Slow write speed from volume to volume/slow delete

[jprothro74]

I have been having issues with write performance and slow file deletions. I am new to Freenas and admittedly pretty lost. I have been looking through the forums and reading as much as possible although not understanding a lot of it. My Freenas box has been assembled for one week and it seems unreasonably slow moving files around from dataset to dataset and across volumes. My CPU usage is minimal. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hardware:
Intel Core I3-4170 LGA1150
Asrock H97M Pro4 mother board
Crucial Blistix DDR3-1600 32GB
600W Power supply
2 x 2TB Western Digital red
2 x 4TB Western Digital red

I have read all the suggested tweaks to ZFS but have not idea of where to put the settings or how to find the current settings

 

[DifferentStrokes]

How are you moving/deleting the files? Command line, CIFS share, etc. I'm assuming CIFS/Samba based on top output. Is the client you are working on connected wired or wireless? Remember, if you are connected to different shares/datasets the file you are moving comes from the server to the client and then back to the server.

 

[jprothro74]

I am moving/deleting the files from my laptop wired gigabit network (microtik router board) which is also slow with the server for some reason. I did not realize that if I deleted or moved files located on the server only they had to travel through the client. That really makes no sense to me. Seems like a waste to have to make that route. I guess the command line is the fastest route, however I am ignorant in that regard. Many years ago I was DOS savvy, but have no idea of the commands used in this system.

 

[jprothro74]

The problem with that model is that users will not have command line access. I have moved/deleted large volumes of data on servers at work without such a huge delay. No idea what they use, but expected better performance given all the positive reviews about freenas.

 

[DifferentStrokes]

I have been having issues with write performance and slow file deletions. I am new to Freenas and admittedly pretty lost. I have been looking through the forums and reading as much as possible although not understanding a lot of it. My Freenas box has been assembled for one week and it seems unreasonably slow moving files around from dataset to dataset and across volumes. My CPU usage is minimal. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hardware:
Intel Core I3-4170 LGA1150
Asrock H97M Pro4 mother board
Crucial Blistix DDR3-1600 32GB
600W Power supply
2 x 2TB Western Digital red
2 x 4TB Western Digital red

I have read all the suggested tweaks to ZFS but have not idea of where to put the settings or how to find the current settings

A few things worth noting here:

• While the hardware you have pick is really great desktop hardware it isn't server grade hardware. This hardware isn't really correct for a FreeNAS build.
• Writes are 512 Mb/s while reads are 7,483 Mb/s. One caveat though, you really aren't getting real world numbers in your dd test. You have dd reading/writing a 1 Gb file. With the RAM you have it is just staying there. It is reading/writing from RAM and not the hard drives. You need to up the file size to something greater than the amount of RAM you have to get some real numbers. I'd try something more like 100Gb.

I am moving/deleting the files from my laptop wired gigabit network (microtik router board) which is also slow with the server for some reason. I did not realize that if I deleted or moved files located on the server only they had to travel through the client. That really makes no sense to me. Seems like a waste to have to make that route. I guess the command line is the fastest route, however I am ignorant in that regard. Many years ago I was DOS savvy, but have no idea of the commands used in this system.

Two things here:

• As long as your laptop and server are on the same subnet, the router doesn't come into play. The packets are going between the two machines. So, the routers performance wouldn't matter in that regard.
• Let me explain my previous post a bit more. If you have dataset A and dataset B, and then you create share A and share B, respectively. Now, you connect your laptop to both of the samba shares. If, you need to move a file from share A to share B the file has to pass through the client. In that scenario, the laptops hardware and performance also become a factor. However, if you move a file that stays inside the same share, it is done server side.

The problem with that model is that users will not have command line access. I have moved/deleted large volumes of data on servers at work without such a huge delay. No idea what they use, but expected better performance given all the positive reviews about freenas.

Well, the way things are setup can have a great impact on performance and stability of any server. For example, how are the drives being passed to FreeNAS. Is the Intel H97 chipset set into IT mode. You can also have performance problems with Samba as well. There is a good thread on the forum about some changes to make there that might help. There are many things to check to start the troubleshooting process, but keep in mind you maybe fighting an uphill battle with your hardware selection.

Some places you can start troubleshooting are:

• See if the hard drives are being passed through straight to FreeNAS, in IT mode. Strange things can happen if you let the RAID chip handle stuff. FreeNAS needs to talk straight to the drives.
• dd each drive separately and dd each volume.
• Test network between laptop and client. iperf would work good here
• Try connecting the laptop straight to the server with a ethernet cable and repeat the networking tests. (may have some networking/cabling problems)

FreeNAS is a great software. It has been tested on 1000's of machines. I'm sure your problem is just hardware selection, improper setup or networking issues. It will just take a little time to figure out the problem.

 

[jprothro74]

I will try your suggestion, but what particular about my hardware selection would be the bottleneck? I still have time to return/exchange components.
I have run some jperf tests although I can't see there being any hardware, cabling issues. I made and tested the cables myself.
My BIOS is set to AHCI, I will have to look into the IT setting as I have seen that option anywhere in BIOS. Raid has not been enabled on the motherboard.
I agree FreeNAS is great software based on the reviews which is why I chose it, but it may require more tinkering than I have knowledge and time, unfortunately. There are too many separate systems at play which can be tweaked which requires learning them all.
Thanks for your responses, I will investigate further, but for now I have exams to study for.