Hi. I was hoping for some advice on why my NAS transfer speed is so slow over LAN at about 2MB/s. I have a synology 211j connected to my router (the stock Virgin one) and my computer connected via a D-Link Powerline adaptor (AV 200). The computer-router connection itself seems fine and I get internet download speeds of about 40Mbps. Presumably, the NAS-router connection should be just as good so I should get AT LEAST similar speeds but I don't Any ideas on what's slowing things down?
Not used to the Virgin router, but if it's normal fast ethernet connection it should at least be 10MB (100Mb) a second. If it's a gigabit ethernet connection it should be at least 100MB (1000Mb) a second. There may be a slight overhead for these figures however, but I can sustain around 95Mega Bytes a second over my gigabit network. You'll never get that with a NAS however, but it also depends on your configuration? You running JBOD, RAID1 or Synology's SHR hybrid RAID? RAID of all types has a high processor overhead, and most NAS boxes, the 211j included aren't exactly blessed with powerful CPUs. With large contiguous files though, you should be able to max out a normal 100Mb fast ethernet connection, and on a gigabit connection, you should be getting around 40MBytes/sec read, and 30MB/sec write in RAID. Faster with basic and JBOD configs. Swap out the cable for another one, and make sure it's CAT5e or CAT6. Make sure there are no severe kinks in teh cable and that it's not routed in a way that wraps it around, or runs directly parallel to a mains cable. Check the NIC configuration of your NAS if it's an option and make sure it's set to it's max speed/full duplex. If on Auto, manually set it to Max speed/Full duplex. Check you do not have a faulty hard drive (you'd know this if you run RAID of any kind most likely but if it's in basic mode, a drive may be dodgy.
I have to admit I'm just using random cables I found in my drawer Could that result in such abysmal speeds? The NAS itself only has a single 1TB Samsing F1. I suspect the homeplugs might be responsible but I would have thought I could get at least double the speed? Sigh... one day I will get my own place and line the whole house with cat6 cables
Homeplugs - there's you're problem! They'll absolutely be your bottleneck. I've had that before. Turn off the fridge and the speed doubles; crazy stuff like that. Even if you have a direct connection between two GigE routers you still need good cables mind. For example, I'm stuck at 100M due to cheapo 25m cabling between NAS and PC at home, so I only get 6MB/s I do Spinpoint F1-to-F1 copy and get about 80MB/s when I do get GigE.
Ah.. never saw that... I guess I never read properly. Homeplugs are crap! Remove those from the equation before you suspect the NAS of anything.
As above the homeplugs will be the bottleneck. Even if it is a "200mb" model you will be getting nowhere near that. My "100mb" adaptors are actually only getting 1~1.5mbps throughput.
whilst i do agree homeplugs have their issues, i have a pretty similar situation to the OP and through my '200mbps' homeplugs i easily get 7MB/s transfer from PC-to-PC
But they are heavily dependant upon the conditions of the power line, and there may well be something on the ring main adding a great deal of noise. Given he's using homeplugs, I would be inclined to test the NAS over an ethernet connection to rule that out before doing anything
just did a test , changed the cat 5 to cat 6 from my nas > router > pc and speed doubled (its a really cheap NAS , still havent set up the home server yet - what with the tv breaking)
that's pretty much what i get with my Ds410j gigabit to router and to computer. i no longer feel it's slow. remove homeplug from equation. Virgin hub is 100Mbps so should get around 10MB/s transfer speed. also make sure the NAS isn't doing anything, my slows down to about 5MB/s when the NAS is busy with background tasks (eg antivirus scanning, extracting files)
If he is getting 40Mb internet with the homeplugs to router they won't be causing him an issue to his NAS as its the same connection he gets the internet from. As mentioned if you are raiding the NAS can be slower also if you are rsyncing then you have data verification to the NAS or doing incremental backups where you have to do file verification too then NAS will be slow. Also check your NAS for drive fail, if RAID array has failed and it is rebuilding a mirror then it will be bloody slow. Test its speed with simple file copies.
Do you actually get 40mb Internet, or does your router connect at 40 buy your only getting around 3mb on your connection. Is everything running latest drivers and firmware. Try reconnecting the lan cable physically in the port?
Once in the middle of the night I got 40mbps. Usually, it's around 20. The homeplugs might eventually be a bottleneck but I have a feeling the 2MBps I'm getting might be cause by something on the NAS itself. I've recently moved house and I get exactly the same speed now as I did in my old place. The nas itself only has a single drive at the moment so there shouldn't be any raid issues. It hasn't been set up to do any automatic back ups or virus scanning or anything like that. Is there some setting I should have turned off or on or something? I've tried connecting the nas directly to the PC before but couldn't get that to work...
Looking like you may be right, but I;'d still just plug it directly into the router with a decent CAT5e cable to rule it out once and for all - after all it takes a couple of minutes, and then you'll at least know for sure.
I've been drinking carling, i can't quite remember but I had issues with my home server, when using a gigabit switch. I had to enable large packets or something like that. Then I got transfer speeds of up to 40meg from 6meg
Could try it.. it does make a difference actually, but BOTH ends of the chain need to have the settings. So enable jumbo packets on both NICs and set it to 4000 (or 4096 of the closest you can). I got another 15MB/sec by doing that.
Pookey that is the badger. Jumbo packets or jumbo frames. And you're right both ends, and the "switch" / home plug HAS to support it too.
Yep.. everything in the chain needs to support it.. which may well be the issue that stops him from trying it. There is a slight CPU overhead when you do but it's negligible. You could increase RX and TX buffer size too, that can help, but again, uses more CPU resources. In this day and age though, it's not a problem.
