Help me make my FreeNAS faster

[vaibhavyagnik]

I have just built my first FreeNAS. Here are my Hardware specs
1. Processor: AMD Athlonx2 7750 BE @ @.7 Ghz
2. Motherboard: gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
3. 8 GB RAM
4. On board NIC: Realtek 8111C
5. switch: TP-Link TL-SG1005D 5-Port Gigabit Switch. Switch supports Jumbo Frames
6. 4 Western Digital Green WD20EARX 2TB 64MB
7. Freenas is connected to switch via cat5e Cable, 2 M length
8. Client is connected to switch via Cat5e cable, 1 M length

Software specs:
1. Freenas 8.0.4 AMD64 (10351)
2. No tweaks on freenas
3. Client: Windows 7 ultimate, core2duo e8200 @ 3 GHz, 2 GB memory, Atheros 8151 integrated NIC
4. Testing methodology, Intel NAS performance toolkit V 1.7

I have tested various scenarios with different hard drive configuration. I am uploading the spread sheet as an attachment. Kindly refer for viewing performance and giving suggestions.
General copy from windows client to freenas for a 5.8 GB file varies from 45-51 MB/s with 4 disk RAIDZ. Haven't checked the read speeds yet. But i think write speeds can improve.

List of things i have checked:
1. Both the client and freenas are running at gigabit speeds. I know it because the switch indicates it (Green for gigabit and orange for Megabit connection)
2. vfs.zfs.prefetch_disable is set to 0 (checked via ssh command shell)
3. Client is not running with jumbo frames. (checked by going to Manage network adapter>atheros 8151>configure>jumbo frames = disabled) I could have enabled it but wasn't sure what should jumbo rates be. Moreover i am not sure about configuration of NAS NIC. As far as i know, jumbo rates should both be matching on client and host.
4. Ifconfig -a output for NAS box is

Code:

"login as: root
root@192.168.1.3's password:
Last login: Thu Jun 21 19:43:05 2012 from 192.168.1.4
Copyright (c) 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE-p6 (FREENAS.amd64) #0: Tue Feb 28 16:04:44 PST 2012

        FreeNAS nanobsd (c) 2009-2010, The FreeNAS Development Team
        All rights reserved.
        FreeNAS is under the modified BSD license.

        For more information, documentation, help or support, go here:
        http://freenas.org
Welcome to FreeNAS
[root@freenas] ~# ifconfig -a
re0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=389b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC>
        ether 00:1f:d0:d3:6b:1b
        inet 192.168.1.3 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
        media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
        status: active
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
        options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
        nd6 options=3<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV>
[root@freenas] ~#
"

My questions are:
1. Is my NAS performance optimum or i require tunning?
2. If tunning is required, what needs to be tuned?
3. for enabling jumbo frames on Freenas what needs to be done?

 

[William Grzybowski]

CIFS is CPU bound, you probably won't get anything much better than this...
Also, rule of thumb, realtek sucks, check network performance with iperf.

 

[paleoN]

Not to disagree with William, but you should be able to get better CIFs transfers.

1. Processor: AMD Athlonx2 7750 BE @ @.7 Ghz

Typo. Your proc is dual-core 2.7 Ghz, yes?

General copy from windows client to freenas for a 5.8 GB file varies from 45-51 MB/s with 4 disk RAIDZ. Haven't checked the read speeds yet. But i think write speeds can improve.

Go check your reads now. My CIFs reads are slower than my writes.

1. Both the client and freenas are running at gigabit speeds. I know it because the switch indicates it (Green for gigabit and orange for Megabit connection)

This doesn't mean that much, FYI.

3. Client is not running with jumbo frames. (checked by going to Manage network adapter>atheros 8151>configure>jumbo frames = disabled) I could have enabled it but wasn't sure what should jumbo rates be. Moreover i am not sure about configuration of NAS NIC. As far as i know, jumbo rates should both be matching on client and host.

You, personally, shouldn't bother with jumbo frames. Leave them be.

My questions are:
1. Is my NAS performance optimum or i require tunning?
2. If tunning is required, what needs to be tuned?

No, your NAS performance is not optimal. A 4 disk RAIDZ isn't optimal, but it very well may be enough to fill a gig link?

• Go check your read speeds already
• Listen to William and use iperf to check your actual network speeds.

There are serveral threads around with CIFs tuning in them. If I remember what the latest one is I will add it.

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

paleON, even i think Dual core Athon II running @ 2.7 GHz should not be a bottleneck. atleast the reporting graph does not show so. It shows some activity when writing but does not spike and go to 100%. thanks for pointing out that 4 drive RaidZ is not optimum. wasnt aware of the fact.
I will go home and i will do the test you and william said and get back. Your help and pointers are much appreciated

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

Did some tests: Iperf only shows a maximum of 40 MB/s which is stable though. writing from windows, speed remains between 35-40 MB/s while reading from NAS speed is around 55-57 MB/s. is the networking the culprit here? but what puzzles me is i have hit more than 40 MB/s in my intel nas tool kit results in some volume configurations. how was i able to hit those numbers when iperf registers only a maximum of 40 MB/s data transfer?

 

[survive]

Hi vaibhavyagnik,

First thing I would do is get a $30 Intel "CT" NIC to replace the on-board Realtek.

Also, I don't think it's so much that you are CPU bound as CIFS loves clock speed, but I don't think that's really your problem so much as the NIC.

-Will

 

[paleoN]

Did some tests: Iperf only shows a maximum of 40 MB/s which is stable though.

This is quite low for iperf. You want to see nearly triple that.

First thing I would do is get a $30 Intel "CT" NIC to replace the on-board Realtek.

I second this. I use one my self and I do get near line speed FTP transfers.

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

okay. Ordered myself a Intel DH67 based motherboard with G620. The motherboard has an integrated Intel NIC. I will put up numbers when it arrives. I am also suspecting my client computer NIC which is based on Atheros 8131. Even that can be the culprit or both realtek and atheros.

 

[sqwob]

okay. Ordered myself a Intel DH67 based motherboard with G620. The motherboard has an integrated Intel NIC. I will put up numbers when it arrives. I am also suspecting my client computer NIC which is based on Atheros 8131. Even that can be the culprit or both realtek and atheros.

did the intel NIC solve your performance issue?