djonesax Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 I just installed the latest build of UnRaid and I have a few questions. I am getting 11.1MBps transfer speed. I am copying to a parity protected drive in a user share. My parity drive and volume drive are WD Caviar Green drives. Does this write speed seem typical? I am considering replacing the parity drive with a 7200RPM drive and adding a smaller 7200RPM Cache drive. Will I see a significant wrtie speed improvement? I am currently using the free version but will be upgrading to Pro very soon so I can have a cache drive and more disks. Are there any gotcha's I should know about for converting to the paid version so I don't lose data or config? I'd like to add a VMware server to the box. Should I install that on a separate disk off of the array? I am booting off of a flash drive but if I'm going to add a separate disk for add-on's, should I just boot UnRaid off that disk too? I realize this is a personal preference but I am wondering about best practice. Thanks, David Link to comment
Frank1940 Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 Why don't you list more of your setup including CPU, Motherboard, LAN speed, exactly how you are transferring files, the client being used and the type of files being transferred. Link to comment
dgaschk Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 I just installed the latest build of UnRaid and I have a few questions. I am getting 11.1MBps transfer speed. I am copying to a parity protected drive in a user share. My parity drive and volume drive are WD Caviar Green drives. Does this write speed seem typical? I am considering replacing the parity drive with a 7200RPM drive and adding a smaller 7200RPM Cache drive. Will I see a significant wrtie speed improvement? I am currently using the free version but will be upgrading to Pro very soon so I can have a cache drive and more disks. Are there any gotcha's I should know about for converting to the paid version so I don't lose data or config? I'd like to add a VMware server to the box. Should I install that on a separate disk off of the array? I am booting off of a flash drive but if I'm going to add a separate disk for add-on's, should I just boot UnRaid off that disk too? I realize this is a personal preference but I am wondering about best practice. Thanks, David This speed is very good for a 100Mbps connection. Link to comment
SidebandSamurai Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 Hi, I personally was having the same problem. If you are on a Gigabit network. Make sure of the following. 1. Source hard drive make sure its not connected to the USB port (like an external drive) this can slow down your through put. 2. Don't worry about MTU. I have been told that this does not matter. 3. Check your connection speed on your computer. If you are on Gigbit it should say 1000mb/s 4. check your cables, examine the jacket and make sure all cables are cat 5e or cat 6. It will say so right on the jacket. 5. Make sure you and your unraid server is connected to a Gigabit switch. 6. Make sure your unraid server is connected at 1000MB/s. You can use the command ethtool eth0 and look for "Speed: 1000Mb/s" 7. On windows 7 you can set your RX and TX flow control. 1. go to your network and sharing center (windows 7) 2. Click on Local area connection 3. Click Properties 4. Click the Configure button (below the network card) 5. Click the Advanced Tab 6. Click the Flow Control option 7. set it to "RX and TX enabled" (some cards do not have this option, some have just RX enabled only, if you have RX only, then select that one.) 8. Click OK, then close and close all other windows. 8. Flow control is already set on unraid. 9. If you are on 100MB network, then these options may not be available to you. Using a cache drive will improve your write speed. a License is required to enable cache drive feature. Faster drives will also improve your speed. Please remember, you are copying once, and reading all the other times. Spending money on faster drives has diminishing returns. You have not listed your current system. So if you are using only 512mb ram, then more ram will definitely help. If I were to spend the money, it would be RAM, then License (to enable cache drive) then fast drives. I have been told the more ram the better but up to 4GB. I think the kernel is only 32 bit, so anything more that 4GB will be wasted. Personally I would only have a 7200 rpm drive for a cache drive and leave all the data and parity at the slower RPM drives. --Sideband Samurai Link to comment
djonesax Posted September 1, 2012 Author Share Posted September 1, 2012 Why don't you list more of your setup including CPU, Motherboard, LAN speed, exactly how you are transferring files, the client being used and the type of files being transferred. Sorry i should have given more information. -Intel Core 2 duo - I cant remember the speed right now but I am wanting to think it was a E5300 2.66ghz . I picked it up on craigslist for 25 bucks. -MSI G31TM-P21 Mainboard -2 GB Memory DDR2 800MHz -Gb ethernet -2 x 2TB WD Caviar Green HD's -Booting from 4GB Flash Drive AOC-SASLP-MV8 , 8Port Sata controller (installed but not in use since I have 4 available ports on the Mainboard) Link to comment
dgaschk Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 Hi, I personally was having the same problem. If you are on a Gigabit network. Make sure of the following. 1. Source hard drive make sure its not connected to the USB port (like an external drive) this can slow down your through put. 2. Don't worry about MTU. I have been told that this does not matter. There have been reports of a slight performance increase after increasing MTU. This is not expected in a LAN setting and is due to inferior networking components. E.g., an all Intel network should show no improvement with increasing MTU in a LAN. 3. Check your connection speed on your computer. If you are on Gigbit it should say 1000mb/s 4. check your cables, examine the jacket and make sure all cables are cat 5e or cat 6. It will say so right on the jacket. 5. Make sure you and your unraid server is connected to a Gigabit switch. 6. Make sure your unraid server is connected at 1000MB/s. You can use the command ethtool eth0 and look for "Speed: 1000Mb/s" 7. On windows 7 you can set your RX and TX flow control. 1. go to your network and sharing center (windows 7) 2. Click on Local area connection 3. Click Properties 4. Click the Configure button (below the network card) 5. Click the Advanced Tab 6. Click the Flow Control option 7. set it to "RX and TX enabled" (some cards do not have this option, some have just RX enabled only, if you have RX only, then select that one.) 8. Click OK, then close and close all other windows. 8. Flow control is already set on unraid. 9. If you are on 100MB network, then these options may not be available to you. Using a cache drive will improve your write speed. a License is required to enable cache drive feature. Faster drives will also improve your speed. Please remember, you are copying once, and reading all the other times. Spending money on faster drives has diminishing returns. You have not listed your current system. So if you are using only 512mb ram, then more ram will definitely help. If I were to spend the money, it would be RAM, then License (to enable cache drive) then fast drives. I have been told the more ram the better but up to 4GB. I think the kernel is only 32 bit, so anything more that 4GB will be wasted. This is not true. THe unRAID kernel has PAE allowing the use of greater than 4GB. Individual processes are limited to 4GB by the 32 bit kernel. That said, 2GB is more than enough for basic unRAID and 4BG is sufficient for 99% of add-ons. Personally I would only have a 7200 rpm drive for a cache drive and leave all the data and parity at the slower RPM drives. --Sideband Samurai Link to comment
djonesax Posted September 1, 2012 Author Share Posted September 1, 2012 Thanks SidebandSamurai for the informative post, After running ethtool eth0, I realized I was wrong and this mainboard has only a 10/100Mbps NIC. I will be adding a new NIC, I believe I have one lying around somewhere. Thanks, David Link to comment
djonesax Posted September 1, 2012 Author Share Posted September 1, 2012 So I added a Gb Nic and now I am transferring in at 19 MBps. It's a definite improvement, but still it seems like it should be faster than that even with out a cache drive... Any suggestions? I checked the flow rate and "RX and TX enabled" is set. The latency to the Unraid server from where I am copying is less than 1ms. Should I put the parity drive alone on the mainboard and the other drives on the unused SATAII PCI-Ex16 controller to keep them from sharing the bus speed? Thanks, David Link to comment
djonesax Posted September 1, 2012 Author Share Posted September 1, 2012 What the hell??? I have changed exactly nothing and I am now getting 33MBps to the parity protected drive Link to comment
Frank1940 Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 What the hell??? I have changed exactly nothing and I am now getting 33MBps to the parity protected drive It makes a big difference what you are copying! A lot of small files has a lot more overhead that has to be done to create the entries into the directory file, start the actual file copy, etc. While this overhead is going on, nothing is copied to the server. Big files like a Bluray ISO have very little overhead and thus have higher data transfer rate because the overhead is a very small percentage of the total time required. Link to comment
djonesax Posted September 1, 2012 Author Share Posted September 1, 2012 Agreed but I have been only copying BluRay files in MKV format. So they have all been about the same sizes. Link to comment
djonesax Posted September 1, 2012 Author Share Posted September 1, 2012 When this copy is complete in a few hours, I am going to move the data drive to the PCI-E bus and leave the parity drive on the MB and see if it makes a difference. Link to comment
djonesax Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 Well, I couldn't move the storage drive to the PCI-E card because I must had gotten the wrong break out cables. I ordered the proper forward break out cables. Hopefully that helps out. Actually.... I would love some confirmation that I have the wrong cables... I have this card Supermicro 8-Port SAS/SATA Card - AOC-SASLP-MV8 This is what I have as far as cables and doesn't work MOLEX 79576-3002 mini SAS SATA CABLES SFF-8087 TO 4 http://www.ebay.com/itm/MOLEX-79576-3002-mini-SAS-SATA-CABLES-SFF-8087-4-/270672957690 This is what I ordered yesterday 3ware CBL-SFF8087OCF-05M 1 Unit of .5M Multi-lane Internal (SFF-8087) Serial ATA Breakout Cable http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116097 Thanks for any suggestions, David Link to comment
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