SOLVED Write/network speed low?

[nachte]

Hi,

I've been running freenas for a while now, but i was not too pleased with the speeds at which it worked. i was getting 10MB transfers to it. Now i have run a dedicated network cable to it, giving it a fixed IP, and hooked it to an extra network card I inserted to the pc from which i'm using the NAS. Now i get transfers upto 35 MB.

The machine is an I3 with 16 gigs of ram, and an intel onboard network card. 6HDD's running in RAID-Z2

My question, is the 35MB/sec a good speed? And if not, what could i do to improve it, any guides you could point me to that i could use to get more out of the line? As there are GB network interfaces (intel) on both sides, i would hope to be able to get a bit more from it, or not?

I'm wont be around the next day, but allready wanted to ask the question, so that i can start looking into it when i get back.

UPDATE/SOLUTION: One of the cards was a PCI card, I replaced it with a PCI-express network card, write speeds jumped to 110MB/S

thanks,
Kristof

 

[m0nkey_]

Can you post specs of your hardware? Motherboard, CPU, RAM, NIC, etc.

 

[Nick2253]

I would not say that 35MB/s is good, but it really depends on all the variables, and for your setup, it might be.

When troubleshooting speed issues, you want to check the following:

1. What is the speed of the array, from the array?
2. What is the network speed of the server, bypassing the array?
3. What is the network speed of the client, bypassing its local storage?
4. What is the read/write speed of the client?

That should get you pointed in the right direction, and a search (here and Google) should get you started. If you need help doing any of the steps, let us know. Once you're done, let us know the results, and we can hopefully figure out what the bottleneck is.

 

[nachte]

Can you post specs of your hardware? Motherboard, CPU, RAM, NIC, etc.

I actually had the invoices on my phone, so yes:
Nas: Gigabyte GA-x150m-pro ECC with 16 gb of eec ram, Intel core I3 6100, to that i added 5 wd greens (wdidled to 300 seconds) and one wd blue (they were out of greens) in raid Z2. A small ssd is used as the boot drive on a sepparate controller (no idea which, had it lying around). The HDD's are all connected to the mobo sata connectors
PC: Win 10 pro with an intel PWLA8391GT in it as dedicated card for the freenas box, connected with a cat 6 cable of about 1.5meter

 

[nachte]

I would not say that 35MB/s is good, but it really depends on all the variables, and for your setup, it might be.

When troubleshooting speed issues, you want to check the following:

1. What is the speed of the array, from the array?
2. What is the network speed of the server, bypassing the array?
3. What is the network speed of the client, bypassing its local storage?
4. What is the read/write speed of the client?

That should get you pointed in the right direction, and a search (here and Google) should get you started. If you need help doing any of the steps, let us know. Once you're done, let us know the results, and we can hopefully figure out what the bottleneck is.

Just a few more questions:
1. do you mean a copy of something from nas -> other location on nas?
2/3. I'm not sure what you mean by bypassing? Use a ram disk? (the connection shows a GB connection in windows)

 

[Nick2253]

Yes, and that's one way to do it. On *nix, there are specialized "devices", like /dev/null and /dev/zero that can be used to dump data or as a fast data source.

 

[Mirfster]

What size are the drives (sorry if I missed that)? Just curious so I can see the ratio of RAM to Disks/Volume....

 

[nachte]

What size are the drives (sorry if I missed that)? Just curious so I can see the ratio of RAM to Disks/Volume....

They are all 3tb drives

 

[Spearfoot]

Hi,

I've been running freenas for a while now, but i was not too pleased with the speeds at which it worked. i was getting 10MB transfers to it. Now i have run a dedicated network cable to it, giving it a fixed IP, and hooked it to an extra network card I inserted to the pc from which i'm using the NAS. Now i get transfers upto 35 MB.

The machine is an I3 with 16 gigs of ram, and an intel onboard network card. 6HDD's running in RAID-Z2

My question, is the 35MB/sec a good speed? And if not, what could i do to improve it, any guides you could point me to that i could use to get more out of the line? As there are GB network interfaces (intel) on both sides, i would hope to be able to get a bit more from it, or not?

I'm wont be around the next day, but allready wanted to ask the question, so that i can start looking into it when i get back.

thanks,
Kristof

35MB/s is pretty slow. Is it possible you're running at 100Mb/s instead of at 1000Mb/s rates? Are your devices connected via a 100Mb/s switch, for example? What is your network setup?

 

[nachte]

35MB/s is pretty slow. Is it possible you're running at 100Mb/s instead of at 1000Mb/s rates? Are your devices connected via a 100Mb/s switch, for example? What is your network setup?

Botht are intel gigabit ports, and there is a direct cat 6 cable between them. At least on the windows machine, it was reporting a GB connection.

 

[joeschmuck]

i was getting 10MB transfers to it. Now i have run a dedicated network cable to it, giving it a fixed IP, and hooked it to an extra network card I inserted to the pc from which i'm using the NAS. Now i get transfers upto 35 MB.

I'm not following I guess. The motherboard you specified has a built in 1Gb NIC so it will support 100+MB/sec transfer rates provided it is connected using a CAT5e or better cable and the other end of the cable is connected to a computer with a 1Gb NIC and running a proper OS.

Okay, so while typing this you ended up posting a message...

How are you testing this throughput? Show us some screen shots.

And replace the Ethernet cable, try again.

Also, I'd remove the NIC card you added, unless you really wanted it.

 

[nachte]

I'm not following I guess. The motherboard you specified has a built in 1Gb NIC so it will support 100+MB/sec transfer rates provided it is connected using a CAT5e or better cable and the other end of the cable is connected to a computer with a 1Gb NIC and running a proper OS.

I used to run it over the switch that does most stuff here, but then i got those +- 10 mB/s speeds. I added a 2nd network card to my work pc, and connected the NAS directly via that, that upped the speed to +- 35mB /sec. I'm using the onboard network of the nas. Speeds are from the windows dialog when copying.

 

[joeschmuck]

Exactly what network card (Make/Model) did you add?

Post some screen shots please of "Windows Network Connections" and from a CMD prompt, the output of

Code:

wmic NIC where NetEnabled=true get Name, Speed

 

[nachte]

I would not say that 35MB/s is good, but it really depends on all the variables, and for your setup, it might be.

When troubleshooting speed issues, you want to check the following:

1. What is the speed of the array, from the array?
2. What is the network speed of the server, bypassing the array?
3. What is the network speed of the client, bypassing its local storage?
4. What is the read/write speed of the client?

That should get you pointed in the right direction, and a search (here and Google) should get you started. If you need help doing any of the steps, let us know. Once you're done, let us know the results, and we can hopefully figure out what the bottleneck is.

1. Did a CP of a directory with about 3.3 GB in it, took the array about 5-6 seconds (hand timed) However.. i did the same with RSYNC to be able to see the speeds, but for some reason it took RSYNC +- 12 seconds, and there it reported speeds up to 270 MB/S, so i'm guessing the CP was going at around 500mb/s (I dont know why RSYNC would be slower??)
2/3 still looking into how to do that, a bit very rusty at *nix at the moment..
4. Did a local copy, was getting s)peeds around 260 MB/sec

 

[nachte]

Exactly what network card (Make/Model) did you add?

Post some screen shots please of "Windows Network Connections" and from a CMD prompt, the output of

Code:

wmic NIC where NetEnabled=true get Name, Speed

It's an intel PRO/1000 GT, so Ethernet 2 is the one where Freenas is connected (fixed ip for freenas and this card (192.168.2.*), not in the range of the other network (192.168.0.*))

 

[gpsguy]

The directory with 3.3GB of data - is that 10,000 tiny files or a few large files. If the former, can you try a big ISO or something else instead.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[nachte]

Just tested it the other way around, from nas -> windows i'm getting +-65MB/S

 

[joeschmuck]

Please don't tell me this is another small file issue. What size of files are you transferring? Test using a single file of at least 200MB or larger. Larger is better.

EDIT: Thanks for the photos, that confirms the network speed.

 

[nachte]

The directory with 3.3GB of data - is that 10,000 tiny files or a few large files. If the former, can you try a big ISO or something else instead.

They are all at least 50 MB+ files, some as big as 600, 51 files in total (photoshop psd's)

 

[nachte]

Please don't tell me this is another small file issue. What size of files are you transferring? Test using a single file of at least 200MB or larger. Larger is better.

EDIT: Thanks for the photos, that confirms the network speed.

All quite large files, 50 MB - 600 MB, with no difference in speed between the 50's and the 600 one.