Slow Disk Acces

[Ryle]

[Solved] Slow Disk Acces

Hello,

I'm trying to work with freenas, until now i just try to setup it and I have some disk access problem, that's to say it's impossible to play a video (even LD) from freenas throught windows access (several seconds video freeze on hd, hang...).
I tried to play with cifs option but it doesn't seems to change anything (it's the only service I have activated until now).
I have check that my network is really in gigabit
When transfering files from windows i see 34-50 Mo/s speed indication with bus occupation ~20%.
I removed all accoustic and power management from disk -> change nothing.
Whan playing video bus occupation is near 1%

What can i do


My configuration:
Freenas 8.0.1 . AMD64
Asus E35M-I AMD E350
4x2To Samsung EcoGreen F4 - Raidz - Zfs
2Go DDr3 Ram
Sandisk 4Go Usb Key

Thanks in advance :)

 

[Ryle]

Ok, I had to destroyed and rebuild the volume using ufs, and then everything works fine (even big HD :) ). After that, I re-created my volume with zfs/raid-z and it's still ok, so I don't know what appends but until now it's gone, I hope this won't come back....

 

[ProtoSD]

Add more RAM.... 4GB minimum when using ZFS....

 

[marcusmarcus]

Asus E35M-I Atom E350

You sure you typed your motherboard correctly? Looks like an AMD based board but you have "Atom" in it.

 

[Ryle]

erf yes board name is correct, just a little confusion sorry... (I corrected it in post...)

 

[Ryle]

Add more RAM.... 4GB minimum when using ZFS....

Ok i will try that but 4Go min waouh !!!! it is a much a my Windows 7 based pc :)
By the way when creating the volume, i just see option to create raid only with zfs (raid-z) is striping raid-5 or just raid 0 ?

 

[ProtoSD]

ZFS uses a lot of RAM, the recommend minimum from ixSystems is actually 6GB. Raidz = Raid-5/striping, Raid-0 would just be a mirror.

 

[Ryle]

Ok i have ordered 2*4 Go of ram, I will post my result as soon as a get them!

By the way some little question:

- Theoricaly what kind of speed could I reach with such a configuration ?
- Is it possible to add another disk after the volume creation (I think no but will this be possible one day ?)
- Is there speed diference beetwen an tfp transfer and windows/samba tranfer ?

Thanks in advance

 

[Ryle]

Strange things

Hello everybody!

I have installed the new ram (8 go) and done a few new tests, and I have some curious things:

- When I start the nas and test a transfer with a 8 Go file, I have a write speed about 25mo/s (Memory consumption on nas is around 1Go)
- When I reboot the nas throught the web interface and start the same test again I reached 50 Mo/s (Memory consumption on nas is around 2Go )

I also have one time a transfert rate of about 90Mo/s with memory consumption of 6Go, but today i can't reproduced it!

- Another strange things : I see access to the USB key where freenas is installed, I thought was freenas was completly loaded into ram at boot ?

- When I look to the network performance i have every 7-8s a serious drop of speed (~2s) from ~50% to ~0% of bus occupation...

- I try to activate disk spin off but i have a strange behavior: disks seems always to spin down as soon as there's no activity (it's like time setting has no effect) and so doesn't stop going on/off and that's not good for hdd, so i keep them in always on state with no aam activated for the moment....

That's all for the moment, hope you could help me :o

Thanks in advance :)

 

[joeschmuck]

For your HDD spin down, ONLY set your HDD Standby value, leave the APM and ACC to disable. This will keep your drives spinning until there is a real idle time. APM levels less than 128 will cause the drives to spin down and up rapidly.

As for which version of FreeNAS you're running, all you state in the tag line is 8.0.1, but what version. Try running one of the recent nightly versions, lots of bug fixes. And load from iso for best results.

As for why your transfer rates change, first question, how have you been determining the transfer rates? What are you streaming video to? Have you made changes like adding a UPnP because I'm unclear how you are streaming data.

What country do you live in? I've never seen GB/MB represented as Go/Mo. Just curious.

-Mark

 

[Ryle]

Yop, thanks for your help,

I use Freenas 8.0 Release for AMD 64, as it is the most recent on freenas web page I hope it's the last one (05/2011)

When I set my drive to level 128 they really don't like it and it's a pain to boot (drive keep trying to start and i have no access to web interface (For this point I have to make further test to see If it's not a power supply or heating problem :( )

For speed test, I just transfer a large file (no video streaming at all) with CIFS (just using the NAS as a windows network drive) and there's no other service activated.
To calculate speed, I look to Ethernet bus occupation (under Win7/control Task), with a 1GB bus speed it's easy to deduce transfer speed.

For your last question I'm living in France and here Byte is "Octet" :p (It's more easy for us to avoid confusion between Mb and MB, except when talking in English :D)

 

[ctantra]

@joeschmuck: How many minutes do you set the HDD Standby value? Just curious.... I've set mine for 30 minutes :)

 

[joeschmuck]

My personal preference is 3 hours. My reason is I doubt after three hours of no use that I'll be using it again for many hours. I could go down to 2 hours safely but since I'm trying to minimize the number of spin-up cycles to prolong the life of my drives, 3 hours is reasonable. I think 30 minutes is way too short. The amount of power you save will not be balanced out by the shortened life you are causing to the drive. If you are accessing your NAS once every 24 hours then 30 minutes is fine. But if you are accessing it a few times a day, my advice is 2 to 3 hours. You will have to choose what you think is right for you.

 

[joeschmuck]

Yop, thanks for your help,

I use Freenas 8.0 Release for AMD 64, as it is the most recent on freenas web page I hope it's the last one (05/2011)

When I set my drive to level 128 they really don't like it and it's a pain to boot (drive keep trying to start and i have no access to web interface (For this point I have to make further test to see If it's not a power supply or heating problem :( )

For speed test, I just transfer a large file (no video streaming at all) with CIFS (just using the NAS as a windows network drive) and there's no other service activated.
To calculate speed, I look to Ethernet bus occupation (under Win7/control Task), with a 1GB bus speed it's easy to deduce transfer speed.

For your last question I'm living in France and here Byte is "Octet" :p (It's more easy for us to avoid confusion between Mb and MB, except when talking in English :D)

When you select the 8.0 Release for download, select the "Parent Folder" and there you will see folders for Nightly Build and 8.0.1 (betas). Use the recent nightly build, lots of bug fixes. You will have to upgrade via the iso image as there is an upgrade issue from 8.0 to beta-3 (or was it beta-4) or later. Like I said, the nightly build is what I would recommend.

Also Release 8.0 has issues with CIFS and many other things. The Devs will be upgrading that in the near future but I couldn't say how near that really is.

 

[Ryle]

Ok i have downloaded the last nightly release and do clean install (I have no cd-reader on nas, so i directly put system in usb key with phyWritte system)

- There's a lot a change in the interface, I will have a look later, but interface seems really slower to me
- My speed issues are still here, in fact it seems to be worse: I never get higher than 40MB/s ,transer speed is not stable at all and memory used doesn't get higher than 4gB (I use my ssd as source to be sure of source speed)

Is it worth trying with Freenas 7 To see if there's some différence on this point

 

[lyzanxia]

Freenas 7 will not support your network card on your motherboard.

 

[joeschmuck]

40MB/s isn't bad if you're using ZFS. If you want more speed you should try UFS. As for network reliability, that could be several things like what equipment is in your network. You should be using "switches" vice "hubs" as hub allow for packet collisions which cause some problems. I switched over to switches through my house to solve my problems streaming video.

 

[Ryle]

Freenas 7 will not support your network card on your motherboard.

ok, let's try something else...

40MB/s isn't bad if you're using ZFS. If you want more speed you should try UFS. As for network reliability, that could be several things like what equipment is in your network. You should be using "switches" vice "hubs" as hub allow for packet collisions which cause some problems. I switched over to switches through my house to solve my problems streaming video.

I have used a 8Port GB netgear switch and now a 5port GB trendnet switch, the only other device on the network is my adsl box and I have the same issue, I will still do a test using direct cable to be sure of that. (just have to found a twisted cable....)

I try to create a new UFS volume in stripping mode (is this really raid-5?) , I have deleted the old ZFS and create from new, but I got a error on volume ("Error getting available space ") and reboot is very hard, so back to ZFS.... :( (I remind having the same isue with 8.0 release)

I also try throught FTP :p but it's really worse... (~3MB/S)

I know that 40MB/s is not that bad for a standard NAS, but I thought I would get Higher with my configuration, What is limitating me ? (CPU, HDD speed, bugs ??)

 

[joeschmuck]

ok, let's try something else...

I have used a 8Port GB netgear switch and now a 5port GB trendnet switch, the only other device on the network is my adsl box and I have the same issue, I will still do a test using direct cable to be sure of that. (just have to found a twisted cable....)

I try to create a new UFS volume in stripping mode (is this really raid-5?) , I have deleted the old ZFS and create from new, but I got a error on volume ("Error getting available space ") and reboot is very hard, so back to ZFS.... :( (I remind having the same isue with 8.0 release)

I also try throught FTP :p but it's really worse... (~3MB/S)

I know that 40MB/s is not that bad for a standard NAS, but I thought I would get Higher with my configuration, What is limitating me ? (CPU, HDD speed, bugs ??)

1) You may need to use something like GParted to delete all the partition info on them before formatting for UFS. I thought the developers fixed Destroy Volume to wipe out the first and last areas of the hard drives which I thought would fix that problem.

2) Your limitation is the CPU for ZFS use. As I said 40MB/s is respectable for your system using ZFS. If you want to really max out your system I would run a mirrored drive pair. You can of course run a RAID-5 but it will be slightly slower but still faster than ZFS. And yes, UFS stripped should be RAID-5.

I haven't tested throughput via FTP yet, maybe next week once I've returned from a work trip. My FreeNAS box on;y runs while I'm testing software changes. I still use a normal NAS for my home use but I'll be changing that in the very near future as I'll be upgrading my NAS MB to something that can use DDR3 RAM. I have 12 GB of DDR3 1600 ready to be put to good use, if I can use it all.

 

[matthewowen01]

quick point, with the proper hardware, I've gotten 4 gb/s (2 in 2 out) from FreeNAS (cifs, ftp, rsync via ssh).

When i Google 'E35M-I AMD E350' i see a board that only has passive cooling. It's a long shot but maybe you've got a heat problem and your CPU is under clocking itself when it gets to hot?