SOLVED Slow LAN speeds (via FTP) since upgrade

[BrianDMG]

Since I upgraded to 9.1, my LAN transfer speeds have dropped from around 70-80Mb/s to around 10-15Mb/s (I also installed Plex since then, and doubled my RAM from 8GB to 16GB). I'm still using the same hardware (aside from doubling the RAM), and ifconfig reports all of my network connections as either 1000baseT or 10Gbase-T (full duplex). Also, iperf run between my NAS and the machine I usually FTP through reported that the connection timed out. For the record, I'm using Filezilla as my FTP client, on port 21 (which has also been allowed through Windows firewall).

I have included screenshots of my ifconfig and iperf results. Any ideas as to what's going on?
Thanks in advance for the education.

 

[cyberjock]

No, all of your network connections might not be 1000baseT or 10Gbase-T. Your epairs are(duh.. they're virtual network ports), but your actual ethernet port is not listed. The ports I want to see are off the top of the shot. Whoops. :P

Also, not sure what your iperf was trying to test, but I believe that you tried to test the speed from your nic to the same nic. Not surprisingly, you got more than 1Gb/sec.

And you didn't include the rest of your hardware.

But it looks to me like you really didn't convince me you have no network problems because there's no useful data from the iperf or ifconfig shots. ;)

 

[BrianDMG]

Dammit.. you're absolutely right. Sorry about that, it's been a hell of a day. I just noticed the entire ifconfig results weren't displayed on the screen (I'm not really sure how to make it fit or scroll up), and I definitely pinged the NAS's IP address with iperf. Total fail of a post.

I'll post the ifconfig once I figure out how to make it all fit onto the screen. Also, upon attempting iperf (with the right IPs) with both the -c and -s markers, I'm still getting "connection timed out".

 

[cyberjock]

iperf > /mnt/somefilename

then you have a network problem to resolve. Probably a firewall. But the iperf is going to tell us what is going on with your network bandwidth.

But, I'll tell you that 10-15MB/sec is roughly 100Mbit... so i'm thinking you don't have Gb connected somewhere...

 

[BrianDMG]

Alright, just ran ifconfig for re0 (the physical NIC). Here are the results. Also, am I doing iperf right? Seems like, since I can definitely connect via FTP, they're able to communicate. Not sure why it should be timing out. The hardware NIC is an integrated 10/100/1000Gb on the mobo, connected with Cat6 (in fact, the entire house should be at Gb speeds). I'm not sure what other hardware specs are relevant, so let me know what else you need. Thanks again.

ETA: Still getting "timed out" errors using iperf. 200.20.2.200 is the machine I usually FTP from. If I get any results at all, it says timed out. I've tried this a few times now, and mostly it just hangs for a long time, sometimes producing the aforementioned result.

Code:

[root@DMGNAS ~]# iperf -c 200.20.2.200 -F /mnt/folder.jpg                                                                         
Unable to open the file stream                                                                                                     
Will use the default data stream

[root@DMGNAS ~]# iperf -c 200.20.2.200 -F /mnt/folder.jpg Unable to open the file stream Will use the default data stream
[root@DMGNAS ~]# iperf -c 200.20.2.200 -F /mnt/folder.jpg Unable to open the file stream Will use the default data stream

 

[cyberjock]

I don't know.. iperf requires a client and server.. so you need 2 machines to connect. If its timing out though you'll need to identify the cause. It could be related to your poor performance, it might not.

 

[BrianDMG]

[root@DMGNAS ~]# iperf -c 200.20.2.200 -d -F /mnt/DMG/folder.jpg
Unable to open the file stream
Will use the default data stream
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 64.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
connect failed: Operation timed out

 

[cyberjock]

I don't know what to say.. you are kind of on your own to fix the problem. I will say that re0 says you are using Realtek, which isn't exactly a good choice. I'd try an Intel NIC before beating your head against a block wall though.

 

[BrianDMG]

Do you recommend a particular one? I browsed through your hardware recommendations thread and didn't see anything about NICs (although I do vaguely remember reading something about Realtek NICs being less than ideal with FreeNAS when I first started using it). I ask because, after a quick browse through Amazon's top NIC listings, they're all vague at best about whether it's Intel or Realtek-based (have to read through a bunch of comments and hope someone randomly mentions needing Realtek drivers, bah). Thanks again for your help!

 

[cyberjock]

Intel CT and GTs are common since they are dirt cheap and work great.

 

[BrianDMG]

Well, just ordered this guy. Should arrive this Friday, I'll pop back in with the results. You're a scholar and a gentleman, sir.

 

[cyberjock]

Umm... a PCI card? Really?

I hope you realize that PCI cards are pretty much never going to hit the full 1Gb/sec. The PCI bus just can't pass enough traffic. And its even worse if you have any other PCI devices on the bus(including any devices that are on-board).

 

[BrianDMG]

So.. PCIe is the way to go then?

 

[cyberjock]

Yes. But you need to use whatever is available on your board. PCI is a dead end technology though.

 

[BrianDMG]

I have a PCIe slot, I just wasn't aware that it had any real effect on network speeds. Cancelled the original, ordered this one instead.

 

[BrianDMG]

Alright, so I got the Intel card today. Plugged it in, got it all set up and... still the same slow speeds.

Now my question is this: I don't ever have any trouble with streaming speeds (no stuttering, extremely rarely does it pause up for even a second), so could this possible be related to my FTP settings instead of my overall network settings? Either in FreeNAS FTP service settings or my FTP client software?

 

[cyberjock]

So what kind of speeds does iperf provide? That's going to tell you if its a network configuration/infrastructure issue or something more with the server or desktop.

You should be able to get 900Mbit/sec from an Intel NIC easy.

 

[BrianDMG]

Alright, here's the rundown: There are 3 machines involved here - The FreeNAS machine [200.20.2.220], a Win 7 machine (and vm host) [200.20.2.200], and a Win 7 VM [200.20.2.204].

Here are the results of the iperf to and from each:

From NAS to host:
[root@DMGNAS ~]# iperf -c 200.20.2.200
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 200.20.2.200, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 32.5 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 6] local 200.20.2.220 port 53690 connected with 200.20.2.200 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 6] 0.0-10.0 sec 110 MBytes 92.0 Mbits/sec
[root@DMGNAS ~]#

From NAS to VM:
[root@DMGNAS ~]# iperf -c 200.20.2.204
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 200.20.2.204, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 32.5 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 6] local 200.20.2.220 port 21495 connected with 200.20.2.204 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 6] 0.0-10.0 sec 105 MBytes 87.9 Mbits/sec
[root@DMGNAS ~]#

(I don't have screencaps from these, and can't copy/paste from Win command prompt)
From Host to NAS:

89.2Mbit/s

From VM to NAS:

87.4Mbit/s

So it would seem that I'm getting a slightly higher download speed from the NAS than upload speed to it. It also seems like the VM is slightly slower in both directions, which is to be expected. I'm just wondering why those numbers aren't higher than they are. Let me know what all you need as far as network configuration in order to diagnose, and I'll prepare it. Thanks again.

 

[cyberjock]

Well,that shows that somewhere you are being limited to 100Mb. So you need to figure out where something somewhere is only 100Mb....

and what do you mean by "the VM is slightly slower in both directions". Are you trying to run FreeNAS as a VM or just Windows 7?

 

[BrianDMG]

The FreeNAS machine is its own physical machine. The host machine is a physical machine running windows 7, and the VM guest on that host is also Windows 7. I just meant that, since the guest VM is sharing the host's connection and running virtually, it will experience a slight delay relative to the host machine. They're all running gigabit wired connections, and I was also getting much faster transfer speeds before on the same infrastructure and hardware, which is why I assumed that it must be a settings issue instead of an infrastructure/hardware issue (I wired the house myself, with a gigabit unmanaged switch, an N wireless router with gigabit ports, and Cat6 cable).