Network file transfer is very slow

[GrandBleu]

You did see a B... "41.5 MBytes 34.6 Mbits/sec"


It's extremely important with the issue you're having to double check you're using the correct terminology of Mb (MegaBit) vs MB (MegaByte).

• 1 Mb = 0.125 MB
• 10 Mb = 1.25 MB
• 100 Mb = 12.5 MB
• 1000 Mb (1 Gb) = 125 MB

I'm aware of difference between MB and Mb as you posted. But that's the part I'm not 100% sure about.
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 41.5 MBytes 34.6 Mbits/sec
I get what 34.6Mb/sec means, but what does 41/5MBytes mean? Is it per second or something else? Please shed light on this. Thanks!

 

[Pheran]

I'm aware of difference between MB and Mb as you posted. But that's the part I'm not 100% sure about.
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 41.5 MBytes 34.6 Mbits/sec
I get what 34.6Mb/sec means, but what does 41/5MBytes mean? Is it per second or something else? Please shed light on this. Thanks!

The 41.5 MBytes is irrelevant, it's just the amount of data iperf sent during that test interval.

It looks like both of your interfaces are running at gigabit speeds, so that eliminates that issue. I would suggest unplugging everything from the network except the one PC and FreeNAS server and rerunning the iperf test.

 

[Pheran]

For reference, this is a properly working iperf on gigabit:

------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.101, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 63.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.1.10 port 63891 connected with 192.168.1.101 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 888 MBytes 745 Mbits/sec

 

[rogerh]

Just in passing, is the pool getting full at all? Needs excluding as a cause of slowing down.

 

[Pheran]

Just in passing, is the pool getting full at all? Needs excluding as a cause of slowing down.

When he's getting 34.6 Mbps from iperf, I think questions about the disks/pool become irrelevant. That's absolutely horrible network performance.

 

[GrandBleu]

Just in passing, is the pool getting full at all? Needs excluding as a cause of slowing down.

How do I check is the pool getting full? When I checked active volumes from View Volumes in GUI, they're not even close to 50% used. Is that what you're asking?

 

[GrandBleu]

The 41.5 MBytes is irrelevant, it's just the amount of data iperf sent during that test interval.

It looks like both of your interfaces are running at gigabit speeds, so that eliminates that issue. I would suggest unplugging everything from the network except the one PC and FreeNAS server and rerunning the iperf test.

Thanks for your help Pheran! I'll try that but do I have to turn off everything before turning on only one PC and FreeNAS?

 

[joeschmuck]

Actually when I read this thread I think the following things...

1) What hardware is FreeNAS running, maybe it's a 4GB RAM issue or the drive is over 90% full? No one has asked this and gone on face value that it actually ran fine at one time. Never take things at face value, always confirm it. It will keep folks from spinning their wheels and that is why we put that into our basic forum rules. Yes I may sound like a prick saying these things but trying to troubleshoot a problem remotely without all the facts is extremely difficult and I'm not saying them to hurt anyone's feelings but the problem will not get solved as quickly for the OP without these kinds of details to at a minimum rule out some possible issues.

2) The Windoze computer could be the cause of the iperf slowdown, I've seen it before and you know we will see it again. The best solution here is to get a bootable OS like Knoppix or FreeBSD Live and run iperf from there, this takes out all those Windoze issues. You can use your Windows machine without harming it.

When doing future throughput testing, directly connect your FreeNAS computer to your testing computer, nothing but a single Ethernet cable. All Gbit Ethernet ports should be auto switching so they can handle any Ethernet cable, they do not need a crossover cable.

Good luck troubleshooting this, I hope you get it resolved soon because no on like a slow transfer rate.

Just my two cents...

 

[Pheran]

Actually when I read this thread I think the following things...

1) What hardware is FreeNAS running, maybe it's a 4GB RAM issue or the drive is over 90% full? No one has asked this and gone on face value that it actually ran fine at one time.

No one has asked because it's in the first post - a SuperMicro board with Core i3 and 16GB of RAM. It's a pretty reasonable config.

 

[Pheran]

Thanks for your help Pheran! I'll try that but do I have to turn off everything before turning on only one PC and FreeNAS?

I wouldn't turn anything off (unless some device is doing something critical that requires connectivity). Just unplug all the network cables from your switches with the exception of those two.

Another suggestion, if you have a third machine on the network it would be helpful to run an iperf from there to FreeNAS to see if the performance issue is isolated to one machine or not.

 

[rogerh]

How do I check is the pool getting full? When I checked active volumes from View Volumes in GUI, they're not even close to 50% used. Is that what you're asking?

That's right - no problem there, then.

 

[joeschmuck]

No one has asked because it's in the first post - a SuperMicro board with Core i3 and 16GB of RAM. It's a pretty reasonable config.

Damn, how did I miss that! I'm old, that's it.

I apologize.

Still the other comments are valid, use a bootable OS like Knoppix on the Windoze system and directly connect using a single Ethernet cable.

 

[GrandBleu]

Thanks Pheran and others who helped me! I tried several things suggested here and upgrading firmware to my router. Network speed came back and even a bit faster than before. It's been like this more than several days. File transfer speed starts from 120-130MB/s and drops to 90-100MB/s which is much much better than it was.

FreeNAS forum forever!