Slow GLan/CIFs transfers, what can I do?

[TSCH]

Hello,

I installed FreeNAS 8 x64 last weekend on my ASUS A8N-E, 1GB RAM, Single-Core AMD 2GHz and RAIDz with 3x 1TB WD SATA, 7000rpms.

My transfer-rates to NAS over 1GBit from windows (XP) clients vary between 10 and 20 MByte/sec while transfering files between the clients (all XP, 1GBit) are much faster with 20-30MByte/sec.

Can I get significant better performance changing hardware (AMD AM3 x3/x4 with 3.2GHz, 4-8GB RAM) or not?

Thanks a lot for your help in advance.


Kind regards

TSCH

 

[matthewowen01]

More Memory! ZFS NEEDS tons of memory.

cram 4 GB in there at least and see how that goes. the single core should be plenty, i prefer dual core single should handle it with only 3 drives.

 

[TSCH]

@matthewowen01

Thanks for your reply.
Is there any chance getting more performance using ext instead of zfs? Just to test if ram is the problem.
By the way I upgraded to 3GB RAM and it stay slow 10-20MByte/sec.

Kind regards

TSCH

 

[matthewowen01]

if 3 GB is all it can take (i had a a8n-sli that could only do 3.5 GB due to stupid hardware decisions) you can try UFS, it may do better. let us know please.

 

[ProtoSD]

@matt, a little off topic, but I have an a8n-sli that I use for my MythTV setup and couldn't figure out why it didn't like 4GB of RAM. Nice to finally have that cleared up.

 

[TSCH]

@matthewowen01

I'll have a try with ufs tonight.
Will there be any significant speed improvement ? What transfer rate in MByte/sec is realistic with FreeNAS using zfs/ufs and RAID-5 with a new board using 4-8GB RAM, quadcore cpu 3.x GHz, SATA III?
Which is the main speed limiting factor?
If there isn't any boost in speed I'll stay with my hardware without spending time and money installing new hardware.

Kind regards

TSCH

 

[matthewowen01]

ZFS, you'll be capped by your network connection. i can handle 2 gb/s in and 2 gb/s out over my 2 NICs on my core 2 duo.

UFS, never used it. but it will play nicer with less memory.


i'm surprised you didn't see better performance from the addition memory. i see people posting here they get gigabit speeds with AMD 350's. SATA 3 is not supported by FreeNAS at this point.

 

[TSCH]

@matthewowen01

Just gave ufs a try and got even worse transfer rates than with ZFS. Seems that I have another problem. What I don't understand is the transfer from client to client (using the same TP-Link GB-switch) is much faster than to FreeNAS ???
So I have to find the problem in my setup which seems not to be the FreeNAS hardware (?)

Where can I optimize (which) settings in FreeNAS 8 to get better performance? UDMA133, GBit,..... ?

Kind regards

TSCH

 

[golemcito]

@matthewowen01

Just gave ufs a try and got even worse transfer rates than with ZFS. Seems that I have another problem. What I don't understand is the transfer from client to client (using the same TP-Link GB-switch) is much faster than to FreeNAS ???
So I have to find the problem in my setup which seems not to be the FreeNAS hardware (?)

Where can I optimize (which) settings in FreeNAS 8 to get better performance? UDMA133, GBit,..... ?

Kind regards

TSCH

I´m in the same situation: Phenom X6 1090T, 8Gb RAM, NIC Intel Gigabit and the CIFS transfers are the lowest i´ve tested.
The same machine working under windows works like a charm.
Is there any hidden tunning?

 

[TSCH]

@golemcito

Gracias a dios no soy el uniquo teniendo problemas con FreeNas.

I'll better continue in english because my spanish was better 30 years ago ;-)

I would have been very disappointed buying new MoBo, RAM, CPU and not getting a boost in performance. And you have a much faster hardware with tons of RAM.


Kind regards/Hasta luego

TSCH

 

[golemcito]

@TSCH

Pues te defiendes muy bien ;-) ¿Por donde andas?

I don´t think it´s a HW problem, because under Win7 works very well, 80-90 MB/s under Samba.

I don´t know what people, with AMD´s 350, did but i think there are any tricky tunning to improve performance. I read anything about a guy who compiled himself the distribution and got good numbers and he had an AMD 350...

But we are not alone, there are a lot of people with this issue....

Bye/Nos vemos

 

[TSCH]

My goal using FreeNAS was using standard hardware without special RAID-Controllers just to have an archive-nas which I power up to copy or get some films and then power off again.

If Windows Home Server 2011 had software-RAID I'd use that because there seem to be no real problems with speed transfering files.

If I don't get any further with FreeNAS the next thing I'll try is a clean LINUX with SAMBA.


Kind regards

TSCH

 

[golemcito]

You can get a raid 5 under windows server 2008 or you can use linux. At this moment I have 12Tb in raid 5 under Ubuntu working without problems and i was thinking in freenas as second share to make backups in a small enclosure, but if i don´t get better speeds i will mount another linux box.

See you

 

[Cosmin]

Had same problem, CIFS on freenas 8 is somehow defective. Use NFS or iSCSI and you will get 50-70 MB/s (i use them both without problems).

 

[TSCH]

@Cosmin

Thanks for your reply. I tried Freenas 0.7 too, same problem. Is there any alternative product with fast CIFS? Eventually I'll give ISCSI a try.

Kind regards

TSCH