freeNAS Super Slow Lately

[gabster]

Hi Gang!

So, all of a sudden my freeNAS 9.10 box got really slow. Like reeeeaaaalllyy sloooowww (2 MB/sec!!). I used to get decent 110MB/s reads and writes with no issues. The box is new, 5x 3Tb raidZ, processor is 3.6Ghz, 16Gb ram. As I mentioned it ran fast.
I have a presumably Intel NIC in there with two ports.
Reading other posts, I did a ifconfig and here are the results:

em0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=4019b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,VLA
N_HWTSO>
ether 00:15:17:14:bb:6e
inet 10.0.0.3 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.0.255
nd6 options=9<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED>
media: Ethernet autoselect (10baseT/UTP <full-duplex>)
status: active
em1: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=4019b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,VLA
N_HWTSO>
ether 00:15:17:14:bb:6f
nd6 options=9<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED>
media: Ethernet autoselect
status: no carrier
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
options=600003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

Ah - and meant to tell you that all of a sudden I have a jail dataset I didn't create.

Any ideas where should I start?
Thanks

Gabi

 

[gabster]

and if it helps diagnosing, here's my netstat -i:

Name Mtu Network Address Ipkts Ierrs Idrop Opkts Oerrs Coll
em0 1500 <Link#1> 00:15:17:14:bb:6e 8819 13228 0 18215 0 0
em0 - 10.0.0.0 10.0.0.3 8296 - - 18136 - -
em1 1500 <Link#2> 00:15:17:14:bb:6f 0 0 0 0 0 0
lo0 16384 <Link#3> 7658 0 0 7658 0 0
lo0 - localhost ::1 6 - - 6 - -
lo0 - fe80::1%lo0 fe80::1%lo0 0 - - 0 - -
lo0 - your-net localhost 7641 - - 7652 - -

 

[anodos]

Post output of "zpool list" and "zpool status". How are you using the server?

 

[Rand]

media: Ethernet autoselect (10baseT/UTP <full-duplex>)

???

 

[gabster]

Thanks @anodos - I am using it to store photos and videos. here's the zpool list:

Name Mtu Network Address Ipkts Ierrs Idrop Opkts Oerrs Coll
em0 1500 <Link#1> 00:15:17:14:bb:6e 8819 13228 0 18215 0 0
em0 - 10.0.0.0 10.0.0.3 8296 - - 18136 - -
em1 1500 <Link#2> 00:15:17:14:bb:6f 0 0 0 0 0 0
lo0 16384 <Link#3> 7658 0 0 7658 0 0
lo0 - localhost ::1 6 - - 6 - -
lo0 - fe80::1%lo0 fe80::1%lo0 0 - - 0 - -
lo0 - your-net localhost 7641 - - 7652 - -

Also a strange thing - I checked the connected devices on my router and "freenas" looks like it's not connected.
I also switched the cat5 cable into the other port on my dual NIC card on the freenas box. Also popped the cable into another port in the gigabite switch. I noticed that my ip changed (now it's 10.0.0.5). And my speeds are back to normal.
But it really bothers me why I had that slow speed initially.

@Rand - anything suspicious in that line?

thanks!
gabi

 

[Rand]

That indicates that the network card and switch have decided that 10Mbit/s is the best they can do.
10 Mbit/s is max 1,25MB/s which is about the rate you see.

You would expect to see something like
"
media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
"
to use 1Gbps ethernet.

 

[gabster]

thanks @Rand - I got it. In fact, after i moved cables around as my previous post, I got a 1000baseT and my speeds are back to normal. Do you have an idea why my NIC card decided to switch speeds all of a sudden?

thanks!
Gabi

 

[Rand]

Depends on the switch, but its not unknown that auto-negotiate causes hickups.
Usually only if you play around with it though (like trying LACP, or some other networking stuff)

Ah and It might be that the switch reduced power on the port to save energy (assuming it was not connected for example) and didn't ramp up before the freenas box accepted the offered speed - or something similar;)

 

[maglin]

CAT5e cable or router issues. It auto selects. I've had that issue and only moving to a different port on my switch brought back 1G speeds. The link lights usually are the first place to start to see what your link speed it at.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gabster]

Ah - good pointers! Thanks a lot!

@maglin - how would you troubleshoot using the link lights?

thanks!

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I also switched the cat5 cable

If you're actually using a CAT5 cable, consider replacing it with a CAT5e or CAT6 cable.

how would you troubleshoot using the link lights?

The link speed is usually indicated by the combination of lights or their colors. You will have to check how your devices do this. For example, my GS116 shows a light on left side of the port for 100BaseT, the right side for 10BaseT, and both sides for 1000BaseT (and the key is printed right on the device).