Strohminator
Dabbler
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2012
- Messages
- 13
Hi all
It's my first post here - and thanks for putting up a support forum!!
First and foremost, I'm more of a hardware guy -- though, while I can't claim to be a power user by any stretch of the imagination, I can usually fumble my way through most software issues and get them fixed in a reasonable amount of time, but this NAS unit of mine has me absolutely stumped. I don't know the first thing about Unix and I don't seem to be getting the concept of console commands (primarily because the FreeNAS guide seems so vague and apparently assumes that everyone who uses FreeNAS knows Unix / Console commands / File systems / Network sharing rights and all the associated jargon off by heart)
Please help - I've been struggling with this NAS for 5 days now, and I'm about to chuck yet another mouse against the wall in utter frustration...
Quick rundown on hardware:
i7 920 CPU
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R motherboard (10 SATA ports were instrumental in my decision)
18 GB RAM (3 x 4GB & 3 x 2GB)
10 x 3TB drives (8 Western Digital reds, 1 x Western Digital Green, 1 x Seagate ST3000DM001)
700w CoolerMaster Silent Power PSU
Nvidia GT210 GPU
I've configured the drives as a single RAID-Z2 volume... CIFS sharing
Created a single share for configuration, creating folders, etc - called it Aresconfig with the path /mnt/Ares
In there, I created Audio, Video, Apps, Gaming and Literature folders
After a lengthy trial-and-error session, I configured a user and group called guest, assigned permissions, etc. Got sharing working, put in a couple of optimization parameters, and had the system start auto-tuning..
Started copying from my old NAS - went at 55MB/s all the way - which was the limit of throughput for the old unit.
Then started emptying out the drives on my PC's - 100MB/s on average, great... emptied out two drives this way.
I then created shares to each of the folders mentioned above, and started copying my series drives over to the NAS... loads of files, and it starts slowing down.
Restart the system just to be sure of everything, and here's where I am now - Folder browsing on the NAS starts off quick - but large folders take a while to index... Try to copy something, and everything goes to hell - copying to the NAS takes a while to "Calculate" the sizes, and then even large files go at 15-25MB/s... Try doing anything during this, and the NAS access is slooooooow - the little green progress bar up top in the path block in Windows just takes forever to fill up and index a new folder.. Also, when trying to copy something, it just says "Calculating" forever, until the copy times out, and it Windows says it's having difficulty accessing the file in question.. Which ALSO incidentally stalls any copies to the NAS, making you have to go cancel them, etc.
With nothing copying to / from the NAS, I still can't get a video to open or copy a single file FROM the NAS... I can write to it, albeit stupidly slowly all of a sudden - and I can create / delete folders.
Using my media player (Mede8er 500X2), I can access series and movie files perfectly, and play them back.
What am I doing wrong? And why has it only surfaced now that I've already put my entire bloody HD movie collection on it (and sold my old NAS already) ??? :( :(
Do I need to reconfigure shares from scratch? Is there a hardware issue? Or does this sound like a re-install FreeNAS and import the volume situation?
I've even considered that the NIC chip / CPU / Southbridge on the motherboard might be overheating, and fitted a True Black cooler to the CPU + fitted 3 more fans to the case to make sure there's ventilation everywhere..
Someone please help - I hate feeling this far out of my depth - especially when my data's at stake. :(
It's my first post here - and thanks for putting up a support forum!!
First and foremost, I'm more of a hardware guy -- though, while I can't claim to be a power user by any stretch of the imagination, I can usually fumble my way through most software issues and get them fixed in a reasonable amount of time, but this NAS unit of mine has me absolutely stumped. I don't know the first thing about Unix and I don't seem to be getting the concept of console commands (primarily because the FreeNAS guide seems so vague and apparently assumes that everyone who uses FreeNAS knows Unix / Console commands / File systems / Network sharing rights and all the associated jargon off by heart)
Please help - I've been struggling with this NAS for 5 days now, and I'm about to chuck yet another mouse against the wall in utter frustration...
Quick rundown on hardware:
i7 920 CPU
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R motherboard (10 SATA ports were instrumental in my decision)
18 GB RAM (3 x 4GB & 3 x 2GB)
10 x 3TB drives (8 Western Digital reds, 1 x Western Digital Green, 1 x Seagate ST3000DM001)
700w CoolerMaster Silent Power PSU
Nvidia GT210 GPU
I've configured the drives as a single RAID-Z2 volume... CIFS sharing
Created a single share for configuration, creating folders, etc - called it Aresconfig with the path /mnt/Ares
In there, I created Audio, Video, Apps, Gaming and Literature folders
After a lengthy trial-and-error session, I configured a user and group called guest, assigned permissions, etc. Got sharing working, put in a couple of optimization parameters, and had the system start auto-tuning..
Started copying from my old NAS - went at 55MB/s all the way - which was the limit of throughput for the old unit.
Then started emptying out the drives on my PC's - 100MB/s on average, great... emptied out two drives this way.
I then created shares to each of the folders mentioned above, and started copying my series drives over to the NAS... loads of files, and it starts slowing down.
Restart the system just to be sure of everything, and here's where I am now - Folder browsing on the NAS starts off quick - but large folders take a while to index... Try to copy something, and everything goes to hell - copying to the NAS takes a while to "Calculate" the sizes, and then even large files go at 15-25MB/s... Try doing anything during this, and the NAS access is slooooooow - the little green progress bar up top in the path block in Windows just takes forever to fill up and index a new folder.. Also, when trying to copy something, it just says "Calculating" forever, until the copy times out, and it Windows says it's having difficulty accessing the file in question.. Which ALSO incidentally stalls any copies to the NAS, making you have to go cancel them, etc.
With nothing copying to / from the NAS, I still can't get a video to open or copy a single file FROM the NAS... I can write to it, albeit stupidly slowly all of a sudden - and I can create / delete folders.
Using my media player (Mede8er 500X2), I can access series and movie files perfectly, and play them back.
What am I doing wrong? And why has it only surfaced now that I've already put my entire bloody HD movie collection on it (and sold my old NAS already) ??? :( :(
Do I need to reconfigure shares from scratch? Is there a hardware issue? Or does this sound like a re-install FreeNAS and import the volume situation?
I've even considered that the NIC chip / CPU / Southbridge on the motherboard might be overheating, and fitted a True Black cooler to the CPU + fitted 3 more fans to the case to make sure there's ventilation everywhere..
Someone please help - I hate feeling this far out of my depth - especially when my data's at stake. :(