SOLVED Near Inoperable Write/Read Speeds

Mediafeener

Cadet
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Apr 19, 2014
Messages
6
Hi there, I have been experiencing near inoperable write speeds uploading to my NAS along with very slow download speeds. The NAS rig is a bit of an older machine. I've ran iperf3 and iozone tests (need help interpreting the iozone tests). Looking for assistance as to where to look next. Thanks much!

TrueNAS Software/Hardware
In signature...

Transfer Software
FileZilla v 3.56.0

Connectivity
Wired local connection between client and server thru modem/router combo

Goal
Upload/Download files to/from TrueNAS server via FTP connection at a reasonable transfer rate.

Problem
Uploading files from client desktop to TrueNAS maxes out at 20 KiB/s; downloading files from TrueNAS to client maxes at ~7 MiB/s.

Troubleshooting
  • I had a message of a degraded boot pool and replaced the boot media along with a fresh install of the TrueNAS OS. No change in performance.
  • iperf3 shows 940 Mbits/s up/down rate
  • iozone read & write speeds shown below. Need help interpreting results - are these speeds reasonable or indicative of an issue somewhere?

iperf3 results:
1634824315040.png


iozone results:
1634824392093.png


1634824400977.png
 

Samuel Tai

Never underestimate your own stupidity
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Apr 24, 2020
Messages
5,398
Unfortunately, your motherboard has a Realtek Gigabit NIC, which is known to have poor driver support in the TrueNAS kernel. You could try loading the newer driver, which has been provided in /boot/kernel, but not loaded by default, by setting a loader tunable if_re_load="YES" under System->Tunables, and then rebooting. If this doesn't work, the recommended path forward is to get an Intel Gigabit NIC, which is known to perform well in TrueNAS.
 
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Mediafeener

Cadet
Joined
Apr 19, 2014
Messages
6
Thank you for your quick help. Loading the newer driver did not seem to work, so I will look into the intel gigabit NIC. Thanks again!!
 

Mediafeener

Cadet
Joined
Apr 19, 2014
Messages
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Hi there, I've just installed an intel gigabit NIC [Intel EXPI9301CT Gigabit PCIe X1 Adapter] and moved the ethernet cord to the new card, but am seeing the same up/down speeds as before. Any new ideas as to what the issue might be? Thanks.
 

Samuel Tai

Never underestimate your own stupidity
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Apr 24, 2020
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OK, so this looks like TCP tuning issues if iperf can achieve line rate and FTP can't. Here are a couple of things to try:
  • Under System->Advanced, enable autotune, and reboot. This will set several tunables under System->Tunables which will optimize several sysctl parameters for better TCP performance and ZFS memory efficiency.
  • Under System->Tunables, add a loader tunable cc_cubic_load="YES" and sysctl tunable net.inet.tcp.cc.algorithm="cubic" and reboot. This will change the TCP congestion control algorithm to cubic from new Reno, to match the algorithm on your Windows client.
  • On the client side, open a Command Prompt as administrator, and run netsh interface tcp set global ecncapability=enable timestamps=enable to enable RFC 1323 optimizations.
 

Mediafeener

Cadet
Joined
Apr 19, 2014
Messages
6
Thanks for sticking with me for the help. I've just taken all actions you recommended and unfortunately the performance is the same. Retested iperf and confirmed the speed is near line rate on the intel NIC, but uploads/downloads via FileZilla are the same (up: ~20KB/s, down: ~7 MB/s). Anything else I could possibly try? Thanks again.

1634869266085.png
 

Samuel Tai

Never underestimate your own stupidity
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Joined
Apr 24, 2020
Messages
5,398
Last edited:

Mediafeener

Cadet
Joined
Apr 19, 2014
Messages
6
Wow, I'm embarrassed. Turns out my FileZilla had speed limits enabled for some reason. I'm getting much better speeds now. Thank you so much for your help, and sorry for this huge runaround.
 

HoneyBadger

actually does care
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iXsystems
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Feb 6, 2014
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Your CPU is a little weak but it shouldn't be that much of a drag unless it's badly overheating. No physical issues eg: stopped or clogged fans?

Also, are you using any features such as gzip compression or deduplication?

Edit: Speed limit in the client app would certainly do it too. How fast are things going now?
 
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