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robrub
PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 2:58 am 
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Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2007 2:45 am
Posts: 485
Location: France
Hi,

I know that this is a subject frequently discussed but I had thought that it was mainly a MAC OS X problem...

Well, it also is a XP Pro problem :(

3 XP Pro machines on a Gigabit Lan + 1 (should be very fast) NASLite server (dual channel RAM, SATA2 drives, Gigabit NIC etc.).

Copy to the NAS goes around 300KB/sec :( and copy FROM the NAS goes around 30000KB/sec :) . I had somme difficulties setting an IRQ just for the NIC but I think that the problem is (miraculously) solved. IRQ7 seems to go only to the NIC. Almost everything is turned OFF in BIOS.

Where should I start searching for the origin of the problem?

.../... Follow-up: On Compouter 1, I get the above results. On Comp 2, I get the same read and write speed: around 8500KB/sec

.../... Follow-up2: On computer 1 (the slow one): I rebooted and tested again. Now it is not slow anymore but the send/receive speeds are arounf 10000KB/sec... I lost the 30000KB/s speed???? Wierd. Any ideas ?

.../... Follow-up3: On computer 3, I get 5500KB/s write to NAS speed and 10500KB/S read from NAS speed.

.../... Follow-up4: FTP from the laptop (54GHz WiFi) write speeds are real fast (+/- 10MB/s). So Gigabit LAN should be faster/ I tested with CuteFTP Pro 7 from computer 1 to NASlite Disk-0 and I got 250Mb/s!!! So the speed is there. (Yes, 250Mb/s, no typo there :-) )

All 3 client computers are quite recent and with 1GB RAM and are quite fast. All run under XP Pro SP2.


TIA and best regards.


Last edited by robrub on Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

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robrub
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:39 am 
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Posts: 485
Location: France
Me again talking to myself ;)

This morning clean reboot of all the computers (1 NL + 3 XP Pro). Actually 1 XP pro SP2 computer is acting as server as NL is so slow :cry:

Copy from computer 1 to to NL server: Around 1000 KB/s
from computer 1 to XP server: Around 21000 KB/s

Copy from computer 2 to NL server: around 800 KB/s
from computer 2 to XP server: around 21000 KB/s

Speeds mesured by SuperCopier2, copy of a 250MB file from local drive to distant drive. I had measured better speeds (around 9000KB/s) last time but they are back to crawling speed this morning.

MoBo ASUS M2N-MX, 2x512 MB DDR2 RAM, dual channel, 3 Samsung Sata drives. Almost everything in the bios is shut off (except vidéo, USB (set to 1.1) and IDE/SATA buses). ACPI has options 1 /2 / 3 and is set to 3.

On the NL SysLog, I see that IRQ 7 is used ONLY by the NIC (NetGear GA311)

# Jul 30 07:58:16 user.info kernel: forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.50.
# Jul 30 07:58:16 user.info kernel: r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 1.2 loaded
# Jul 30 07:58:16 user.debug kernel: eth0: Identified chip type is 'RTL8169s/8110s'.
# Jul 30 07:58:16 user.info kernel: eth0: RTL8169 at 0xf8812c00, 00:18:4d:e9:cf:29, IRQ 7
# Jul 30 07:58:16 user.info kernel: eth0: Auto-negotiation Enabled.
# Jul 30 07:58:16 user.info kernel: eth0: 1000Mbps Full-duplex operation.

I had tested FTP speed last time (my previous message) and they were good.

.../... Follow-up. A created a second connection to Disk-2 from computer 2 (called M:). I start a copy and it starts at around 10 000KB/sec. I cancel the copy, try a copy on Disk-0 (N:) and it goes at 450KB/s :( I cancel the copy and recopy to Disk-2 (M:) and surprise, it is not at 10 000KB/s any more but only at 450-500KB/s. Reading from NASLite is always fast around 25-28 000KB/s from NL to computer 2 and around 36000 from NL to computer 1

Any help would be appreciated.

Best regards
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jackdaniels
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:59 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2007 3:54 am
Posts: 6
This may not be much help but just to let you know I have very similar Nas hardware:

Asus M2N-MX, Sempron 3200+, 512DDR2, Realtek 8169 Gigabit, 4 x Seagate 7200.10 500Gb Sata2.

Speeds from 3 other computers with XP Pro are between 25-30Mbytes/s for reads and 10-20Mbytes for writes. I would be happier with a faster writing speed but it's not bad.
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robrub
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:10 am 
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Posts: 485
Location: France
Hi JackDaniels,

Indeed, we have the same Mobo. What are the settings you use in the BIOS? My Lan card is a Gigabit NetGear GA311. Yours? I can't have more than 10 000 KB/s write speeds and even the 10 000 is rare as often it falls to 600 KB/S :(

I wanted to change to NL for the stability and the speed but for the speed part, I'm VERY unhappy. Write speeds between XP Pro machines are around 20 000 KB/s (30 times faster than NL!!!) so for me NL is really not working as it should.

It is a pity that no SE member has dropped a message on how to solve the problem :(
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robrub
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:46 am 
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Posts: 485
Location: France
Me again,

A was wondering if SuperCopier2 could be involved in the problems so I D/Led NetMeter, turned off SuperCopier2 and tranfered a 250 MB file from and to NL server to computer 1 and computer 2.

These are the MAX values:

Copy FROM Computer 1 to NL server 6,72 MB/s :(
Copy FROM Computer 2 to NL server 18,16 MB/s better but still low
Copy FROM NL server to Computer 1 36,79 MB/s :)
Copy FROM NL server to Computer 2 42,48 MB/s :)

NetMeter shows constant debit when reading from NL server but has a spike/low/low/spike/low... type graph when writing to the NL server.

I'll try to test the same server with FreeNas to compare when I'll have some time but these write times are far too low (taking into account that the hardware is not old stuff but recent and fast elements)

Still waiting Tony or Ralph for some insight on solving this problem.
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superboss
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:21 am 
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Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2006 1:32 pm
Posts: 290
I too am getting some very inconsistent r/w results..

Quote:
C:\Documents and Settings\henke\Desktop>E:\dw\diskWriggler-1.0.1.win32\diskwrigg
ler -NTSC -C -t -n 1000 -o \\192.168.0.11\disk-0
Frame Resolution : 720 x 486
Bytes / Pixel : 2,00 (packed) (8 bit, 4:2:2 sampling)
Frame Size : 699,840 bytes
File Type : All frames in one container file (699,840,000 bytes).

Writing 1000 x 699840 byte frames into file \\192.168.0.11\disk-0/framestream.da
t
205 frames in 5,03 secs ==> 40,75 FPS (27,19 MB/s)
186 frames in 5,00 secs ==> 37,20 FPS (24,83 MB/s)
127 frames in 5,02 secs ==> 25,32 FPS (16,90 MB/s)
95 frames in 5,30 secs ==> 17,94 FPS (11,97 MB/s)
100 frames in 5,02 secs ==> 19,94 FPS (13,31 MB/s)
98 frames in 5,00 secs ==> 19,60 FPS (13,08 MB/s)
90 frames in 5,20 secs ==> 17,30 FPS (11,54 MB/s)
88 frames in 5,06 secs ==> 17,38 FPS (11,60 MB/s)
11 frames in 0,52 secs ==> 21,33 FPS (14,24 MB/s)

Write Summary : 1000.00 frames in 41,14 secs
: 17,30(min) 24,31(avg) 40,75(max) FPS
: 11,54(min) 16,22(avg) 27,19(max) MB/s

Reading 1000 x 699840 byte frames from file \\192.168.0.11\disk-0/framestream.da
t
25 frames in 5,23 secs ==> 4,78 FPS (3,19 MB/s)
26 frames in 5,30 secs ==> 4,91 FPS (3,28 MB/s)
28 frames in 5,22 secs ==> 5,37 FPS (3,58 MB/s)
38 frames in 5,25 secs ==> 7,24 FPS (4,83 MB/s)
48 frames in 5,08 secs ==> 9,45 FPS (6,31 MB/s)
93 frames in 5,00 secs ==> 18,60 FPS (12,41 MB/s)
92 frames in 5,02 secs ==> 18,34 FPS (12,24 MB/s)
92 frames in 5,00 secs ==> 18,40 FPS (12,28 MB/s)
96 frames in 5,08 secs ==> 18,90 FPS (12,62 MB/s)
95 frames in 5,08 secs ==> 18,71 FPS (12,49 MB/s)
93 frames in 5,08 secs ==> 18,31 FPS (12,22 MB/s)
93 frames in 5,11 secs ==> 18,20 FPS (12,15 MB/s)
93 frames in 5,03 secs ==> 18,48 FPS (12,34 MB/s)
88 frames in 4,75 secs ==> 18,53 FPS (12,36 MB/s)

Read Summary : 1000.00 frames in 71,22 secs
: 4,78(min) 14,04(avg) 18,90(max) FPS
: 3,19(min) 9,37(avg) 12,62(max) MB/s


Also tried ftp transfer which started off at 30MB/s for the first 10 secs or so only to suddenly stop for a second and then move on at 15MB/s.. ?
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NickC
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:45 am 
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Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2007 4:27 am
Posts: 577
Location: Scotland
30MB/s x 10sec = approx 300MB - your RAM onboard = 384MB - you're filling up RAM buffers then the NASLite server has to flush the buffers to HDD.

On the read side, you might be trying to read through the buffered write operation still ongoing....

Looking forward to 4GB support.....
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Tony
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:12 am 
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Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 4:11 pm
Posts: 1771
Location: Server Elements
NickC wrote:
Looking forward to 4GB support.....


Very close now... :)
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robrub
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:52 am 
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Posts: 485
Location: France
NickC wrote:
30MB/s x 10sec = approx 300MB - your RAM onboard = 384MB - you're filling up RAM buffers then the NASLite server has to flush the buffers to HDD.

On the read side, you might be trying to read through the buffered write operation still ongoing....
Hi Nick,

I have a 1GB RAM, SATA2 drives on a new MoBo. Then how do you explain write (to NL) speeds of 400kB/s and read (from NL) speeds of 25000kB/s ? How come FTP is always fast in read and write but not SMB?

Sorry but nobody gave a plausible answer :(
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NickC
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 7:50 am 
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Posts: 577
Location: Scotland
Erm........ :? Pass, sorry! - however, I did have a noticable change in throughput "smoothness" when I changed from a 100Mbps to 1Gbps network. My write curve (time vs data rate) now looks like the Himalayas, fairly wide with sea-level plateaux in between rather than the previous steady 10MBps to 11MBps experienced using the "slower" network. Also, I don't use FTP at all - it's disabled in NASLite.

My gut feeling is that it has something to do with how NASLite fills / flushes RAM buffers.

Hopefully the new memory addressing capabilities will correct this issue - either that or I'm going to be investing in 4 x 1GB sticks of DDR2.....
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robrub
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:07 am 
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Posts: 485
Location: France
Some more testing done with my very slow write to NL issue...

I have installed Ubuntu server AMD64 edition on the server. D/Led some help files and information (I'm VERY new to linux) and done some reading. Instaled Desktop (I was a bit lost on the BASH commands).

The server works great and I have huge read speeds (>60MiB/s :) ) but write speeds were still low and jumpy.

I changed the connection to the (Gigabit) LAN and used the NIC included in the MoBo (instead of the one I had bought for NL as NL didn't see the onboard NIC) NetGear GA 311 and then suddenly everything works great AND fast. Write AND read from the Ubuntu server are very fast.

My conclusions: either the NetGear NIC is faulty or the drivers used for the NIC are faulty. I don't think that the drivers are bad as SE team seems to be using the NetGear GA311 card. I don't know if their computers are very fast or not.

It is a pity that I can't test NL with the onboard LAN :(

One question, how can I quit the Desktop interface and return to BASH in Ubuntu?

How can I mirror a hard drive on another in Ubuntu?

Best regards.
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superboss
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:10 am 
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Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2006 1:32 pm
Posts: 290
robrub wrote:
Some more testing done with my very slow write to NL issue...

I have installed Ubuntu server AMD64 edition on the server. D/Led some help files and information (I'm VERY new to linux) and done some reading. Instaled Desktop (I was a bit lost on the BASH commands).

The server works great and I have huge read speeds (>60MiB/s :) ) but write speeds were still low and jumpy.

I changed the connection to the (Gigabit) LAN and used the NIC included in the MoBo (instead of the one I had bought for NL as NL didn't see the onboard NIC) NetGear GA 311 and then suddenly everything works great AND fast. Write AND read from the Ubuntu server are very fast.

My conclusions: either the NetGear NIC is faulty or the drivers used for the NIC are faulty. I don't think that the drivers are bad as SE team seems to be using the NetGear GA311 card. I don't know if their computers are very fast or not.

It is a pity that I can't test NL with the onboard LAN :(

One question, how can I quit the Desktop interface and return to BASH in Ubuntu?

How can I mirror a hard drive on another in Ubuntu?

Best regards.


Why can you not test NL with the onboard LAN, is the adapter not supported?
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robrub
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:44 am 
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Posts: 485
Location: France
Exact :(

It is a Gigabit LAN of the ASUS M2N-MX MoBo (chipset NVIDIA nForce430/GeForce6100) and the LAN chipset is
NVIDIA MCP61P built-in Gigabit MAC with external Attansic PHY

The good side of NL is its easy use, the bad side is that it is VERY hardware dependent.

Regards
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jmiliz
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 8:51 am 
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Posts: 149
Are you connecting through a switch? I just bought a new Gbit switch to replace my smaller one and noticed an improvement since changing.
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robrub
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:20 am 
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Posts: 485
Location: France
jmiliz wrote:
Are you connecting through a switch? I just bought a new Gbit switch to replace my smaller one and noticed an improvement since changing.
Hi,

Yes, d-Link gigabit 5 connections switch. All 3 computers and the server behind the switch and jumpy write values with NL and the NetGear GA311 card on the server. Same instal but with the build-in NIC on the server and Ubuntu AMD64, higher (than NL) read and write speeds and all constant :)
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