Help needed for better performance

[Michel Ebbens]

I've been using Freenas for about 10 months now. Most things work fine for me (plugins etc.) and the performance was good while using 9.1.

I've updated to 9.2.1.6 and ever since I've had a large drop in performance.

My setup is:

MSI P31 Neo V2
Intel E8500
2x2GB
1x Seagate ST20000DM001
1x Samsung HD501LJ
1x Western Digital WD5000AAKS

I know 8gb is a better option, but because of a small budget, I'm using this setup.

I've read a lot of information about tuning to improve performance. I've found 2 tunables that i thought would be good:

vfs.zfs.prefetch_disable=1
vfs.zfs.arc_min=512mb

I'm not a total noob, but couldn't figure out other tunables to increase performance. At this moment, I've got a max of 8mb/sec. I know that the onboard LAN is a realtek one and that a Intel one would give better speeds, so apart from tuning, I'm gonna buy an intel one.

Is there, apart from installing an Intel NIC and the tunables I'm using now anything else I can do?

 

[Ericloewe]

Yes, you could meet the minimum requirement of 8GB of RAM. It's not recommended, it's a requirement, and for good reason.

If that is not an option, I recommend you find an alternative that's more suitable to your hardware (though an Intel NIC will help pretty much every system stuck with a Realtek).

 

[anodos]

Definitely add more RAM. You might also only have a 10/100 network.

 

[cyberjock]

Yes, upgrade to the minimum requirements in the manual. ;)

 

[Michel Ebbens]

I do understand that 4gb isn't much running Freenas. The weird thing is, with 9.1 I used to get way better performance (up to 40mb/sec). I could try again with 9.1, but I'm afraid of losing my Zpool. Also, I'm not sure if I can use the 9.2 backup of my configuration file.

And after reading a lot of information about configurations and all, I know Realtek is terrible compared to Intel NIC

Thanks for your reply.

 

[Michel Ebbens]

@anodos, No, I do now the NIC is 10/100/1000 ;)

Would Nas4Free using UFS be a better option considering my hardware?

 

[cyberjock]

@anodos, No, I do now the NIC is 10/100/1000 ;)

Would Nas4Free using UFS be a better option considering my hardware?

That would be a question for the NAS4Free guys. I will refrain from giving an answer to that question because I'm not a pro with their OS.

 

[anodos]

@anodos, No, I do now the NIC is 10/100/1000 ;)

I was referring to your switch / router. Back when I was younger and greener I got bitten by that one.

 

[Michel Ebbens]

@anodos

Nope, all my routers are 10/100/1000 too. (replaced them a couple of months ago). I appreciate the fact that you're trying to help out mate!

Guess I have to find a way to do an upgrade of hardware some way or another.

 

[anodos]

@anodos

Nope, all my routers are 10/100/1000 too. (replaced them a couple of months ago). I appreciate the fact that you're trying to help out mate!

Guess I have to find a way to do an upgrade of hardware some way or another.

That's the only real option that you have. You really need to meet the minimum RAM requirement. I've known several people who suffered data loss because they decided to ignore the minimum hardware requirements. By the way, in almost all situations the answer to performance problems with ZFS is to add more RAM.

 

[Michel Ebbens]

Yeah, I'm afraid so. I will start looking for better (affordable) hardware. I really like Freenas, so switching to something else isn't much of an option either.

I just thougt I would give it a go. There is so much information about Freenas and there are several configurations with (a bit) lesser specs still giving better results. The thing is that I do not understand is how some tuning options described online function. Since I don't want to make things worse, I decided to open a thread here.