NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hi.

I really like the NASLite program. It looks like a perfect solution for my client - a company that needs to store large amounts of data and make it available over the network. IF ONLY IT WASN'T FOR THE ANNOYING SLOW PERFORMANCE! No matter what I do, I just can't get the average transfer rate to more than 2MB/s!

I am a system builder at an OEM computer company so I got access to tons of new and used parts. And I konow a thing or two about hardware, networks and various operating systems. I also read this forum carefully and tried all solutions available.

First I started with a Pentium 300MHz, 32MB RAM, Realtek8139, Fujitsu 9GB HDD. When disappointed with the performance switched to a Pentium III 550E, 384MB RAM, Intel chipset, UDMA66 contorller, Maxtor 250GB ATA100 w/16MB cache... still 2MB/s transfer rate! Then took an existing AthlonXP1800 machine with 512MB and 3Com gigabit NIC, which gives approx 8MB/s of throughput on the existing 100Mbit LAN using WinXP... tried the NASLite Gigabit version of the floppy and guess what... I still get the damn 2MB/s!!! Also tried various 3Com 3C905 FastEthernet, Realtek8139 variants and two Intel 100 cards.

I noticed that the problem might be in the HDD - IDE routines! For the first few seconds the transfer rates are fine and around 10MB/s - you can see the NIC ACT lights blinking fast and everything seems to be OK. But then the NIC ACT lights stop and data transfers over the network halt. At the same moment the HDD light lights up for a few seconds - like it's flushing the cache to the plates. When HDD finishes it's job the data transfer over the network resumes for a few seconds and then again the SLOW (!!!) writing to the disk. I find it hard to believe that the new Maxtor 250GB, 7200 RPM, 16MB cache disk needs two seconds to write down 10MB of data!

I use the NASLite (not plus) version, WinXP SP2 client with Total Commander (nice shareware proggy that shows transfer rate in the "copy" window), 100Mbit network and a lot of patience.

At the company they are willing to pay for the CD version advertised on the website, but only if they are sure we'll get to reasonable read/write/transfer sppeds! As I can see on the forum, the NASLite+ can suffer from same symptoms.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Miran, Portorose, Slovenia - EU.

Your observation is exact. The Mbit floppy versions of NASLite use a genetic IDE driver due to limited space. The generic IDE driver does not support DMA so the transfer speeds will always be about 2 or so MB/s.

You can correct the problem by running a Gbit floppy (obviously a Gbit card required) or NASLite+. Those versions include chipset-speciffic drivers and do support DMA. On average, with NASLite+ you should see 6-8 MB/s SMB transfers and 9+ MB/s FTP transfers to/from WinXP on 100 network.

Hope that helps...

First I must correct myself on testing described in my previous post - the AthlonXP was equipped with a 100Mbit card and not 1Gbit card, so the results were ofcourse 2MB/s.

I did as you suggested... built a Celeron 450, 64MB, Maxtor 250GB system, 3Com 1Gbit NIC and the gigabit version of NASLite and finally I get the 8MB/s speeds!

So for all you out there having same issues - the gigabit version of NASLite has much improved IDE harddisk routines that use DMA transfers, so you get improved transfer speeds even if the gigabit network card operates at 100Mbit in a common 100MBit environment.

Tony: I thank you very much for the support given here on the forum. I'll try to convince my client to buy the CD version because you definitely deserve it!

I am a 1st timer . Bought the full NASLite+ CD (all versions). Built the SMB Mbit floppy and am trying it out on a Dell 1.8GHz box with 256MB ram and 20GB HDD. I put in an old NIC (it had both RJ45 and coax on it). Even though this is the PLUS version I am getting only 800kB/sec (=6Mb/sec) throughput.

Is this normal? If I put in a Netgear 10/100 NIC would it get any better?

Would it be faster using the SMB G version even on a 100M LAN, compared to the NASLite+ SMB M?

Thanks in advance,

I seem to get about 800kb/s when I cable my iBook to my NASLite server. This isn't really a problem for me since the server is usually connected to an 802.11b network, but it would be good to see if drivers could be squeezed in somehow.

Edit: By cable I mean a cat5 cable running from one computers 10/100 NIC to the other's 10/100 NIC.

Paul,



NASlite+ boots from a CD-ROM and not floppy. The version of NASLite you are using is NASLite-SMB, so IDE support is generic and does not utilize DMA.

Oops. In my eagernes, I did the floppy version.

Ok, now I have converted to NASLite+ v1.3 (from CD) and even reconfigured the HDD, but I am still only getting max 9 Mb/sec data transfer. HELP!

The status screen shows SMART as Active. All other options as Successful or Registered.

Thanks in advance.

this seems to be quite an old thread so I guess you may have solved it by now but if the NIC has both RJ45 and BNC connectors on it then it is almost certainly a 10Mb card, hence your slow transfer rate, try a new NIC and you may have more luck.

Yep, all is well - thanks for replying, and Happy New Year to you.

thanks Paul, and happy new year to you too! glad its all sorted out

this seems to be a very friendly forum, almost a reason to use Naslite in itself!

I have to agree mongoose and the fact that the guys that actually write the software and understand the products take such an active part is also very impressive.

This is one of the few forums where the users wish pleasantries to each other and take an interest in each others problems. It's a great forum.

Hear! Hear! I'll drink to that. And also wish all readers and especially responders a Very Happy and Successful New Year.

But I also think that NASLITE+ is a great product as I am sure ya'll agree. I have now been running a 700MHz box with 2x 200GB HDDs for a couple of months and backing up all my data using SyncBack, very happily.

Hi,

question: will this issue (dma support integrated Mbit version) be solved in a future release? (i don't have an gbit card and i don't really want to run the cd version - the plain simple floppy startup and a running system and here i go. and this issue caught me cause i have some performance issues streaming from my dvb box and i think this may be an explanation...)

Thanks,
Sebastian

Upgrade to the USB version, you only need to access the cd for setting up and then it boots from the floppy kicker disk and USB drive, I think you could probably set up the USB drive using the cd boot on any pc, boot to cd use utility to format USB, save kicker program to floppy and then put the floppy and USB drive on your NAS and boot to floppy, kicker finds USB drive and boots easy. Gives you the faster access and doesn't require a cd. I have the USB version on a gigabit network and stream high def movies from my NAS to my HTPC, it stutters a little but normal dvd movies play fine, vers 2.0 SATA will stop the stuttering, should be accessing at 150mbps instead of the 100mbps in ultra dma.