Slow download speed

[ltye]

Hey guys,

Just setup my nas with Freenas8.20(4gb ram, 2x2tb ST7200 in soft raid1,g530+h77,realtek8111e) and when I'm using CIFS or FTP the download speed(from nas to my pc) is only 3.5mb/s while the upload speed could reach 60mb/s. I tried both ZFS and UFS as file system and there's no diffierence. So it seems neither CIFS nor ZFS tuning problem. I'm a noob to linux or Freebsd, and after reading the manual&FAQs I still have no idea.
Any idea about my situation? Thanks in advance!

 

[cyberjock]

What CPU are you using. CIFS is single threaded, so more cores won't help performance. I always recommend and use an i3 with 2 cores(4 threads). Typically $150 or so and they rock the house. One of my systems can max out 2 gigabit NICs simultaneously.

 

[ltye]

Thanks for advice. I'm using G530(2.4g dual core) which I believe way beyond CIFS basic requirement. I checked reporting charts and it seems CPU usage is always below 30 percent :)

 

[cyberjock]

It's tough to say what your problem is. I do know that Intel NICs help performance. I'm not expecting a 40+MB/sec increase. If you tried UFS than the overhead from ZFS isn't to blame.

If I had spare parts I'd try a faster processor, more RAM(although more RAM wouldn't necessarily help UFS) and perhaps a different NIC. You could have a failing hard drive. Have you tried running RAID0 or just a single disk?

 

[ltye]

Very helpful advice, thanks again. After tried running a copy test under single disk mode, I replaced the OS with Windows, updated all drivers, ran the same test and still got the same result, thus I believe the performance was stocked by NIC. I'm going to buy an intel pci-e NIC and see what happened. Appreciate it.