4k sector ?

[StephenB]

I just bought an Ultra 4. At same time I bought 4 Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s, (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 5900RPM, 3.5"

these drives are not very performance oriented, that is very likely why the write speed is relatively slow.

for best write speeds you want higher performance drives, ie 7200 rpm, not green, etc.

Usually green drives lower the ReadyNAS speed by about 10%. He is seeing more than that. Though the PC is also a budget-class green machine - designed for small size and environmentally friendly construction, and not for performance. The desktop drive may be also be limiting the speed.

Though it might be worth playing with the ethernet adapter settings for transmit.
Ethernet flow control should be turned on.

Some of the other stuff could be experimented with, and sometimes it can help. Note the current settings first though.

Maybe try

Interrupt Moderation Rate = off
Adaptive Inter-Frame Spacing = disabled
IPv4 Checksum Offload = disabled
Large Send Offload (IPv4)= disabled
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4) = disabled
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4) = disabled

[fondy]

Thanks StephenB

Yes, agree that that the PC is not the best for a test of this.

Will try the other parameters you have mentions above

What it is important to me is that the Ultra is 100%, and that I can change PC and other and better equipment to improve the performance

ragards

[fondy]

and now maybe that the

Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s, (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 5900RPM, 3.5

is not the best discs for performance ?

[StephenB]

and now maybe that the

Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s, (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 5900RPM, 3.5

is not the best discs for performance ?

Green disks will be somewhat slower than performance or enterprise drives. On the plus side, they should also run cooler and of course they are more energy efficient. As they seem to be working reliably, I would personally keep using them for now. The easiest way to monitor the disk health is to use the email alerts - you will get an email whenever the key SMART statistics degrade.

Your goal of confirming that the ultra is 100% seems like the right one. Keeping an eye on the logs and the network stats is one aspect. BTW, if you don't have a UPS for your ultra, I would strongly recommend that you get one. Also, you should implement a backup strategy for your data. Even RAID arrays will fail sometimes.

Let us know if tweaking the network settings makes any difference.

[fondy]

Thanks a lot StephenB

I have a APC Back-UPS BR 800 which the Ultra is connected to, and on the status and health in Frontview I see that the Ultra has found the ups.

The next step is a backup strategi.



Thanks again StephenB

[PapaBear]

I don't think it the drives in the NAS, I think it is more to do with the Seagate ST9160412AS and Windows 7 32bit. The ST9 tells me that it is a notebook drive which is confirmed by the fact that you are using an HP 8000 Ultra Slim "desktop". I use quotation marks, because in reality the super small desktops are in reality more akin to a laptop without the built in keyboard and display. The use the super small components of a laptop (hence the 2.5" drive instead of the 3.5" drives used in larger desktops) in a case only slightly larger than a desktop and have the same problems that laptops do - heat dissapation. Whereas in a medium desktop case you can have at least 1 120mm fan (many have 3 or more), and a CPU fan that can move a lot of air, the cases on the laptops and ultra slims restrict the air movement and fan size. To compensate, they slow the entire process down inside to generate less heat.

Your memory, while adequate, is not very robust either. Once Vista came out and was in the market place a while, even though Intel stated that it would run in 1GB, most PC's started being produced with a minimum of 4GB. While the NAS has only 1GB, it is running a slimmed down customized version of Linux, not the large Windows OS with all the heavy graphics that take up some of your memory (Intel 4500 integrated graphics chip). The 32 bit OS will not be as fast as the 64 bit OS either.

The fact that a direct connection did not increase your throughput is actually good, as it tells us that nothing in the network is slowing down the transfer speed. Which is good.

Your desktop is a good capable business oriented machine, but is not overly fast, but then business oriented machines rarely are. They are aimed more at functionality and long term dependability (I still have an HP D530 CMT that is now 9 years old and still functions perfectly well, just with XP Pro and is not a speed demon either).

While you are certainly welcome to try a factory default, do not be surprised if the speed afterward is not improved. Do be sure to back up all data before hand as that will wipe all the data from your NAS drives.

[fondy]

Hi PapaBear, thanks for your reply.

Yes I agree with the HP ultra slim PC. I will install 2 gb ram in the PC so I get 4 gb which win 7 32 bits can use and do another test.

I will also install another more robust PC to morrow and do a test.

Yes, it is good that the network is not the problem, but I dont understand why I get so much errors on the Ultra port on the switch when I use Jumbo Frames. In my network I also have two gs108t switches which is gigabit and jumbo is on, I have a total of 4 desktop PC with gigabit nic where jumbo is on. I also have a linksys e3000 router with dd-wrt, but I use this only for wlan desktops, plus some other media equipment.

Maybe I have to turn off Jumbo in my home network.

regards

[fondy]

Jumbo Frames turned off at the switches and all other equipment, using 1518 mtu all over. Zero errors on the switch ports now

[fondy]

Hi

here is a drawing of my home network, see 'Fondy Home Multimedia Network'

http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=22802&p=350459#p350459

[fondy]

I am embarrassed

Thought I had enabled the "Disable full data journaling" in Frontview, but no. I have an UPS and can therefore disable full data journaling.

After doing that I now get 51 mb/s write and 79 mb/s read when doing drag & drop.

Iometer says 69 mb/s read and 84 mb/s write

I have also disabled jumbo frames on switches and other equipment, and no errors at the switchports.

Dont think there is much to do now with performance.

Testet this with the same desktop HP Ultra slim PC

[StephenB]

There are a lot of settings, it is easy to miss one.

I agree that there is not much reason to playing with NIC settings, etc, now.

[fondy]

Agree StephenB, now I am satisfied

I will thank you, mdgm and PapaBear for your feedback and help, thank you very much

regards Paal

[PapaBear]

Well, you have a good performer. Your network is impressive.