SOLVED Copy speed to NAS storage drops to zero and then back up over and over again

[lyraleiofthebreeze]

TLDR:
Copied ~700GB of data from computer to NAS, speed for fluctuation between 0MiB/s to ~90MiB/s from the beginning. Took over twenty four hours.
Coped ~ 50GB back to computer from NAS, speed was constantly ~10MiB/s (probably limited by poor cable).

Hey,
I have a fresh install of truenas scale (Had motherboard of previous laptop lying around, decided to get into NAS. I didn't realize Truenas scale was a beta product. Just clicked link from the description of youtube video.)

I have read quite a few posts related to this issue on this forum and other locations, like ZFS dedupe, ARC, Boot drive, RAM capacity, hard-drive type.
And I personally thing this is due to me using a 32GB usb 2.0 flash drive as boot drive. I discarded other reasons, as ZFS dedupe is off; I couldn't find anything about ARC, I read you need 1GB of ram for ~1TB of storage, and I have 16GB (6GB free at the moment). The storage of NAS completely empty when I started copying files into NAS.

Before I buy an SSD for boot drive, I just wanted a second opinion.

Thanks!!

 

[NugentS]

Its not down to the USB - which aren't a good idea - but won't be causing that issue.
If those are laptop drives they are probably SMR and are therefore useless.
Crappy Network Card
Memory not ECC (will not be causing this issue)
HP 8216 last time I checked was a printer - I am reasonably certain you are not trying to run TN on a printer!!

 

[sretalla]

this is due to me using a 32GB usb 2.0 flash drive as boot drive

Very doubtful... but don't let that stop you getting off USB boot.

It looks like you need a overall reconsideration of your hardware choices if you want to see "normal", reliable performance. Look at the items already suggested as a priority.

 

[winnielinnie]

HP 8216 last time I checked was a printer - I am reasonably certain you are not trying to run TN on a printer!!

It's a legitimate motherboard (not sure why HP uses the same model numbers between motherboards and printers, though.) Still a made me giggle to think about running NAS server software on a printer.

HP HP Pavilion Notebook - Geekbench

Benchmark results for a HP HP Pavilion Notebook with an Intel Core i5-7200U processor.

browser.geekbench.com

However, reading the other specs comes off as under-par for not only a ZFS NAS appliance, but to maintain reliability and consistent performance. Striped vdev comprised of a single 2.5" laptop hard drive, plus a Realtek NIC.

It can still be used as a "whatever" NAS for non-crucial / non-sentimental data; or for the sake of a hobby and learning hands-on.

EDIT: You're missing out on many of ZFS's features if your data resides on a vdev made of only a single drive. (Not to mention the obvious risk of permanent loss of data without any form of redundancy.)

 

[lyraleiofthebreeze]

It can still be used as a "whatever" NAS for non-crucial / non-sentimental data; or for the sake of a hobby and learning hands-on.

Yeah that's the idea. Got a new computer a few months ago, so won't be spending money anytime soon. Just wanted to get in NAS before I actually build one in future.

Thanks for the replies. I will keep your suggestions in mind.
PS. after restarting the NAS, the copy speed now do no fall below zero. But speed on windows was a constant 10~11MiB/s.
I am using NFS to mount the NAS storage. Shall I try CIFS or SMB?

 

[winnielinnie]

I am using NFS to mount the NAS storage. Shall I try CIFS or SMB?

How (and why) were you using NFS over Windows? SMB is a Microsoft technology, and should be used to access shares hosted by your NAS.

When you configure the SMB service and shares, make sure to use SMB2/3 (dismiss any options to allow SMB1).

Windows 10 and 11 (obviously) and pretty much all modern Linux distros auto-negotiate SMB3. Unless you need to use Unix Extensions (not worth it), stick with SMB2/3.

If using Linux, use the kernel's CIFS, rather than KDE's (or GNOME's) KIO (or GVFS). In other words, don't let Dolphin, Nautilus, Nemo, Thunar, etc, connect to your shares; rather mount them (with one of the methods below) and use your file manager to access them using bookmarks, shortcuts, widgets, or symlinks. (It's the equivalent of navigating into a directory that happens to be the mountpoint for a USB drive, except in this case it's an SMB share over the network.)

Different methods:

• manual mount command
• fstab
• systemd mount/automount units
• KDE's Smb4K manager

 

[lyraleiofthebreeze]

How (and why) were you using NFS over Windows? SMB is a Microsoft technology, and should be used to access shares hosted by your NAS.

I thought I had to enable UNIX NFS (I am using Linux and Windows) share to access the NAS on Linux; to I enabled it in the NAS settings and use the following command in fstab:

Code:

192.168.0.233:/mnt/network_1/NetworkData/secretdata /home/aurora/network    nfs    users,x-systemd.automount,rw,hard,intr,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14    0    0

 

[lyraleiofthebreeze]

• manual mount command
• fstab
• systemd mount/automount units
• KDE's Smb4K manager

I cannot get anything else other than NFS to mount the NAS storage.

manual mount

Code:

sudo mount -t cifs -o username=nasUsername //192.168.0.233/mnt/network_1/NetworkData/secretdata /media/aurora/network 

gives this error

Code:

mount error(2): No such file or directory
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs) and kernel log messages (dmesg)

dmesg output:

Code:

[ 6109.334780] CIFS: VFS:  BAD_NETWORK_NAME: \\192.168.0.233\mnt
[ 6109.336002] CIFS: VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -2

 

[NugentS]

You have create the shares haven't you?

 

[winnielinnie]

I cannot get anything else other than NFS to mount the NAS storage.

manual mount
Code:
sudo mount -t cifs -o username=nasUsername //192.168.0.233/mnt/network_1/NetworkData/secretdata /media/aurora/network

You're supposed to use the format //server/sharename, rather than the complete absolute path.

So it might look something like the following, if under TrueNAS -> Sharing -> SMB Shares you create a share named secretdata that points to /mnt/network_1/NetworkData/secretdata

//192.168.0.233/secretdata

EDIT: Out of curiosity, are you using TrueNAS 12.0-U6?

 

[jgreco]

How (and why) were you using NFS over Windows?

One might use NFS if you wanted to prevent interprotocol trampling of active files. On the other hand, NFS is so infrequently used on Windows (I may be one of the only dozen people on the planet to have used it) that it isn't a good choice...

 

[lyraleiofthebreeze]

o it might look something like the following, if under TrueNAS -> Sharing -> SMB Shares you create a share named secretdata that points to /mnt/network_1/NetworkData/secretdata

Oh so that's most of the problem. I checked it and the name in Samba was networkStorage.

I added an entry in fstab,

Code:

/192.168.0.233/networkStorage /home/aurora/network/ cifs defaults,_netdev,username=NASusername,password=NASpassword 0 0

I am able to mount it using sudo mount -a, but I cant mount it using mount -a(I get the following error)

Code:

mount.cifs: permission denied

So it doesn't automount during boot.
I found one article that claimed that I need to add domain. And I really don't know what or how to find this.

Solved this issue by adding users and x-systemd.automount option to the fstab entry.
Also, I want to confirm that the domain for my NAS is the IP address(192.168.0.233), right?

EDIT: Out of curiosity, are you using TrueNAS 12.0-U6?

Version: TrueNAS-SCALE-22.02-RC.1
This is what is says in the dashboard and below is the first line of dmidecode:
Linux truenas.local 5.10.70+truenas #1 SMP

Thanks, you guys have been very helpful.

Edit:1
Under NETWORK settings in truenas, I can see this at the bottom,

Code:

Hostname: truenas
Domain: local
Netwait: DISABLED

adding domain=local after password didn't fix anything, gives same error.