A few weeks ago, after some research, I decided to build a FreeNAS system to replace the QNAP NAS I've used for years.
In doing so I decided to stick as much as possible with the recommendations of the forum experts and thanks to that even a total noob like me was able to plan for and perform the build without encountering any major issue (many thanks especially to cyberjock and jgreco for their posts on hardware selection and system burn-in).
Burn-in is done and I'm now playing a bit with the system to familiarize with it before deploying it as my main storage unit.
My system configuration:
FreeNAS version: 9.2.1.7
Motherboard: Supermicro X10SLL-F
CPU: Intel E3-1230V3
RAM: 32GB - 2 x Crucial CT2KIT102472BD160B 16GB (2 x 8GB)
Boot device: 8GB Sandisk flash drive on internal USB Type-A connector
Hard Drives: 4 x WD4001FFSX in RAIDZ2 (for my data) + 2 X WD40EFRX in MIRROR (for snapshots replications and other backups)
PSU: Seasonic G-450
UPS: Powercom Vanguard 1000 LCD
The main issue I'm facing right now is an extremely slow CIFS share in some specific and repeatable conditions.
The share configuration was pretty straightforward.
I was also able to map the CIFS share as a network drive in my Win7 workstation without trouble.
Read / Write performance using the Win7 standard file manager and several other file transfer utilities is as fast as expected and very consistent.
I've also run speed test utilities and again results are good (write 80MB/s , read 100MB/s).
The problem is related to inconsistent performance with Lightroom 5 (my main application ...)
Lightroom 5.6 is installed on my Win7 workstation.
Photographs files (RAW of 25MB each) are in a dedicated dataset in the RAIDZ2 pool.
The share is pointing at this dataset (but I've tried pointing it at the pool without any noticeable difference).
Lightroom saves all of the changes to local files (catalogs, previews and cache files) , original photographs files remain unchanged.
Lightroom local files are on the Win7 workstation.
The connection between the FreeNAS system and the workstation is GBe through a Cisco router.
Lightroom reads the photographs files during import (into the Lightroom database), previews generation, image changes and other tasks.
(a) In some occasions these tasks are executed at high speed (performing a file transfer and/or speed test in parallel confirm high connection speed) but,
(b) in other occasions (especially during import) the same exact tasks are extremely slow (and performing a file transfer and/or speed test in parallel confirms the low speed of the connection: < 10MB/s).
If I terminate the Lightroom task, after a while, the share goes back to the expected performance.
I'm not able to see any differences both at the FreeNAS and the Win7 sides in (a) and (b), other than the extremely different performance.
At the moment I have no idea about how to troubleshoot the issue. I'm just able to monitor the LAN transfer rate at both the win7 and freenas sides and everything confirms the connection becomes slow in some occasions.
Has anybody experienced the same issue?
Any idea about how to troubleshoot the issue?
Regards
AM
In doing so I decided to stick as much as possible with the recommendations of the forum experts and thanks to that even a total noob like me was able to plan for and perform the build without encountering any major issue (many thanks especially to cyberjock and jgreco for their posts on hardware selection and system burn-in).
Burn-in is done and I'm now playing a bit with the system to familiarize with it before deploying it as my main storage unit.
My system configuration:
FreeNAS version: 9.2.1.7
Motherboard: Supermicro X10SLL-F
CPU: Intel E3-1230V3
RAM: 32GB - 2 x Crucial CT2KIT102472BD160B 16GB (2 x 8GB)
Boot device: 8GB Sandisk flash drive on internal USB Type-A connector
Hard Drives: 4 x WD4001FFSX in RAIDZ2 (for my data) + 2 X WD40EFRX in MIRROR (for snapshots replications and other backups)
PSU: Seasonic G-450
UPS: Powercom Vanguard 1000 LCD
The main issue I'm facing right now is an extremely slow CIFS share in some specific and repeatable conditions.
The share configuration was pretty straightforward.
I was also able to map the CIFS share as a network drive in my Win7 workstation without trouble.
Read / Write performance using the Win7 standard file manager and several other file transfer utilities is as fast as expected and very consistent.
I've also run speed test utilities and again results are good (write 80MB/s , read 100MB/s).
The problem is related to inconsistent performance with Lightroom 5 (my main application ...)
Lightroom 5.6 is installed on my Win7 workstation.
Photographs files (RAW of 25MB each) are in a dedicated dataset in the RAIDZ2 pool.
The share is pointing at this dataset (but I've tried pointing it at the pool without any noticeable difference).
Lightroom saves all of the changes to local files (catalogs, previews and cache files) , original photographs files remain unchanged.
Lightroom local files are on the Win7 workstation.
The connection between the FreeNAS system and the workstation is GBe through a Cisco router.
Lightroom reads the photographs files during import (into the Lightroom database), previews generation, image changes and other tasks.
(a) In some occasions these tasks are executed at high speed (performing a file transfer and/or speed test in parallel confirm high connection speed) but,
(b) in other occasions (especially during import) the same exact tasks are extremely slow (and performing a file transfer and/or speed test in parallel confirms the low speed of the connection: < 10MB/s).
If I terminate the Lightroom task, after a while, the share goes back to the expected performance.
I'm not able to see any differences both at the FreeNAS and the Win7 sides in (a) and (b), other than the extremely different performance.
At the moment I have no idea about how to troubleshoot the issue. I'm just able to monitor the LAN transfer rate at both the win7 and freenas sides and everything confirms the connection becomes slow in some occasions.
Has anybody experienced the same issue?
Any idea about how to troubleshoot the issue?
Regards
AM
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