Hello

I'm using 4.7 and it runs fine (at least for my needs)

I have 4 drives - Drives 1, 2 and 3 are around 85%, and drive 4 is only 25%

I'm accessing drives independently to balance them, i.e copy/paste some files from 1, 2 and 3 to 4

My transfer speed is slow (5Mbps....) - wired connection

Is it normal?

Is there a way to have better speeds?

Thanks

Attach a syslog.

Here you go

syslog-2014-03-09.txt

Your slow speed may indicate your network is only operating at 100Mb/s -- is that correct?  If you have a Gb network, there's a problem;  but if it's only 100Mb then that's likely the reason it's running so slow.

 

But beyond that, I have a simple question:  Why are you doing this?

 

There's no advantage to "balancing" your drives.  If you want to ensure the drives stay relatively balanced, just set your allocation method to "Most Free" ... and then as you write data to the array, UnRAID will do exactly that -- and ultimately all of your drives will have essentially the same amount of free space.

 

But I wouldn't bother to move files around just to "balance" it 

 

My network is GB, and I've moved around some cables from the router to the switch, and I have better speed now (~15MB)

I will have to check my cables, router, switch......re-arrange the whole cabling maybe

Not sure if it's linked, but my internet speed was not as it used to be. So I rebooted my router, and Speed Test returned a speed of 57.6Mbps

I transferred a file from my laptop to Unraid (wifi) at ~8.5/9 Mbps.....Not bad for wifi

 

All my shares are on "High water"...I don't recall why exactly, but I know I spent quite a lot of time looking at the forum to properly define my shares, so I guess I've read it was better to put High water

Should I change all my shares to Most Free?

Thanks

It really doesn't matter how you set your allocation. 

 

High-water tends to write to one drive until it hits the next "high-water mark";  then another until it hits the next mark; etc.

 

Most-free will always use the drive with the most free space.  If all the drives are the same size, this will provide the most perfectly "balanced" outcome ... since once the drives are balanced, each subsequent write will likely go to a different drive (subject to split-level constraints).  If all drives aren't the same size, it will result in a balanced amount of free space, but clearly that won't represent the same % of used space with drives of disparate sizes.

 

Fill-up will of course be the least-balanced, as it will fill a drive before it switches to another.

 

Which you use is entirely up to you.  It makes virtually no difference in terms of performance, available space, or anything else.  It's just a matter of personal preference.

 

There's NO reason to "balance" the drives.  But if you want that to happen, the most balanced approach is Most Free.

 

 

 

 

 

I see the following in your log:

Mar  9 08:23:46 Tower kernel: e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver, 3.5.24-k2-NAPI
Mar  9 08:23:46 Tower kernel: e100: Copyright(c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation
Mar  9 08:23:46 Tower kernel: Broadcom NetXtreme II CNIC Driver cnic v2.0.1 (Oct 01, 2009)

Do you have multiple network ports on your box?  If so are you sure you are hooked up with your Gigabit Broadcom nic or do you by chance have it connected up to the 100MB Intel nic?

No, i only have 1 NIC in my box, and it's the one from the motherboard, which is gigabit speed

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135049

 

Is there anything I should check in my BIOS?

By the way, should I get a better NIC adapter? Problem is I'm already using the PCI express slot for an additional SATA card

Is the slow speed only on writes ... or is it equally slow on reads?

 

Prepare a spare flash drive with a fresh install of the current v5.0.5 release; boot to it; assign ONE of your data drives as the only drive ... and see what kind of read speeds you get from it.  DO NOT write to that drive and it'll still be fine when you boot back to your v4.7 flash drive.

 

OR ... if you want to totally isolate that test; use a spare hard drive and don't assign any of your v4.7 drives.  If you do that, you can also write to the drive to be sure you've tested both directions on your network connection.

 

 

i'll try the 2nd option...

Any reason i would another (better) NIC?

 

Thanks

You shouldn't need another NIC.  Realtek's work fine and have been supported for a long time by the UnRAID drivers.

 

If v5 works well, the simplest "fix" is to just upgrade your system to v5