Write Speed of 1 MB/sec?

[Nortd]

Hi, I've recently set up my own NAS system, I've followed the freenas8.2 guide and everything works except that I'm getting ridiculously low write/read speed.

As of currently when I'm writting to the NAS device I'm getting a write speed of about 1MB/sec and read of 1,5MB - 2MB/sec. This is just absolutely dreadful and I should be getting more.

Here's the system info :

Mobo : Asrock P4VM890
PCU : Old Pentium 4 1.6 GHz
PSU : generic 300W
RAM : 1GB DDR 400
HDD : 2x WD RE4 500GB(brand new)(capable of 125 MB/sec)
File format : UFS
controller : Software Raid 1 through FreeNAS
Ethernet : 10/100
FreeNAS installed on : Corsair 4GB USB key


So far I've tried different ethernet cables, I've also connected NAS to a completely different network with a different router/modem and tested it there, same results which means the problem is NAS hardware related.
I initially thought the onboard ethernet RJ45 port is not working properly and I had a Realtek 10/100 Ethernet PCI card lying around, results were slightly better, talking about very minor increase in speed.

Has anyone had similar problems? I can't figure it out how to increase the write/read speed ...

 

[satman80]

Hi, I've recently set up my own NAS system, I've followed the freenas8.2 guide and everything works except that I'm getting ridiculously low write/read speed.

As of currently when I'm writting to the NAS device I'm getting a write speed of about 1MB/sec and read of 1,5MB - 2MB/sec. This is just absolutely dreadful and I should be getting more.

Here's the system info :

Mobo : Asrock P4VM890
PCU : Old Pentium 4 1.6 GHz
PSU : generic 300W
RAM : 1GB DDR 400
HDD : 2x WD RE4 500GB(brand new)(capable of 125 MB/sec)
File format : UFS
controller : Software Raid 1 through FreeNAS
Ethernet : 10/100
FreeNAS installed on : Corsair 4GB USB key


So far I've tried different ethernet cables, I've also connected NAS to a completely different network with a different router/modem and tested it there, same results which means the problem is NAS hardware related.
I initially thought the onboard ethernet RJ45 port is not working properly and I had a Realtek 10/100 Ethernet PCI card lying around, results were slightly better, talking about very minor increase in speed.

Has anyone had similar problems? I can't figure it out how to increase the write/read speed ...

http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Recommendations


" RAM

The best way to get the most out of your FreeNAS® system is to install as much RAM as possible. If your RAM is limited, consider using UFS until you can afford better hardware. ZFS typically requires a minimum of 6 GB of RAM in order to provide good performance; in practical terms (what you can actually install), this means that the minimum is really 8 GB. The more RAM, the better the performance, and the Forums provide anecdotal evidence from users on how much performance is gained by adding more RAM. For systems with large disk capacity (greater than 6 TB), a general rule of thumb is 1GB of RAM for every 1TB of storage. This post describes how RAM is used by ZFS.

NOTE: by default, ZFS disables pre-fetching (caching) for systems containing less than 4 GB of usable RAM. Not using pre-fetching can greatly reduce performance. 4 GB of usable RAM is not the same thing as 4 GB installed RAM as the operating system resides in RAM. This means that the practical pre-fetching threshold is 6 GB, or 8 GB of installed RAM. You can still use ZFS with less RAM, but performance will be affected.

If you plan to use ZFS deduplication, a general rule of thumb is 5GB RAM per TB of storage to be deduplicated.

If you use Active Directory with FreeNAS®, add an additional 2 GB of RAM for winbind's internal cache.

If you are installing FreeNAS® on a headless system, disable the shared memory settings for the video card in the BIOS. "

 

[Nortd]

http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Recommendations


" RAM

The best way to get the most out of your FreeNAS® system is to install as much RAM as possible. If your RAM is limited, consider using UFS until you can afford better hardware. ZFS typically requires a minimum of 6 GB of RAM in order to provide good performance; in practical terms (what you can actually install), this means that the minimum is really 8 GB. The more RAM, the better the performance, and the Forums provide anecdotal evidence from users on how much performance is gained by adding more RAM. For systems with large disk capacity (greater than 6 TB), a general rule of thumb is 1GB of RAM for every 1TB of storage. This post describes how RAM is used by ZFS.

NOTE: by default, ZFS disables pre-fetching (caching) for systems containing less than 4 GB of usable RAM. Not using pre-fetching can greatly reduce performance. 4 GB of usable RAM is not the same thing as 4 GB installed RAM as the operating system resides in RAM. This means that the practical pre-fetching threshold is 6 GB, or 8 GB of installed RAM. You can still use ZFS with less RAM, but performance will be affected.

If you plan to use ZFS deduplication, a general rule of thumb is 5GB RAM per TB of storage to be deduplicated.

If you use Active Directory with FreeNAS®, add an additional 2 GB of RAM for winbind's internal cache.

If you are installing FreeNAS® on a headless system, disable the shared memory settings for the video card in the BIOS. "

I already know this, it's why I went for UFS and not ZFS, the note about the pre-fetch only seems to apply for ZFS, at least it's written that way.

 

[Eric Parent]

Hi there,

I have the same problem. I have a brand new installation of FreeNAS, running on an ASRock board with an Intel Atom dual-core chip (1.5ghz), 2GB DDR2 ram, twin 1.5TB WD Green HDDs mirrored, and UFS file system (NOT ZFS... UFS!). I'm on a gigabit connection (gigabit NICs at both ends, connected through a gigabit switch), and I confirmed that I'm connected at gigabit, not 100mbps. My first ever transfer was great, I was getting 30mb/s! Which is pretty much the top speed of the USB external drive that was connected to my Windows Vista computer, which I was transferring from.

The problem is, after that first transfer, it all went to crap. Subsequent transfers from my Vista pc to my FreeNAS server consistently run at 115 kb/sec (YES, THAT'S KB/SEC, NOT MB/SEC!). That's a transfer rate of less than 1 mbps, on a network that supposed to do 1000 mbps!

I checked my FreeNAS reporting screen, and it shows network traffic speed of ~800 kbps (which equals about the 115 KB/s). CPU usage is consistently running only about 10 to 20%, most of the 2GB ram is free/available (only about 100mb or so used).

The only thing that seems a bit odd is the Processes... Blocked/Zombies/Stopped are all at 0.0, which I expect is normal. Running is 5.0, Sleeping is 101.0, Idle is 0.0, and Wait is 19.0.

115 KB/sec is absolutely ridiculous. Any suggestions?? Did anybody offer up a solution for the OP?