Recent slow down of our FreeNAS system

[takkischitt]

Hi

Within the last couple of weeks I have noticed our FreeNAS system has become quite a bit slower/sluggish/occasionally unresponsive. Backups from the various computers on the network are very slow and when more than one or two computers are accessing the NAS, the NAS can become unresponsive and other computers cannot connect to it/it appears offline. I have restarted everything relating to the network (router, switches, NAS, computers).

I have not changed any settings on the NAS and the disks still have plenty of free space. The system is fully updated (FreeNAS-11.1-U1) and it is reporting no alerts or errors.

Has anyone else noticed any system slowdown recently? Are there any other ways I can go about checking for potential issues?

Thanks

 

[SweetAndLow]

What's your system? What's show? Network slow? Hdd slow? Webui slow? You haven't really told us what's wrong so you can't really get any help.

 

[takkischitt]

Sorry, please see my signature which I have updated to show the latest hardware in the system.

Opening folders and files on the NAS via Windows 10 machines on the network is slow/sluggish. When saving a document (e.g. MS Word, MS Excel, PDFs, etc) which is on the NAS it can now take several seconds to save, whereas previously it was almost instantaneous. Webui seems a little slower to open etc, but not much. When running the Windows 10 machines backup software it is taking a lot longer to send to the NAS and also when 1 or 2 computers are doing this, the whole NAS can become unresponsive and/or appear offline to other computer when they try to access the files/folders on the NAS.

As I said, the system ran fine (multiple computers could be backing up and the NAS would still be accessible and work quickly) up until a week or two ago, which is when I started noticing the slowdown.

 

[Nick2253]

disks still have plenty of free space

How much is plenty? Your specs only show 1TB of usable space.

 

[takkischitt]

How much is plenty? Your specs only show 1TB of usable space.

577GB free

 

[rs225]

Check the Network adapter in Device manager. On the Advanced tab, look for Large Send Offload, and try setting them to disabled or off, and see if it makes any difference.

 

[takkischitt]

Check the Network adapter in Device manager. On the Advanced tab, look for Large Send Offload, and try setting them to disabled or off, and see if it makes any difference.

On all of the PCs (six)? Do you think it's an issue with each of the PCs, rather than the NAS? Why would a certain computer struggle to connect to the NAS when that computer is idle but the NAS is serving other machines (backups)? Surely that shows that it is the NAS which is causing the issue?

 

[rs225]

Hmm. Maybe change the port and/or cable that the NAS connects on the switch?

 

[SweetAndLow]

Can't see signatures. You have to put it in your post.

 

[toadman]

Check the Network adapter in Device manager. On the Advanced tab, look for Large Send Offload, and try setting them to disabled or off, and see if it makes any difference.

I'm interested in the "why?" behind this bit of advice. I've not heard this mentioned before. Is there something about 11.1 that is affected by this setting on the client?

 

[takkischitt]

Hmm. Maybe change the port and/or cable that the NAS connects on the switch?

I will look into this and try swapping some things about, but I'm not sure what would have caused this to become and issue when nothing has been changed or tweaked.

Can't see signatures. You have to put it in your post.

Build: FreeNAS-11.1-U1
Machine: HP ProLiant G7 N54L 2.2GHz MicroServer
Platform: AMD Turion II Neo N54L Dual-Core Processor (2.2 GHz)
Memory: 16GB (2 x 8GB - Kingston KVR1333D3E9SK2 1333MHz CL9 DDR3 ValueRAM ECC Memory Kit)
Hard Drives: 2 x 1TB drives, mirrored

 

[SweetAndLow]

I will look into this and try swapping some things about, but I'm not sure what would have caused this to become and issue when nothing has been changed or tweaked.



Build: FreeNAS-11.1-U1
Machine: HP ProLiant G7 N54L 2.2GHz MicroServer
Platform: AMD Turion II Neo N54L Dual-Core Processor (2.2 GHz)
Memory: 16GB (2 x 8GB - Kingston KVR1333D3E9SK2 1333MHz CL9 DDR3 ValueRAM ECC Memory Kit)
Hard Drives: 2 x 1TB drives, mirrored

You should use iperf to test your network speeds going both directions. Then use dd with a non compressed dataset to test your pool speeds. One of those 2 things should reveal a problem if there is one.

 

[takkischitt]

You should use iperf to test your network speeds going both directions. Then use dd with a non compressed dataset to test your pool speeds. One of those 2 things should reveal a problem if there is one.

I will attempt these suggestions (once I research how to do them!).

Thank you for your patience and suggestions, SweetAndLow. Much appreciated as I'm a fairly basic/amatuer user, so some of these issues can be confusing.

 

[SweetAndLow]

iperf -s

iperf -c sever-ip

Or use iperf3 if you're on windows.