Slow Jails - G3220T and 32GB memory

[Rudi Pittman]

My rig has 6 5TB drives in it. It works fine as a file server other than the lag when some of the drives are spinning up (I'm serving a local household with limited amount of users so sometimes it's idle for hours...I left it as it was especially since it seems some of the drives don't give the option to NOT spin down..anyway....

I also have jails to run Sabnzbd, Transmission, Sickrage, Headphones, Lazylibrarian, Couchpotato, NZBHydra, and Emby. These all work ok but occasionally are VERY slow to respond even for all local requests. Monitoring the cpu does not show it anywhere near pegged out. The memory is the max that motherboard can carry. Is it to little Ram? I am on 11.0 stable but the problem still occured when I was on 9.10 so can't blame the upgrade. I have occasions where emby especially is very slow to respond to local requests via web browser and from my Roku. Actual playback once initiated does not appear to be an issue which makes me think it's not cpu usuage.

Basically I'm open to suggestions on how I can improve the process. I do have a G3258 processor I could swap out and possibly even overclock it but that part doesn't thrill me.

Thanks!

 

[dlavigne]

What's the NIC driver (from ifconfig)? Anything related in /var/log/messages when the slowdown occurs?

 

[SweetAndLow]

My rig has 6 5TB drives in it. It works fine as a file server other than the lag when some of the drives are spinning up (I'm serving a local household with limited amount of users so sometimes it's idle for hours...I left it as it was especially since it seems some of the drives don't give the option to NOT spin down..anyway....

I also have jails to run Sabnzbd, Transmission, Sickrage, Headphones, Lazylibrarian, Couchpotato, NZBHydra, and Emby. These all work ok but occasionally are VERY slow to respond even for all local requests. Monitoring the cpu does not show it anywhere near pegged out. The memory is the max that motherboard can carry. Is it to little Ram? I am on 11.0 stable but the problem still occured when I was on 9.10 so can't blame the upgrade. I have occasions where emby especially is very slow to respond to local requests via web browser and from my Roku. Actual playback once initiated does not appear to be an issue which makes me think it's not cpu usuage.

Basically I'm open to suggestions on how I can improve the process. I do have a G3258 processor I could swap out and possibly even overclock it but that part doesn't thrill me.

Thanks!

1. you should never let your drives spin down. it will cause premature failure from the added wear and tear.

2. full hardware specs, network layout, client specs and how are you measuring your performance? How did you decide it was "slow to respond"? Are you sure that isn't just normal? Iperf is a great way to test your network bandwidth.

 

[Rudi Pittman]

What's the NIC driver (from ifconfig)? Anything related in /var/log/messages when the slowdown occurs?

The primary nic is:
re0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=82099<RXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
ether 74:d4:35:1a:4c:5e
inet 192.168.3.116 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.3.255
nd6 options=9<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED>
media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
status: active


I did not see any sort of re-occuring error or entry referencing re0 in /var/log/messages.

1. you should never let your drives spin down. it will cause premature failure from the added wear and tear.

2. full hardware specs, network layout, client specs and how are you measuring your performance? How did you decide it was "slow to respond"? Are you sure that isn't just normal? Iperf is a great way to test your network bandwidth.

My understanding is not all commercial drives will let you disable spindown. There is a mixture of hitachi, and some seagates I didn't want but the manufacture of the external drives I cracked open changed the drive they were using internally..I was expecting western digitals. I don't have spindown enabled in freenas, the drives are doing it themselves.

I measure slowdown as it taking 30+ seconds to load a local webpage on emby, sickrage or couchpotato on a consistant basis and not just when the drives are spinning up. I assumed the cpu might be maxed till I review usage in the freenas gui and saw almost none of the cpu was in use. I then assumed memory might be low given the amount of jails I had running but 32GB is the max memory that motherboard will take.

My server specs are:
Codegen Server 9011-C10 ATX case with power supply. [ http://www.pc-experience.de/wbb2/thread.php?threadid=18342 ]
GIGABYTE GA-Z87-DS3H LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
LGA3220T cpu
Ballistix Tactical 16GB Kit 8GBx2 DDR3 1600 MT/s PC3-12800 CL8 at 1.5V UDIMM 240-Pin Memory BLT2KIT8G3D1608DT1TX0
G.Skill F3-1600C9D-16GAR Ares 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3-1600Mhz Memory RAM
SYBA SI-PEX40064 PCI-Express 2.0 Low Profile Ready SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) Controller Card
SYBA SI-PEX40094 PCI Express Low Profile Ready SATA SATA III 2 Internal 6Gbps Ports PCI-e Controller Card
4 x Seagate ST5000DM000-1FK178 (5TB)
2 x TOSHIBA MD04ACA500 (5TB)
16 GB Flashdrive
1 x iStarUSA BPN-DE110SS-BLUE Trayless 5.25" to 3.5" SATA SAS 6 Gbps HDD Hot-swap Rack
2 x iStarUSA BPN-DE340SS-BLACK 3 x 5.25" to 4 x 3.5" SAS / SATA 6 .0 Gb/s Trayless Hot-Swap Cage - Black Handle - OEM

LSPCI shows:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 06)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller (rev 06)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI (rev 05)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #2 (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Se ries/C22 0 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev d5)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #3 (rev d5)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d5)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev d5)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #1 (rev 05)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Z87 Express LPC Controller (rev 05)
00 :1f.2 SA TA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
03:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 41)
05:00.0 SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 9215 (rev 11)

 

[SweetAndLow]

Your hardware is not great for freenas. Specifically your motherboard. The realtek nic is terrible and doesn't work. You should get an Intel nic and I bet all your problems will go away.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Rudi Pittman]

Your hardware is not great for freenas. Specifically your motherboard. The realtek nic is terrible and doesn't work. You should get an Intel nic and I bet all your problems will go away.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

I've installed a 2 port ethernet addon card. You are saying these will work better?

01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
01:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)

 

[SweetAndLow]

I've installed a 2 port ethernet addon card. You are saying these will work better?

01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
01:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)

Yes if you have an Intel card that is great. Another question: are you using the marvel sata ports? If you are don't use them they cause timeout problems.

SYBA SI-PEX40094 <= this thing is also terrible and should not be used.

I suggest getting some hardware that is good and works and retest your problem.
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Rudi Pittman]

Yes if you have an Intel card that is great. Another question: are you using the marvel sata ports? If you are don't use them they cause timeout problems.

SYBA SI-PEX40094 <= this thing is also terrible and should not be used.

I suggest getting some hardware that is good and works and retest your problem.
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Keep in mind the slowness experienced is only in plugins/jails. The root freenas gui and the drive performance via samba are just fine. I could see ethernet possibly being a problem but sata would affect everything, not just the jails.


The Syba SI-PEX40064 uses Chipset: Marvell 88SE9215
The Syba SI-PEX40094 uses ASM1061 Chipset (Asmedia 1061 SATA Host Controller) but currently I don't think it's even being used as I only have 6 drives in the hotswap cages.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Keep in mind the slowness experienced is only in plugins/jails. The root freenas gui and the drive performance via samba are just fine. I could see ethernet possibly being a problem but sata would affect everything, not just the jails.


The Syba SI-PEX40064 uses Chipset: Marvell 88SE9215
The Syba SI-PEX40094 uses ASM1061 Chipset (Asmedia 1061 SATA Host Controller) but currently I don't think it's even being used as I only have 6 drives in the hotswap cages.

All of those sata controllers are bad. I can't help anymore because your system has so many problems it's impossible to know what is causing your problems.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Rudi Pittman]

I reverted back to 9.10.2 and the problem went away. It would appear my hardware, which has been running just fine for 2 years, was not the issue.