid 0, fw 1.08, funplug, transmission, upnp) resulted in average speed 20 MB/s which is supposedly as good as it gets in 'normal' home environment. all the components are the same, just file transfer direction is reversed..
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on February 04, 2011, 03:36:40 PM
Hang on - copying TO the NAS gives you 20MB/s, copying FROM the NAS gives you 6~7MB/s, same everything except direction???

That's pointing to a write bottleneck of some sort on the destination imac
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: eclipsed7 on February 05, 2011, 04:10:41 PM
I get the same, write speeds are acceptable at 14-16MB/sec, but my read speeds can be anywhere from 6 to 20 MB/sec, depending on the day.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: urbang33k on February 14, 2011, 04:26:23 PM
I'm getting 34MB/s read from the DNS off a non-raided Seagate 1TB 7200 rpm 32mb cache drive.

The DNS is set to jumbo frames at 9000

It's connected to a Netgear 8 port gigabit green switch (QoS but is unmanaged). The switch says right on the box that it supports jumbo frame upto 9000

My motherboard is an older ASUS P5W DH which has that original intel 975x chipset with one of the original dual-core chips. This motherboard sports dual ethernet interfaces.  They are Marvell Yukon 88E8053's sitting on the PCI-E bus (supposedly).  These controllers do support jumbo frames and are set at 9000 to match the switch and the DNS323. They also have flow control, offload and whole host of other configuration options that I have no idea what they do and haven't messed around with too much.

once past my interface, the data is flowing to 2 x SATA-150 WD caviar blacks in RAID-0.  Not sure what the specs are but I dont think they are anythign special.   My single WD raptor felt as fast as these two blacks in raid-0.

I too originally experienced slow speeds and I set out to fix it. during my trouble shooting, I found I noticed the largest increase in performance when I enabled jumbo frames at 9000 on BOTH dns and ethernet interface. I'd like to note that my router upstream from my switch is also gigabit and each of its 4 LAN ports can be set to jumbo frames at independant rates.  It's incredibly important to ensure that when selecting jumbo frames, you set each device at the highest common rate.  so, if you have a router that supports jumoframes at 7000 and the dns supports 9000 frames and your pc interface supports 9000, I THINK you should really be setting all devices at 7000.   I THINK.   Only when I set all my devices at the common rate, did my speeds become consistant. YMMV
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: urbang33k on February 14, 2011, 07:39:58 PM
Just to add further... 

I just added my second seagate baracuda 7200 32mb cache  to the dns 323 in a raid 0 config.  I am now getting 20-21MB/s sustained writing and 35-36 sustained reads, files over 2 gig.

so are these the upper limit to what this device is really capable of? I'm going to wipe out the array and build a raid 1 to see how much I lose before loading all my data back on.

Also going to make some ram disks and compare transfers over the network form pc to pc on ramdisks/harddrives for comparison.

Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on February 15, 2011, 04:42:05 AM
urbang33 - based on similar tests done a long time ago - I'd say you're pushing the limits of the silicon.

From memory, the network interface on the DNS-323 can handle perhaps 400 mbit/sec (NIC tests have to be done - so to speak - RAM-to-RAM to avoid disk interface bottlenecks), and the disk interface is slightly slower at around 40MByte/sec (read to nul).

I'll be watching to see how your RAID1 tests compare to RAID0 - as I recall there was no improvement whatsoever.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: urbang33k on February 15, 2011, 07:19:40 AM

I'll be watching to see how your RAID1 tests compare to RAID0 - as I recall there was no improvement whatsoever.

rebuilt as raid 1 this morning. 

sustained writes to the dns at 18-19 MB per second
sustained reads from the dns at 32 - 33 MB per second.

For me the choice is simple.  Losing hardware failover redundancy is just not worth the extra 1-3 MB/s (up or down)

Ill do some ram drive copying and post some stats along with my conclusion after my breakfast :)
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: urbang33k on February 15, 2011, 08:38:42 AM
So heres a breif description of the test environment. 

HTPC -  gigabit PCI-E ethernet (jumbo frames at 9016)- amd dual core - 4 gig of memory
Windows 7 64-bit
physical drive - wd raptor 150
virtual drive - 1.5 gig ram drive

Desktop PC - gigabit PCI-E ethernet (jumbo frames at 9016)- intel dual core - 4 gig of memory
Windows 7 32-bit
physical drive - RAID-0 array comprised of 2 x WD Caviar Blacks 500gig each
virtual drive - 1.5 gig ram drive

NAS - DNS323
drive configuration - RAID 1 with 2 x Seagate baracuda 7200 1 TB 32mb cache
Gigabit set at 9000
LLTD - Disabled
UPnP - Disabled

Netgear GS608 V3 switch (Supports QoS and is unmanaged)
Jumbo frames at 9016


results in next post..........
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: urbang33k on February 15, 2011, 09:01:13 AM
First of all, Ill state that reading/writing fronm the DNS323 to my Desktops PC's ramdrive made no difference in transfer speeds as compared to reading and writing from my RAID-0 array in my desktop PC in my previous post.

Heres where it starts to get crazy and depressing for me:

Speeds as reported by windows explorer between ram drives of HTPC and Desktop PC with windows file and printer sharing
DESKTOP -> HTPC  --- Burst  190MB/s  --- Sustained  113-122MB/s
HTPC -> DESKTOP --- Burst 204MB/s  --- Sustained 120 - 133MB/s

Not sure whats going on here as I think these numbers are above the theoretical limits of gigabit. Unfortunately I lack a large amount of ram so I can't get a better reading of sustained transfer rates by using a larger file than 1.5 gigabytes. HOWEVER one thing is certain,  my network switch, CPU, interfaces, memory are definitely NOT the bottlenecks when it comes to the slow transfer rates to the DNS323.

speeds between physical drives of the two computers in next post using larger files....
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: urbang33k on February 15, 2011, 09:37:57 AM
OK so heres some more down to earth numbers
Tranfersfer an 8.5 gig MKV file

DESKTOP -> HTPC --- Burst 118MB/s -- Sustained 80 MB/s
HTPC -> DESKTOP ---- Burst 133MB/s -- Sustained 106MB/s

I wish I had some SSD's to do further testing with but this definitely confirms that that little DNS-323 is the bottleneck here with the 31MB/s reads and 19 MB/s writes.

I will say that when I bought the DNS323 I had every expectation of gigabit speeds simply because it states gigabit on the box.  I had no clue or experience in setting of network shares, and DID NOT do my research ahead of time so I have no one to blame but myself.

The fact that the DNS323 does faster than 10/100 speeds and therefore can say it does gigabit speeds is a pill that a little hard for me to swallow to be honest.  After doing these quick tests I already know my next course of action...  which is to sell this unit and build myself a small raid 5 file server.

In short, I guess the best we can hope for is the numbers I've posted.  Anyone know a way to overclock this rig??  =P

/urbang33k
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on February 15, 2011, 01:02:47 PM
Dont forget to post the read/write speeds you measure with your RAID5 array - somehow I think you'll be in for a big surprise.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: McPillager on February 16, 2011, 09:05:38 AM
A bit off topic but...

in your screenshot below I can see two adapters listed which probably means you have two network cards. Just out of curiosity and for the sake of speed measurements comparativeness, what is your network setup?


well, i've been having the same issue... using gigabit ethernet, pluged in directly to my computer, static ip both sides, and the xfer speed is like 10~14 mb/s .... BUT as i read your stuff, i though of something, and indeed, the NAS CPU is peaking at nearly 100% usage on the samba process... there is our bottleneck.

(http://pages.infinit.net/crishna/nas.jpg)
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: elsiebuck on September 17, 2012, 10:45:49 AM
... set to jumbo frames at 9000  ...

I really want to tank you for the information you provided. This has helped me out. I'm not getting "remarkable" increases - but a little. Better than it was.

Again, Thank you,
Aunt Elsie
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: Happyjoy on November 15, 2012, 02:42:45 PM
I have had the DNS-323 for quite a while. Luckily all I use it for is to store files. I can not stream movies from it at all, and even music lags occasionally. I get about 5 M transfer for 30-45 seconds, then it takes a dump. Sometimes totally failing to copy the files over to it. The last transfer I did took around 13 minutes to transfer about 300M worth of MP3's. This thing is almost useless to me. Everything is gigabit on my network and crazy fast transferring between computers. When I want music, it is way faster for me to copy it from my main PC to my laptop then to an mp3 player to play it rather than try to stream it to my home theater PC from the NAS.
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: JoeNAS on November 16, 2012, 04:42:05 AM
Your problem sounds strange to me. I'm using a Cat5-wired LAN, 100Mb. Between the NAS and the Sonos Connect LAN-to-audio streamer there are 20 m+ cable, 2 switches and a router. No problem whatsoever to stream .wav files (or .mp3), no glitches. Only very very rarely when I dump a large file to another NAS on the same LAN - and that I would expect.

So, maybe it's something else: cableing, poor switch, heavy LAN -traffic, ..... Make a drawing and identify all potential troublespots. Good luck and nice listening!

Jan
Title: Re: file transfer speed is so slow in my gigabit ethernet
Post by: fordem on November 16, 2012, 06:40:58 AM
I have had the DNS-323 for quite a while. Luckily all I use it for is to store files. I can not stream movies from it at all, and even music lags occasionally. I get about 5 M transfer for 30-45 seconds, then it takes a dump. Sometimes totally failing to copy the files over to it. The last transfer I did took around 13 minutes to transfer about 300M worth of MP3's. This thing is almost useless to me. Everything is gigabit on my network and crazy fast transferring between computers. When I want music, it is way faster for me to copy it from my main PC to my laptop then to an mp3 player to play it rather than try to stream it to my home theater PC from the NAS.

300M worth of MP3s would be perhaps 100 x 3MB files - it'll be a lot slower than say 1 x 300M file or even 1 x 3GB file - but you should be able to stream.

Tell us more about the network.