I am having a problem reading from my Array.  It is going EXTREMELY slow.  In Windows some TV Shows transfer at 800KB/Sec and on my PBO the shows pause every 25 seconds or so for about 5 seconds and then continues.

 

Any ideas?

 

SyslLog attached.

syslog-2011-06-12.txt

I was surprised when I first put my array online and was getting slow speeds. Since I really technically only care about read speeds I've learned to live with the slower speeds. Once you realize how it all works with the parity drive it set my fears to rest. The following information is right from the FAQ's. It kind of explains things a little.

 

How fast is unRAID?

 

This is a very hard question to answer, as it depends mostly on your hardware choices, your networking choices, and your configuration choices. unRAID is based on a lean but up-to-date Slackware distribution of Linux, which is ideal for file servers, so it should provide the best possible speed that your hardware is capable of. It does not take advantage of hardware RAID cards, and it does not use RAID striping, and therefore cannot boast the performance gains associated with them. Please see the earlier questions comparing unRAID with other types of RAID.

 

Users and reviewers have generally found a NAS based on unRAID to be significantly faster than many competitive NAS boxes, and to be very similar to the faster NAS implementations that are not based on high performance RAID cards or RAID types. (this needs citations!)

 

Because the emphasis is on data security, through parity protection, writes to parity-protected drives take much longer than reads. Whereas reads are passed through as one I/O, writes require four I/O's, because both data drive and the parity drive must be read first, then both drives written to, which usually requires a full drive platter rotation. For very large files (a prime use of unRAID servers), drive buffering is useless.

 

Some general guidance as to what typical users can expect (assuming gigabit networking), read speeds *from* your server and writes to non parity-protected drives (such as the Cache drive) should typically be between 22MB/s and 40MB/s, with some reports of 45MB/s. Write speeds directly to parity-protected drives should be between 15MB/s and 25MB/s, with write speeds to User Shares a bit slower. If using unRAID versions prior to unRAID v4.5-beta8, then write speeds should be between 8MB/s and 15MB/s. If the Cache drive feature is used, then files saved to User Shares are at full speed. Later in off-hours, the files are moved more slowly to the parity-protected drives.

 

There are many factors that affect these numbers though, and many opinions about them! Please see the unRAID forums for discussions about unRAID performance (such as here). The Improving unRAID Performance page has a number of tips and ideas for maximizing a users performance.

Thanks opentoe but there but there is no way 800KB/Sec is normal or acceptable.  Transferring 85GB will take days.  This is a new oddity for this array as it used to copy from the array at 45+MB/Sec

Does this log include reading? If not, please post one that includes a slow read. Do you why there's this huge gap:

Jun 12 15:55:43 NAS shfs: shfs_rmdir: rmdir: /mnt/disk6/Movies/THE BACKYARDIGANS - THE LEGEND OF THE VOLCANO SISTERS (39) Directory not empty
Jun 12 20:52:21 NAS shfs: shfs_rmdir: rmdir: /mnt/disk5/TV Shows/Hell's Kitchen S07E11 (39) Directory not empty

Thanks opentoe but there but there is no way 800KB/Sec is normal or acceptable.  Transferring 85GB will take days.  This is a new oddity for this array as it used to copy from the array at 45+MB/Sec

 

True. 800K is very slow. Way below what it should be. Any more testing you've done?

 

 

Does this log include reading? If not, please post one that includes a slow read. Do you why there's this huge gap:

Jun 12 15:55:43 NAS shfs: shfs_rmdir: rmdir: /mnt/disk6/Movies/THE BACKYARDIGANS - THE LEGEND OF THE VOLCANO SISTERS (39) Directory not empty
Jun 12 20:52:21 NAS shfs: shfs_rmdir: rmdir: /mnt/disk5/TV Shows/Hell's Kitchen S07E11 (39) Directory not empty

 

Yep it does include slow reading, however here is another one that does as well as a screenshot of the read speed

 

syslog-2011-06-14.txt

Disable all add-ons and then test the speed.

Disable all add-ons and then test the speed.

 

OK will do, how would I do that?

#!/bin/bash
# Start the Management Utility
/usr/local/sbin/emhttp &

sed  -i  "s/guest_enable=YES/guest_enable=NO/"  /etc/vsftpd.conf

 

Comment all of the line in the /boot/config/go file by adding # as the first character except the two shown above. Then restart.

Thanks dgaschk, appreciate the assistance!

 

Here is all I have in my go file

 

 

#!/bin/bash

# Start the Management Utility

/usr/local/sbin/emhttp &

 

cd /boot/packages && find . -name '*.auto_install' -type f -print | sort | xargs -n1 sh -c

 

 

also I am using Putty to access the console and the lag on my typing is insane. 

 

also as part of my testing I have replaced the switch, haven't changed cables yet but that is next.

replaced the cable and still have the same result

OK I am freaking out now.  I go to the "Shares" tab and ALL of my shares are missing.  I tried to add one back and when I click "Add Share" nothing happens...no error and it doesn't create anything...

 

Did all my data just fry?

 

I looked in the "disk 1" share and all my data seems to be there but I can't find the shares...wth is happening...

Did you edit the go file?

Did you edit the go file?

 

Wow...I have no idea what happened...I rebooted unRaid and all the shares are back...phew...however it still has the crappy speed

 

No I didn't edit the go file because it only had two lines...

Comment out this line and restart:

 

 

cd /boot/packages && find . -name '*.auto_install' -type f -print | sort | xargs -n1 sh -c

 

That didn't do anything sadly.  I did try writing as well and it is also @ 1MB/sec

 

This array used to run at 20-30MB/Sec for Writing and 45-55MB/Sec for reading.

 

I really need help please.

Here is a screenshot using the dd command

 

I don't know what this means but something is really wrong.

OK so I have discovered this is a Windows issue only.  I can use my Mac to transfer the files and they transfer at 48MB/Sec but ALL THREE of my windows machines AND my BPO transfer at only 1MB/sec

 

Please help!!!! 

So it turns out it was another Router.  I have 5 and when I got to the 5th and switched it out everything worked fine again...Thanks for all the people that helped here sorry for sounding crazy!