NASLite Network Attached Storage

My setup -

Main Desktop:

AMD 3500+
2GB Ram
Asus A8n-sli Deluxe M/B
Marvel Yukon onboard 10/100/1000 lan port
2 x 300GB sata drives
1 x 80GB IDE Drive

NasLite2 Server:

AMD XP 2400+
512MB Ram
Netgear GA311 gigabit lan adapter
1 x 80GB 7200rpm IDE running at ATA100
1 x 500GB 7200rpm IDE to come.

This is all plugged into a Netgear Gs605 Gigabit router.

When transferiing large files (800-1000GB) from the main machine TO the Naslite2 server, I get speeds that fluctuate from 45MB/s to 55MB/s. The throughput does not fluctuate widely either, nice and smooth. This I find pretty awesome! I figure a lot of speed is gained due to Ram buffering.

HOWEVER, when transferring from the Naslite server back to my main machine I get from 5MB/s up to about 24MB/s, and the network graph is all over the place. It fluctuates like crazy between the two extremes, and even pauses for a second sometimes.

What is the problem?

The Naslite sysreport shows no errors whatsoever and there are no other problems.

Is this just the fact of the ATA drive not being able to compete with the speed of SATA?

Is this normal to see for a naslite server with these specs?

Thanks for any help.

Josh

We have seen cases where the TX and RX speeds tend to differ drastically. The problem appears to be related to certain hardware combinations and may require one or more tweaks in order to bring the values closer.

The first thing one should look for is IRQ conflicts. It is very important that the NIC and drive controllers have unique IRQs that are not used byany other device in the system.

It is also possible to have problem with the bus due to a noisy component. Some inexpensive RTL based NICs for example are so IRQ intensive that the CPU has to drop all it's doing and accommodate the request at a rate that makes it impossible to do work in an efficient manner.

The point is that the cause can be lots of things.

Try moving cards to a different slot, try moving the RAM to a different slot or try different RAM. Make sure that if you have multiple sticks of RAM, those are matched and of the same type. Take a look at the RAM wait states in the BIOS. Try a different drive an check to see for change or improvement. Try a different drive cable, preferably shorter one. Make sure the drive you are testing is not on the same cable as a CD or a DVD drive. Try a different IDE channel, etc.

I know this is not a direct fix for your problem, but I really am unable to offer one give the nature of hardware. Hopefully however the above can be a good starting point.