Help please. Getting slow network performance WITH Intel gigabit nic.

[iautomate]

Hello all. I just fired up my second FreeNAS build (shown below). I’m having network throughput issues. I thought it was originally due to the onboard Realtek NIC so I ordered an Intel Pro1000 PCIE gigabit NIC after reading all the horror stories surrounding the onboard RT. I eagerly installed it and I am still getting roughly the same transfer speeds. ~10MB/s :( I built this box after reading and reviewing the current minimum build specs and others builds shown in this forum. I believe this system should be near perfect for a home media store and back up purposes.

This hardware was entirely tested before installing FreeNAS by installing windows7 sp1 and bench marking all drives, network performance etc. Systems performed perfectly and all drives benched within 6% @ 147 write / 155 read MB/s

I am using a 987mb Ubuntu image as a test file here. Roughly 1GB.

Speeds with Intel NIC installed: (roughly the same as the RT speeds)
From Windows to FreeNas (RealTek to Intel) 1:28 11.3MB/s
From FreeNas to Windows (Intel to RealTek) 1:26 12.2MB/s
From Windows to Windows (both realtek nics) 0:14 108.4MB/s

FreeNAS Config: (done directly from the video tutorials)
FeeNAS-9.2.1.8-RELEASE-x64 (e625626)
1 volume ZFS Mirror R10 – no compression – no encryption
1 appleset/tmachineset
1 windowsset
2 services enabled AFP & CIFS

Hardware:
ASUS B85M-D Intel B85 motherboard
8GB 1600MHz DDR3
2.9Ghz Celeron
SanDisk Cruzer Mini (OS Drive)
4 2TB WD Black series 6gb/s hard drives


One thought just occurred to me. I still have the Windows7 hard drive with the bench test install on it. I could boot to that and double check that it is not a hardware issue. My old FreeNAS box was an earlier gen celeron with 4GB of ram and it was plenty fast. Same drive setup R10 4 drives just smaller.

Any ideas to get it up to the 100MB mark would great. Looking forward to another 3 years of worry free FreeNAS!! :)

//
iautomate

 

[cyberjock]

11.3 and 12.2 MB/sec sounds like you were stuck on 100Mb LAN.

Unrelated comment your going to hear from someone if it isn't me:

Your hardware isn't what we recommend, no ECC, celeron (which is even slower than the lowest end CPU we recommend), desktop hardware....

 

[iautomate]

This is a home build. Don't need ECC. My old FreeNAS box ran fine for three years without a hiccup. Everything is definitely gigabit. I've already tested all the physical layer stuff. Well past that.

 

[iautomate]

Well well!! You got me thinking and I guess I wasn't past that. Just found a bad crimp. Transferring at 124MB/s now. Thank you Cyberjock!!

Just for grins I wonder what the RT would do with a good cable?? Hmm. Screw it. I'm locking this thing down.

 

[gpsguy]

As cyberjock said, it sounds like you have something running at 100Mb in the mix. Try connecting the server to the client directly, with a known good cable.

Edit: I see you discovered the problem, while I was composing my message.

 

[cyberjock]

See. Even those of us who think we couldn't possible make a mistake that stupid make it.

Nobody is immune. The trick is if you see 10-12MB/sec that's almost ALWAYS it. It's literally a freebee on what is wrong.

 

[iautomate]

So I've been loading this thing up all night. Moving very large TC containers while backing up two macs. The high water mark for CPU usage is 32% with the NIC pegged for 12 hours straight. Looks like a Celeron is just fine for me!! :)

 

[HoneyBadger]

This is a home build. Don't need ECC.

Long as you aren't storing anything you care about on there, go nuts.