Transfer rate drops dramatically (Starts with 120mbps, drops to 700kbps)

[Felipe Campanini]

Hello!

I'm new using FreeNAS, I am trying to set it just to share files between computers on my home.

My setup:
Mother Board GA-8I945GZME
Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz
2GB DDR2
1 Disk 500GB SATA
1 8GB USB Pen Drive (FreeNAS installed here)

Do not be scared, I made it with some cards that were unused here.

My problem is this: When will transfer some files to the FreeNAS, if the transfer takes longer than ~ 20 seconds, the transfer rate drops dramatically. It starts with 120 Mbps (which is more than optimal rate for my need) and then a few seconds is 700 kbps ...

Thank you for your attention !!!

 

[dlavigne]

[QUOTE]2GB DDR2[/QUOTE]

That's not helping. What's the NIC driver from ifconfig? I wouldn't be surprised if it's a Realtek (re0)...

 

[Felipe Campanini]

How do I check the driver installed ?

 

[Jailer]

You are so far off from the minimum/recommended specs for freenas that this will be only the first of many problems you will encounter.

 

[nick779]

Hello!

I'm new using FreeNAS, I am trying to set it just to share files between computers on my home.

My setup:
Mother Board GA-8I945GZME
Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz
2GB DDR2
1 Disk 500GB SATA
1 8GB USB Pen Drive (FreeNAS installed here)

Do not be scared, I made it with some cards that were unused here.

My problem is this: When will transfer some files to the FreeNAS, if the transfer takes longer than ~ 20 seconds, the transfer rate drops dramatically. It starts with 120 Mbps (which is more than optimal rate for my need) and then a few seconds is 700 kbps ...

Thank you for your attention !!!

I would use NAS4Free and not FreeNAS in this instance, your hardware is so far below the minimums this is the least of your problems

 

[Felipe Campanini]

I do not know why, but I assumed that this configuration would suit me because it does not have many simultaneous accesses.

Would if I increase the amount of RAM memory or buy a new network card solve?

I will test NAS4Free, I just see that it requires only 512MB of RAM.

Question: I configured the iSCSI service, there is no other service could try? Maybe iSCSI is a lot for my machine.

 

[gpsguy]

iSCSI loves RAM. For iSCSI on FreeNAS, 32GB+ might be closer to the minimum.

Just because you don't "have many simultaneous accesses", doesn't mean it will run with a fraction of the memory. Whenever I test FreeNAS in a VM (one user), with one or more 20GB drives, I always allocated 8GB to the OS.

 

[jgreco]

iSCSI loves RAM. For iSCSI on FreeNAS, 32GB+ might be closer to the minimum.

16GB if performance is not critical.

Just because you don't "have many simultaneous accesses", doesn't mean it will run with a fraction of the memory. .

it is always entertaining to see why people think that the rules do not apply to them...

 

[danb35]

Your hardware is inadequate, no question about it. Depending on a number of details you haven't told us, it may be more or less inadequate. If you're using 9.3 and a ZFS volume, your hardware is utterly, irredeemably inadequate--nothing in this hardware will be usable with 9.3, with the possible exception of your hard drive. If you're using 9.2 or prior with UFS, you may be only mildly inadequate. What version of FreeNAS are you using, and what kind of volume have you set up on your drive?

You ask whether there's any other service you could use. Yes, there are many. Without knowing what your objectives are, though, we can't recommend any of them. The most commonly-used service for file sharing is CIFS. What led you to use iSCSI in the first place? What do you want to do with your data? What are your client machines?

 

[Felipe Campanini]

Your hardware is inadequate, no question about it. Depending on a number of details you haven't told us, it may be more or less inadequate. If you're using 9.3 and a ZFS volume, your hardware is utterly, irredeemably inadequate--nothing in this hardware will be usable with 9.3, with the possible exception of your hard drive. If you're using 9.2 or prior with UFS, you may be only mildly inadequate. What version of FreeNAS are you using, and what kind of volume have you set up on your drive?

You ask whether there's any other service you could use. Yes, there are many. Without knowing what your objectives are, though, we can't recommend any of them. The most commonly-used service for file sharing is CIFS. What led you to use iSCSI in the first place? What do you want to do with your data? What are your client machines?

Sorry for the delay.

FreeNAS is version 9.2.1.6 and disks are configured with UFS.

I would just set up a file server to store some data (documents, photos, music, games, etc.). There would access it every day, it would be only for backup. I was thinking of leaving turned off the server and use WakeOnLan to turn it on.

I'm just testing with these old HD, but my will was to set up the server with at least 2TB RAID 1 (not yet possess these HD's).

I have 2 client machines, the machine I'm using for the test is:
- Gigabyte ga-970th-DS3P
- AMD FX 8390
- 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 Ram
- HD 1TB SATA 64MB CaviarBlue

Yesterday I made some tests:
- Installed NAS4Free 9.3
- I configured iSCSI with (UFS) [The same problem persisted]
- I set up another HD (250gb Samsung) with SMB [this case is even slower, while iSCSI begins with a good transfer rate and falls to 2mbps, SMB starts with this rate].

 

[SweetAndLow]

How taxed is your processor during these tests? Also test your disk speed using a dd command locally on FreeNAS to see what your max disk speed are for read and write.

 

[Gonzalo]

@Felipe Campanini may I ask you why are you trying to use iSCSI instead of CIFS?

 

[jgreco]

@Felipe Campanini may I ask you why are you trying to use iSCSI instead of CIFS?

iSCSI is much more ideally suited to pretending NTFS is a cluster-aware filesystem and winding up with total data loss.

Rule 1: If you are going to fail, fail spectacularly, fail catastrophically, fail magnificently.

Do I sound cynical?