CIFS Performance Issue - 30MB/s from Mac OSX, only 1 MB/s from Windows 10

[Rich C]

I spent the day setting up my first FreeNAS with some spare parts lying around. My FreeNAS is connected to ethernet and I was writing to the NAS at 30 MB/s from my Macbook via wi-fi. Not great, but sufficient for my needs. When I tried doing the same write test to my ethernet connected Windows 10 PC, I was only getting 1 MB/s. Any ideas what could be causing this sluggish performance in Windows?

 

[anodos]

Firewall or some other security software would be my first guess.

 

[solarisguy]

Firewall or some other security software would be my first guess.

Also your wired network issue (bad cable, bad port, going through a 10Base-T device, etc.) ?

 

[joeschmuck]

Or QOS settings in your router. When you say the"the same write test" history has proven it's never the same. You may have been transferring larger files on the MAC and lots of smaller files on the Windows machine. Try to transfer a single large file (100MB or more) to see what transfer rate you get.

Keep in mind that I'm refraining from asking your hardware configuration but please understand that you need 8GB RAM for FreeNAS to work properly. I don't think that is your specific issue here but I'm not ruling it out.

 

[Rich C]

Thanks for the suggestions. Here's what I've found so far:

• Windows Firewall: Off
• Wired Network Infrastructure: I have a Synology NAS as well, and both my Windows and Mac machines can write to it at about 80 MB/s (when the Mac is hard wired into ethernet). The Windows and Mac (on wi-fi) machine can write to each other at around 50 MB/s. These tests were all done using the same 240 MB video file.
• I'm running FreeNAS 9.2.1.9 which has lower hardware requirements. I'm running an Athlon II 250 and 4 GB of RAM, which should be sufficient based on minimum recommended standards for that older version. I'll go ahead and upgrade to 16 GB of ECC RAM if I can just get this proof of concept working.

I did some more research on this forum and they suggested that the motherboard integrated NIC has known issues with FreeNAS. I'll try purchasing an inexpensive Intel NIC sometime in the near future but any other suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[anodos]

Thanks for the suggestions. Here's what I've found so far:

• Windows Firewall: Off
• Wired Network Infrastructure: I have a Synology NAS as well, and both my Windows and Mac machines can write to it at about 80 MB/s (when the Mac is hard wired into ethernet). The Windows and Mac (on wi-fi) machine can write to each other at around 50 MB/s. These tests were all done using the same 240 MB video file.
• I'm running FreeNAS 9.2.1.9 which has lower hardware requirements. I'm running an Athlon II 250 and 4 GB of RAM, which should be sufficient based on minimum recommended standards for that older version. I'll go ahead and upgrade to 16 GB of ECC RAM if I can just get this proof of concept working.

I did some more research on this forum and they suggested that the motherboard integrated NIC has known issues with FreeNAS. I'll try purchasing an inexpensive Intel NIC sometime in the near future but any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Minimum requirements for 9.2.1.9 were basically the same. You should be getting roughly the same speed from Mac and Windows clients. The problem indicates a client-side configuration problem, but for the sake of thoroughness please post /etc/local/smb4.conf.

 

[solarisguy]

Please do not jump into buying a cheap network card!

Please discuss your Samba settings. Also could you please try transferring the same file using FTP?

And let us know more about your network topology first. Synology NAS, Windows box and FreeNAS are wired into?

• unmanaged Gigabit switch (=simple, there is nothing to be changed on the switch, the preferred scenario)
• managed Gigabit switch (=there are settings that when improperly changed can create problems)
• your wireless router that has switch ports (=many settings that when improperly changed can create problems, for example could you disconnect from the Internet and temporarily disable the firewall, security, anti-virus or whatever else is running on that router, then rerun your test)

Did you try to copy between (both wired) Synology NAS and FreeNAS ? Using FTP perhaps...