AFP file transfer slow

[242spot]

Hi guys,

I've just finished building a freenas with the following specs:

Build Spec
Case: Node 304
MB: Asrock E3C226D21
CPU: E3-1271V3
Memory: CT2KIT102472BD160B (EEC)
Drives (6 in total): 4x WD Red3 3TB in Raid Z1 and 2x 1TB (WD + Samsung) in mirror
PSU: Seasonic G450

I'm pretty pleased with the device so far, however, I am disappointed with the AFP transfer speeds I'm getting. Last night Chronosync was backing up for this first time from my iMac to to Freenas at around 5MB/sec (40mbps). The 200GB transfer was still going on 6 hours later when I got up!

The network is all gigabit wired accept for the iMac, which is WIFI, but connects on 802.11AC to myAC router at 900mpbs. Previously is was using a Mac Mini (with external drives) in place of the freenas, but with the same networking components and was achieving much much faster transfers. Somewhere in the order of 400mbps.

The only change here is the freenas and the result is 10x slower??

Tonight I will try a direct cat6 line into the Asus 86U router just to eliminate the wifi element, but short of this, I'm at a loss as to what would cause the AFP transfer to be this slow.

Any ideas or tips to try and hunt this issue down would help.

 

[jgreco]

Curious to know whether or not you've run autotune, which tends to bump up the sizes on some OS buffers and other useful stuff.

The problem when you've got wifi is that everyone says "oh yeah my network is ten billion megabits per second on the latest 802.11AWESOME" but the reality is that wifi doesn't actually work the way the marketing people want it to. There's latency and contention to cope with. It may take some extra work to make it work passably well.

Bet it's a bunch faster when you do the direct Cat6 line. If so, try the autotune. It may help your wifi as well.

 

[242spot]

Until now I wasn't actually aware of the autotune function. I will enable this later tonight to see if it make a difference.... fingers crossed!

Will feedback on the cat6 cable and autotune trials later tonight.

 

[jgreco]

I am kinda expecting the wired to be 5-10x faster in your current configuration , and if so, autotune and larger buffers may be helpful to your wifi issues.

 

[242spot]

Hi,

So I played around when I got home tonight. Found out it was a cable causing the issues. The brand new cat6 cable form the route to the nas was the issue. Can't believe maplin have sold me such poor quality cat 6 cables!

PS, 4.65GB transferred in 40 seconds when hard wired (around 960mbps). On wifi the same file takes 5 minutes.

 

[jgreco]

Technology's wonderful. It's always finding a way to mess with you!