iSCSI overload???

[Ikon]

I recently installed iSCSI on my server an started installig games on the server, but after 1-2 minutes my pc(most programs) freezes and it takes about 1 minutes before it "unfreezes" and I can see the disk(iSCSI share) on task manager goin 100%.

Any help would be great.

 

[Samuel Tai]

Details of your server hardware, please, per the Forum Rules.

 

[Ikon]

Details of your server hardware, please, per the Forum Rules.

Ofc forgot
Cpu: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5550
RAM: 12gb
Hdd 4tb x4 wd red nas drives
And a supermicro x8dtl-3f board.
750w coolermaster psu

 

[Samuel Tai]

What are the model numbers of your Red drives? I suspect you may be running SMR drives, which would exhibit this performance pattern.

 

[Ikon]

What are the model numbers of your Red drives? I suspect you may be running SMR drives, which would exhibit this performance pattern.

Got some photos here:

 

[Samuel Tai]

OK, they're the CMR models, so that's not a problem. How is your pool constructed? For iSCSI, you'll want to use mirrors instead of RAIDZx. Also, you have less than the minimum required RAM of 16 GB.

 

[Ikon]

OK, they're the CMR models, so that's not a problem. How is your pool constructed? For iSCSI, you'll want to use mirrors instead of RAIDZx. Also, you have less than the minimum required RAM of 16 GB.

I don't care so much about my data on the nas so i use raid1 if that works?
Can try to install more RAM.
Thanks

 

[Samuel Tai]

Yes, you'd get the best performance with a 4-way stripe over these 4 disks. For iSCSI, you'll also want to use jumbo frames and configure TCP cubic.

TCP congestion control algorithm selection in TrueNAS Core/FreeNAS

Networking-minded TrueNAS Core/FreeNAS admins may need to change the TCP congestion control algorithm for their specific installations from the default TCP new Reno to achieve the best performance. (For reference, see http://intronetworks.cs.luc.edu/current/html/newtcps.html.) There are several...

www.truenas.com

 

[Ikon]

Yes, you'd get the best performance with a 4-way stripe over these 4 disks. For iSCSI, you'll also want to use jumbo frames and configure TCP cubic.

TCP congestion control algorithm selection in TrueNAS Core/FreeNAS

Networking-minded TrueNAS Core/FreeNAS admins may need to change the TCP congestion control algorithm for their specific installations from the default TCP new Reno to achieve the best performance. (For reference, see http://intronetworks.cs.luc.edu/current/html/newtcps.html.) There are several...

www.truenas.com

Will do!
Thanks for your help

 

[Samuel Tai]

Check out this thread from someone in a similar situation as yours. Note, he has much faster hardware.

IScsi Game Libary

Hey Guys, just trying to figure out my bottle neck is Network Card: Intel X520-DA1 E10G41BTDA 10GbE SFP 10GB PCI-E Ethernet Adaptor Storage: 2 x Sabrent 1TB NVME Striped (Cache/Compression all turned off on pool) iScsi to Windows 10 Crystal mark of my current single system NVME Crystal...

www.truenas.com

 

[Ikon]

I just installed 24gb of RAM but one of my motherboard wont detect one of my 8gb stick?
Do you know how to fix it?
It did work with my 2gb stick.

 

[jgreco]

minimum required RAM of 16 GB.

The minimum required RAM for iSCSI is generally significantly greater, such as 64GB, or for trite uses, 32GB may work. See:

Why iSCSI often requires more resources for the same result

iSCSI is a SAN protocol. NFS, CIFS, etc., are NAS protocols. For a NAS protocol, the client sends a command to the filer, such as "open this file", or "read ten blocks", or "remove this file." On the filer, the local NAS protocol daemon translates this into UNIX file syscalls, and passes it...

www.truenas.com

Without sufficient RAM, both the write cache (this ISN'T the SLOG/ZIL) will have trouble assembling large transaction groups, and the read cache suffers for all the reasons discussed in the linked article. Both of these will cause poor performance.

 

[Samuel Tai]

I just installed 24gb of RAM but one of my motherboard wont detect one of my 8gb stick?
Do you know how to fix it?
It did work with my 2gb stick.

Check your motherboard manual for RAM compatibility. Sorry, this is something specific to your board and RAM combo.

 

[Ikon]

Im running 4x2gb ram and 2x8gb ram total 6

 

[Samuel Tai]

OK, this is because of your CPU memory controller. They typically have a hard time with unequal stick sizes. Try it with just the 2x8GB sticks. You'll need to trade your 4x2GB sticks for more 8GB sticks.

 

[Ikon]

OK, this is because of your CPU memory controller. They typically have a hard time with unequal stick sizes. Try it with just the 2x8GB sticks. You'll need to trade your 4x2GB sticks for more 8GB sticks.

I have 4x32gb sticks bur they are ddr4, my motherboard uses ddr3

 

[Samuel Tai]

I have 4x32gb sticks bur they are ddr4, my motherboard uses ddr3

The DDR4 sticks won't work.

 

[Ikon]

When I was going to check on my server this was at my screen.
Don't know if this is normal or is a part of the problem?

 

[Davvo]

That's not normal and looks like a network issue.

 

[jgreco]

That's not normal and looks like a network issue.

It's not a network issue. iSCSI has a five second timeout, and if operations are not being served expeditiously, you will get these kind of timeouts.

RAM: 12gb

If you are pushing lots of traffic at the server with iSCSI on only 12GB RAM, I'd say this is totally expected. After awhile, the system suffers fragmentation and starts to suffer from an inability to rapidly allocate new blocks for writes, which tends to cause iSCSI to freak out.