I'm trying to copy about 8.5 GB from my unRAID server to a USB 3.0 external drive connected to my Desktop computer with Gigabit LAN.

 

Windows informs me that I'm getting 1.4MB speeds, and it will take over an hour to copy.  that seems very slow to me, but I'm not sure what's causing it to be so slow.

 

Any ideas on what and how to check?

What happens if you copy from unRaid server to internal hdd on your desktop pc first and then from it to the external hdd?

If you haven't seen it, check this link out below (X9SCM-F slow write speed, good read speed). The title is a bit misleading because it infers that the slowness only applies to X9SCM-F MBs -which is not the case. Several now believe that the slowness is caused by large amounts of ram (which you don't have, based on your profile). Nonetheless, you could try a couple of the remedies noted in the postings to see if your problem is related. If it is, please post your results there so that Tom can have further input from a non-X9SCM-F, low memory user.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=8590680a9448cc89206f8df85c9311cb&topic=22675.0

I'm trying to copy about 8.5 GB from my unRAID server to a USB 3.0 external drive connected to my Desktop computer with Gigabit LAN.

 

Windows informs me that I'm getting 1.4MB speeds, and it will take over an hour to copy.  that seems very slow to me, but I'm not sure what's causing it to be so slow.

 

Any ideas on what and how to check?

 

What speed are you getting if you copy from a local hard drive on your Windows computer to the USB drive?  (Make it large enough to eliminate any effect from Windows using memory buffers to speed-up transfer of a small amount of data.) 

What happens if you copy from unRaid server to internal hdd on your desktop pc first and then from it to the external hdd?

 

Copying a 13GB file starts out at about 37MB, went up to almost 41MB over the next minute or so, then dropped back down to about 38MB after another minute or so.

 

It still seems much slower than the SATA 3 (600MB/s) and USB 3 (400MB/s) maximum limits, and even the SATA 2 (300MB/s) and USB 2 (60MB/s) maximum limits, but does seem like it might be pointing to a USB 2.0 limit issue.  I've installed the USB 3.0 drivers, and they do appear to have installed correctly, so I'm not sure what to try next.  Obviously, I want to get the maximum speed with the local config before expanding the search to unRAID.

 

Hmmm...

 

I checked and confirmed that the asmedia usb 3.0 driver is installed, per device manager, but when I go to disk manager, then check this drive, it seems to be using the microsoft usb driver from 2006 (stock driver?).  I'm not sure if it should be using the asmedia driver, but cannot find any way to force it to use the asmedia driver, so I assume it's all correct.

 

This is my first usb 3.0 device, so it's all still a bit new to me.  it's definitely plugged into the usb 3 connector in the back of the motherboard and into the external drive case, so I'm not sure what to try next

Then you get such speeds from internal desktop hdd to your external hdd (nothing related to unraid) ?

I'm not sure if you're telling me or asking me something there, sorry.

 

I got much slower speeds when coming from unRAID, so I still think there is a bottleneck there someplace, but as others suggested, i tried from a local disk, and it's not as fast as I'd expect, so I'm still searching for a 'cure'.

 

**copying from one internal drive to the SSD was about the same speed as above, but from the SSD to the external started off at 330MB/s, then fell quickly to under 200 MB/s, and ended up with a pretty steady 142MB/s.  the SSD is SATA2, which should have about a 300MB/s speed, so I'm getting about 1/2 of that, which I seem to recall is about all one can expect.

 

so, i guess the external drive is fine, and can write at 140MB/s plus, so why isn't a copy from unRAID much faster?

 

Better yet, what is the maximum I should expect to get while transferring from (or to) unRAID over gigabit LAN from SATA2 drives?

Depends on how you copy. Try with Teracopy.

I get 80-102 MB/s when copying from my unraid server to a USB 3.0 connected to my windows 7 box.

 

I think the speed is dependent on where in the disk is being written too, outer layers are faster so it breaks 100MB/s, inner layers are slower down to 80 MB/s.

 

This is through gigabit network from 5400 RPM green drives (on IBM M1015 controllers) to a 7200RPM USB 3.0 external enclosure.  My USB 3.0 is via a PCI-E card.

 

 

I don't think I disabled/paused SABnzbd when I first tested, and wrote this post.  I just paused SAB and copied a 14GB file and it started in the mid 80's, then dropped to 79-80MB/s.

 

Not the best ever, but WAAAYYYY better than I originally saw.

 

I just tested one more time, but with SAB downloading this time, and saw speeds start in the mid 70's drop to the mid 60's, then stabilize about 72MB/s

 

I must not have had the USB 3.0 drivers installed properly when i first tested.  Or perhaps somethign else was going on that isn't occurring now.

 

However, with the speeds I'm seeing now, although not very close to the advertised 'maximum' speeds the protocol's allow, it's certainly tolerable.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

The limitation is on the physical disk speed of your 5400 rpm drives, the bottleneck is not sata or USB protocols.  If you want faster read speeds move to 7200rpm drives.