Using an iMac to browse folders on my unRAID, very slow opening folders which have a large (more than 100) items inside the folder.

 

Here's a video to show what I mean.

The first couple of folders open quickly, because I've opened these recently (there seems to be some caching going on).

 

There are a couple of good examples of slow opening at 46 secs and 1:10 secs. In both cases the new window opens quickly, but look in the bottom right corner as the Mac churns away doing something before displaying the folder contents.

This problem exists on both unRAIDs that I have built (same hardware), multiple unRAID versions and several Mac computers.

The main user of this server is comparing it's performance against a Synology NAS connected to the same iMac which runs much faster.

This is all on a 1G LAN, all local traffic, no wireless involved. I can consistently write 100 MB/sec to the server.

 

I also have cache_dirs version: 2.1.1 installed and running, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

 

I'm open to all suggestions

tower-diagnostics-20170716-2212.zip

Edited July 17, 20178 yr by MPR Files

Install cache dirs to see if it helps:

 

 

 

Then go to Settings -> Folder Caching and set Folder caching function: enable

 

If you don't need caching on some folders use the excluded/included folders to limit the amount of memory used, use only one option, either include or exclude.

 

Click apply then wait 5 or 10 minutes and see if there's any difference.

 

 

 

Dynamix Cache Directories v2016.08.26 installed and running for months

 

Included Folder = Media_Share

Sorry, no idea then.

I've had this problem in the past on my Mac. I remember reading posts from other Mac users having the same problem, but never found a definitive solution. And others didn't seem to be affected at all.

My theory at the time was that it's something to do with the way Finder reads and stores folder metadata. The things that are stored in those pesky .DS_store or other Mac specific hidden files. I eventually gave up on it and just accepted fate.

 

But there are two settings that you could try:

 

1. For each share under the AFP Security Settings area, set "Volume dbpath" to a cache only folder. This will store some (all?) Mac specific files on your cache drive instead of the array disk.

 

2. For each share  under the SMB Security Settings, set Enhanced OS X interoperability to Yes. According to the built-in help this should speed up Finder browsing if you're using SMB instead of AFP.

 

Let us know if either of those works.

 

 

 

Thanks Jorgen, appreciate the reply.

 

AFP is off (but not sure why, is it better than SMB in a Mac environment ?

SMD Enhanced OS X Interop has always been turned on.

 

Thanks, Shane

I'm far from an expert, but here's my understanding:

AFP is Apples own (proprietary) network protocol. With older version of Mac OS X it was definitely recommended to use AFP, because it was faster and supported apple specific extended attributes. Some things only worked over AFP, like time machine.

All non-apple servers use the open source netatalk to serve up AFP shares. I assume your synology uses it. I don't know if you can get any details of the version or way Synology have implemented it to compare to the unRAID implementation?

 

Sometime recently, maybe when Sierra was released, apple announced better support for SMB, and an intention to deprecate AFP.

 

You could try enabling AFP for the share, and re-connect the client via AFP. Might make a difference. I think it's recommended to not connect via AFP and SMB to the same share at the same time though.

 

Finally, since you're using SMB, there seem to have been some performance problems with the Mac implementation in Sierra. Here's one thread about it, might be worth digging into further: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7674819?start=0&tstart=0

I don't know if this has been fixed in later versions.

Jorgen, FYI what you posted has turned around my Mac Os performance.  Folders were taking ages to open and .mkv movies were not playing.  After making your recommended changes everything seems back to normal now.  Folders now open quickly and movies play normally.  Thank you from a newbie with UNRAID (2nd week of trial).