SOLVED Strange transfer speed behavior

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Mar 3, 2019
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Hi everyone! I've wanted a NAS at my house for a long time, and I decided that building a FreeNAS box would be a great learning opportunity. For now, I'm just exploring with a cheap machine from my university surplus store.

The issue I'm having is that when I try to transfer a folder of files from my Windows 10 or MacOS machine (both connected over wifi) to my NAS, the write speeds are dreadful. The speeds sit between 1 MB/s and 1.7 MB/s. When I copy the folder of files back to my Windows 10 machine, the read speeds are between 1 MB/s and 3 MB/s. If I transfer the same folder of files from my NAS to my MacOS machine, I get much higher read speeds at about 22 MB/s. I do mean MB/s not Mb/s. I also switched over to having my pool only on an SSD just to help identify where the slowdown was coming from. There's no important data on anything yet. I'm still just playing around.

I've set up a standard SMB share and a couple of users in a group to access it.

I've attached a screenshot of what happens when I use dd to test write performance. It's not exactly slow, but I'm also not sure if what I ran is a good test of raw write performance.

Here are the specs for what I'm running:
FreeNAS version: FreeNAS-11.2-U2.1
Machine: HP Z220 (some components are HP specific)
Motherboard: HP 655842-601
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz
RAM quantity: 16 GB
Hard Drive: Sandisk SSD Plus 240 GB SDSSDA-240G
Hard Disk Controller (on motherboard): Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
Network Controller (on motherboard): Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (Lewisville) (rev 04)

Let me know if you have any ideas of how I can figure out where the bottleneck is coming from and if there's any more information I can provide that would be useful. Thanks!
 

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Chris Moore

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May 2, 2015
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a cheap machine from my university surplus store.
It might not be ideal hardware.
from my Windows 10 or MacOS machine (both connected over wifi)
WiFi is certainly going to be a limiting factor.
the write speeds are dreadful. The speeds sit between 1 MB/s and 1.7 MB/s.
That is most likely a problem with the WiFi and completely out of scope for this forum, but someone might still have some advice for you there, if you can tell us more about the hardware being used.
I've attached a screenshot of what happens when I use dd to test write performance. It's not exactly slow, but I'm also not sure if what I ran is a good test of raw write performance.
Probably not a good test because the default settings include compression and zero compresses pretty fantastically well, so you have to do a couple things to turn compression off before testing.
Guides:

solnet-array-test (for drive / array speed) non destructive test
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/solnet-array-test.1/

Building, Burn-In, and Testing your FreeNAS system
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.38/

Github repository for FreeNAS scripts, including disk burnin
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...for-freenas-scripts-including-disk-burnin.28/
Let me know if you have any ideas of how I can figure out where the bottleneck is coming from and if there's any more information I can provide that would be useful. Thanks!
It would be useful if you could connect by wired Ethernet so we can avoid the entire WiFi question.
 
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That is most likely a problem with the WiFi and completely out of scope for this forum, but someone might still have some advice for you there, if you can tell us more about the hardware being used.
Can you bypass wireless and use a LAN connection to your server? Repeat the test. If speeds improve, WiFi is almost certainly the issue.
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2019
Messages
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WiFi is certainly going to be a limiting factor.

That is most likely a problem with the WiFi and completely out of scope for this forum, but someone might still have some advice for you there, if you can tell us more about the hardware being used.

It would be useful if you could connect by wired Ethernet so we can avoid the entire WiFi question.

Hi Chris,

Thank you for replying. I hardwired a machine into the network, and tried to transfer the files again. Surprise, surprise, it was super speedy and wonderful. This should have been the first thing that I tried, but I just overlooked it and assumed a problem with the FreeNAS setup I was using. Oh well. Noob mistakes :P I do apologize for wasting your time though.

Also, thank you for sending those links over. I'm sure they'll come in handy.

Thanks again! I'll go play with my WiFi now.
 

Chris Moore

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Also, thank you for sending those links over. I'm sure they'll come in handy.
There is a quantity of other great info on the forum. Please spend some time and investigate. Also, ask questions because there is someone that is sure to help.
 
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