NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hi everyone,

Just to put you all at ease – we are not ignoring the transfer speed issue. However, in order to determine how to implement proper optimization we’ll need to do some thinking.

Like always, the thing to remember is that the NASLite servers must fit entirely in a floppy disk, so there is no room for extensive probing and/or auto configuration binaries and databases like the Knoppix CD.

What makes things even more difficult, to conserve space, the kernel is compiled without the PCI device name database, so device lookup is difficult.

The point is – one needs to consider the hardware in order to optimize accordingly. It’s difficult to do that when there simply is no room. NASLite, as it stands takes the safe “compatible” approach in order to safely accommodate most hardware that’s handed to it. That approach does not produce the fastest results, but it does produce SAFE results.

I’m sure everyone will agree that we much rather discuss performance issues than “my drive is trashed and my data is lost” issues.

is it possible to change the drive settings manually in the meanwhile?

like booting with knoppix then edit something on the floppyimage ?
(haven't been looking in the image yet...knoppix still downloading :p )

and what would i have to look for in perticular?
(not your fault if i screw up thou )

[edit]
tried it, knoppix woun't mount the disk

well!! Actually I have the same issue, and the same realtek 8139 (errors and dropouts), a 8129 (10 mbit, but still errors and dropouts), and the linksys (with the realtek chip ) My system is a P233MMX, 64 MB, 10 GB (test only), realtek 8139 lan card.

downloading data to my PC from de Naslite I have a "better" experience, it is less slow and got no errors or dropouts, but I got around 1 MBps!!

Is there a difference between upload(errors and dropouts) or download(no errors and dropouts) form the PC to Naslite??

I'll keep trying on other pc/lan card conbination

Why? Why not an alternative for those of us who don't mind using an IDE slot for a CD-ROM to boot from?

Or, if that's not acceptable, why not add to the configuration routine to the new CD which creates the floppy disk, so that it can be customized for the particular hardware used, thus freeing up space for other stuff by eliminating unneeded drivers. Even an ability to edit some settings as a Create Floppy item would do the job. You can set the floppy now for IP address and workgroup name--why not for DMA type and Network Adapter hardware as well?

I tried NASLite on a PIII 733 Mhz, with a SIS 900 Netcard, I got the same performance with the realtek 8139, the only difference is the SIS card in my log I got no errors or dropouts as with the realtek (8139, 8129, Lynksys DFE-530TX+), maybe the realtek driver is a little bit buggy!!

Don't get me wrong, NASLite is a GREAT software, I never imagine to put a 40 GB hard disk on my pentium 233 MMX, and make it work, on my PIII 500 Mhz, my BIOS can not detected it!.

I hope this performance issue could be solved!!

This should shed some light on the transfer issue.

The NASLite Mbit transfer speeds are affected primarily by IDE, RAM, NIC, CPU - generally in that order. The Mbit versions of NASLite use generic IDE support that does not support DMA. That limits transfer to approximately 2M/s.

We’ve spent the last month working on a stable solution and we are close to release as soon as we resolve some compression issues. The kernel/root sizes are still too large to fit on a floppy.

The prototype Mbit transfer rates are improved by 400% to 600% based on hardware. IDE affects disk I/O and is now improved by DMA. RAM affects buffer sizes, so 128M is not a bad idea. NIC quality obviously makes a difference. CPU can be an issue with SLOW machines since IDE is a CPU driven interface.

In addition, the new release will probably not do very well in 16M, but it has worked fine so far – 200% performance increase on a test machine.

any news about the new versions yet ?

Well, I just set up this awesome piece of software to a machine I had kicking around to make a media server.

Specs:
AMD Athlon1800+
256MB DDR RAM
100Mbps 3COM NIC
Disk-1: 20GB
Disk-2: 120GB

However, I'm finding it's taking approximately 45 seconds to load 4-5MB on the box. That's something on the order of 100Kbps. Did I do anything wrong? I disabled the HDD detection in the BIOS, but that didn't help.

Is there anything I can fiddle with to see why I'm getting such dismal transfer rates?

Just purchased the CD today; installation was quick and painless on my P400 with 60gb hd and 128MB ram. I modified the settings as outlined in the manual and storezilla was ready for backup.

Almost.

I have a mixed home network of Linux and Win boxes so I've tried accessing via SMB and FTP. Access seems to be slow; I just tried moving a 40mb file on my 10mbit network and it took 15 mins, slower than if I downloaded it via dsl from the net.

I was excited about the tool but don't know how useful it will be if I can't figure out how to speed it up. I have 4GB of photos on my various machines and a 10GB tar file from my days as a teacher at the local vocational school; I'd like to send them there but if 40mb takes 15mins then 10gb will take, god, days?

Help?


This is from my sys log; any clues?

# Jan 14 02:00:33 Storezilla user.err klogd: 15: @c3f0f5c0 length 00000036 status 040105ea
# Jan 14 02:00:33 Storezilla user.err klogd: eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
# Jan 14 02:00:33 Storezilla user.err klogd: Probably a duplex mismatch. See Documentation/networking/vortex.txt
# Jan 14 02:00:33 Storezilla user.err klogd: Flags; bus-master 1, dirty 29765(5) current 29765(5)
# Jan 14 02:00:33 Storezilla user.err klogd: Transmit list 00000000 vs. c3f0f340.
# Jan 14 02:00:33 Storezilla user.err klogd: 0: @c3f0f200 length 00000036 status 040105ea
# Jan 14 02:00:33 Storezilla user.err klogd: 1: @c3f0f240 length 00000036 status 040105ea

Some time ago I posted this:

http://www.serverelements.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=131&sid=f82d4f2c407e9089f1ec2452d85c64b5

about using a RealTek-based card. The chipset is awful or the driver doesn´t handle it properly.

VIA Rhine-based cards work much better.

Beware: not all DLink 530-TX are RealTek´s. Some are built with VIA chipsets, and work very well.

XD

> my old message

Thanks for the reply, but my machine uses Intel Pro100, not Realtek. I'm afraid my NASlite cd purcase is going shelf surfing and I'm going to just bring up Samba on the box. Even with all the other uneeded services I'm betting the box won't take 80 secs to transfer a 3mb file.

Nice idea, but don't think it's quite there yet.

Hello phaggood,

The NASlite-SMB/FTP/NFS Mbit floppy versions use a generic IDE driver, so DMA is not supported. There is little we can do to correct that since to improve IDE performance, we'll need to add 70K of additional support on a floppy that has only 4.3K of available space.

The NASLite+ CD-ROM version corrects that since it boots a 2.8M image. The speed increase is drastic due to drive access being much faster with DMA support.

Anyway, i hope you’d consider NASLite+ as an alternative to the NASLite Mbit floppy.

[quote="Tony"]Hello phaggood,

The NASLite+ CD-ROM version corrects that since it boots a 2.8M image. The speed increase is drastic due to drive access being much faster with DMA support.

Anyway, i hope you’d consider NASLite+ as an alternative to the NASLite Mbit floppy.[/quote]

I guess I was unclear a few posts back; but I purchased the CD and am using NASLite+.

Just to compare I just transferred a 214 MB file in less than 30 seconds. It has to be something in your configuration.

Hi phaggood,

I also use an onboard Intel Pro100 on an old Dell and have no problem with transfer rates. Looking at the SYS_Log entries you posted above, there appears to be a duplexing problem on your network. Faulty or poor quality hub or switch, as well as noisy cabling can cause such problems. Also, having machines explicitly set to half or full instead of auto can contribute to the confusion.

Anyway, I’d recommend taking a look at that first. When properly implemented, NASLite+ transfer performance is hard to beat.

Hope that helps.