Network Read/Write Speeds Slow

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d3f1ance

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First time post so please forgive me if I sound like a newb. I have had FreeNAS for about a year and have always had slow network speeds from it. This is usually not a problem but since I am upgrading my raidz (6X2TB to 6X4TB) I would like to figure out why I am having these issues.

I have been playing around with FreeNAS 8.3.1 and have installed it VIA Oracle VM Virtual Box. I was able to set up a 4TB*6 RaidZ1. I have full access via all the different shares available. The problem is that no matter which protocol I use (FTP,NFS, SMB) I always get 30MB/s for both read and write. I wanted to make sure that it wasn't limited to the raid, so I created a one disk share on FreeNAS. When I wrote to it through any of the three mentioned network protocols I still only got 30MB/s, however if I used windows to transfer to it I got 150MB/s. Next I thought it maybe a network bottle neck so I tried to write from a second computer (laptop connected directly to the router) and I got 130MB/s writing to that same drive via a windows 7 Samba share. Any ideas what could be slowing down my FreeNAS performance? Notes: I did check and the network adapter says it is full duplex 1000MB. This problem is not limited to regular hard disks but SSD harddisks as well.

Specs:
OS: Windows 7
VM: Oracle Virtual Box
Freenas: 8.3.1
HD: 6 x 4TB Sata 6.0 Green Drives
Processor: AMD FX8359 4.2Ghz
Ram: 32 Gigs
Network: Gigabit Network Card, Gigabit Router hooked with all CAT6A ethernet.
 

cyberjock

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Are you actually running FreeNAS in a VM?

#1 If you are, that's why you have slow speeds. If you want more speed you should run FreeNAS on bare metal.

#2 If you actually want your data to be safe you shouldn't be running FreeNAS in a VM. VMs are great for experimenting, but NOT for production use. That's why there is a thread titled Please do not run FreeNAS in production as a Virtual Machine!. So many people have thought they could run FreeNAS in a VM despite the warnings that it should be run on bare metal. Everything will work fine, until the day it doesn't. And the day it doesn't you can kiss all of your data goodbye. That thread is created from the blood, sweat, and tears of people that swore they could "get it right" with virtualizing, then lost family pictures, videos, etc that were irreplacable.

The best solution is to get rid of the VM and build a FreeNAS server. Running FreeNAS in a VM has ended badly so many times that many of us won't even feel bad for you. It's something that's lightly explained in the manual, a very well documented fact for ZFS, as well as documented in VMWare/Oracles's stuff that you need to consider if virtualizing a given OS is actually a smart choice. It's something that you really have to investigate for yourself.
 

d3f1ance

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#1 Yes I am running FreeNAS in a virtual environment.
#2 While I appreciate your insight I am willing to take the chances of failure. I've already had a hard drive fail in the past and I was able to replace it without data loss.

Iwas curious to see if virtualization would slow down network performance so I installed a virtual linux and setup a samba and ftp share. Both shares copied at speeds over 100MB/s. So I believe it is an issue with FreeNAS, perhaps my settings or something I am unaware of. Also I have read of other users getting faster than 30MB/s with a virtual server using less hardware than I have. Any thoughts?
 

cyberjock

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Iwas curious to see if virtualization would slow down network performance so I installed a virtual linux and setup a samba and ftp share. Both shares copied at speeds over 100MB/s. So I believe it is an issue with FreeNAS, perhaps my settings or something I am unaware of. Also I have read of other users getting faster than 30MB/s with a virtual server using less hardware than I have. Any thoughts?
Are you that sure that FreeBSD(and FreeNAS) doesn't just run slower in a VM because the virtualizing software runs FreeBSD that much slower? That's the problem with virtualizing. On my ESXi server if I use the E1000 network adapter I can't even hit 50MB/sec(when I know that the server should be able to saturate my Gb LAN easily). No amount of top, zpool iostat, and iperf testing could identify the actual issue. But by simply changing the network adapter to the vmxnet3 and forcing the install of that network driver(which isn't recommended on FreeNAS) I can get over 500MB/sec across the internal VM network of the ESXi machine. So no, sorry, you'll have to try again. You didn't convince me that the issue is FreeNAS. All you did was prove that your issue isn't on linux with your virtualization configuration and hardware configuration.

Secondly, I choose not to involve myself with virtualization outside of ESXi, and even then I usually don't try to troubleshoot over forums with users that use virtualization unless they are looking to validate some assumption that I feel competent in agreeing/disagreeing with. Virtualizing is one of those things that, when it works, is awesome. But when it doesn't all hell breaks loose.

Virtualization adds an extra layer of complexity because you are basically running "hardware" on hardware. The complexity increases by more than a factor of two and its something I choose not to involve myself with because its something that the admin should be able to handle on his own if he chooses to virtualize. It's like asking me to help you troubleshoot an enterprise size network. There's so many details involved its unrealistic to think that I will be able to provide any advice that is worth anything.

Many of the other more senior posters may choose not to respond to questions like yours where virtualization is involved because it turns into a very very messy situation where troubleshoting via forums is really just unrealistic, if not impossible. Some of them may dismiss you right off the bat and not want to spend any more time on this thread as soon they read that you are virtualizing in a way that is strictly mentioned numerous times as a big no-no. So many people have lost their data it isn't funny. People have lost everything just trying to troubleshoot issues that shouldn't have caused data loss.

That thread was created because of how many people have lost pictures of their kids and makes some people worry you'll ignore any other advice they may want to provide. The advice to not virtualize in VMWare Workstation/Oracle Virtualbox may be one of the biggest (if not the biggest) warnings of how people lose data in this forum.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd feel incredibly guilty if I gave you a couple of simple things to try and you were back here tomorrow asking how to recover a zpool that won't mount. There literally are zero recovery tools for failed zpools. R-studio and the like will NOT be able to save you, virtualization or not.
 
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