May 14, 201016 yr I also noticed that when copying a file form one drive to another using midnight commander my speed never gets over 10 MB/s. I wonder if I have bigger problems with my machine. Any ideas what I should look at ? Check the oil! And/or, give us some details about the server, and maybe a syslog. (and possibly make a new thread)
May 14, 201016 yr I was just modifying my post to give some details when I saw your response. I'm running Unraid pro 4.5.3 Asus P5QPL-AM MB Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 card. Celeron® CPU 440 @ 2.00GHz 512 MB Ram Drives: parity Seagate ST31000340AS disk1 Seagate ST31000340AS disk2 Seagate ST31000340AS disk3 Maxtor 7H500F0 disk4 WD WD1001FALS disk5 WD WD10EADS disk6 Seagate ST31000340AS disk7 Seagate ST31000340AS disk8 WD WD1001FALS disk9 WD WD10EARS See syslog attached. Thanks, Kent syslog-2010-05-14.txt
May 14, 201016 yr See syslog attached. You were hit by the spindown bug. Notice this: May 13 05:19:04 Tower kernel: mdcmd (398): spindown 3 May 13 05:21:46 Tower kernel: mdcmd (417): spindown 5 May 13 05:39:44 Tower kernel: mdcmd (539): spindown 3 May 13 05:39:54 Tower kernel: mdcmd (541): spindown 3 May 13 05:40:50 Tower kernel: mdcmd (548): spindown 3 May 13 05:41:00 Tower kernel: mdcmd (550): spindown 3 unRAID is issuing spindown commands to a disk as often as 10 seconds apart! If that's not a bug, I don't know what is. Email Limetech with this. I was in a similar swamp myself until I disabled unRAID's spindown management altogether.
May 14, 201016 yr Purko, I sent an email to limetech. What speed is typical for a copy within midnight commander from disk to disk? I can't seem to get over 9 MB/s. Luvmich, Sorry for posting in this thread, but it seems like we have similar issues. Let me know if you would like me to start a new post. Thanks
May 15, 201016 yr These are the results to the following test conditions: a) Gigabit ethernet: switch D-Link GGS 2205 and CAT5e cabling; b) Dell Vostro with Realtek 8111C and a 5400RPM hdd; c) unRAID server with Broadcom BCM5751 PCIe; d) All unRAID drives are WD Green drives, some are old WD10EACS, others are WD10EADS. Writing to unRAID using cache drive: 41MB/s Writing to unRAID without cache drive: 23MB/s This issue appears to be related to network cabling. You should also verify your client ethernet negotiated speed too. EDIT: Just saw that the problem also manifest itself in internal transfers. You should verify your drives SMART about Raw_Read_Error_Rate and ATA_Error_Count for bad cabling or bad memory.
May 15, 201016 yr gfjardim, I would kill for those kinds of speeds. I do have two drives with a value for ATA_Error_Count. One has 3 and one has 9. Is this a critical thing ? Cheers, Kent
May 15, 201016 yr Usually it indicates a bad SATA link, can be a bad cable or bad connection, but the numbers are too small to cause any kind of slow down. Are there any other errors shown in SMART? Other question: how are you using SABNzbd+? It can generate some speed impact if you use a share as temp directory. SABNzbd should always run using a cache drive.
May 15, 201016 yr gfjardim, I am running Sabnzbd but I don't notice much impact if any when it is downloading something. I don't have a cache drive. Is there a way to figure out which drive has the bad connection or cable? Are the speeds you posted from an internal transfer or is that over the network? Cheers, Kent
May 15, 201016 yr gfjardim, I am running Sabnzbd but I don't notice much impact if any when it is downloading something. I don't have a cache drive. Is there a way to figure out which drive has the bad connection or cable? Are the speeds you posted from an internal transfer or is that over the network? Cheers, Kent Kent, it doesn't seems like bad SATA cable, because there is no signal of any reading errors in your syslog nor in the SMART statistics. You can try disabling the spinup groups like purko said. You also can try shutdown any torrent or usenet service.
May 16, 201016 yr Author Purko, I sent an email to limetech. What speed is typical for a copy within midnight commander from disk to disk? I can't seem to get over 9 MB/s. Luvmich, Sorry for posting in this thread, but it seems like we have similar issues. Let me know if you would like me to start a new post. Thanks Nope everything is fine. 9MB/s is my limit going down hill. I'm to the opinion that the problems are from the giga-byte board. My biggest problem is all the mobo I have laying around are giga-byte. I would use my Nforce4 board but it only has 4 Satas. Need to get a card first.
May 16, 201016 yr For what it's worth, I am using an NForce4 board right now (A8N-SLI) and I see about 63MB/s copying disk to disk on the local bus. So hopefully the nf4 board will treat you better once you have a card to access all your disks.
May 17, 201016 yr Nope everything is fine. 9MB/s is my limit going down hill. I'm to the opinion that the problems are from the giga-byte board. My biggest problem is all the mobo I have laying around are giga-byte. I would use my Nforce4 board but it only has 4 Satas. Need to get a card first. I wish I could help you with your issue, but all I can add is that I would not blame it on the Gigabyte name. They make fairly solid boards.... I'm using a gigabyte board for unRaid, and I'm getting writes from my PC to unRaid and cache drive at around 45MB/s, without cache @ 40MB/s. The majority of drives (including parity) are WD Greens... I would say a bad switch or router, but you've already tested with another unRaid box.... Maybe try a PCI or PCI-e SATA controller card to see if problem is still occurs?... [EDIT] I'm running 4.5.3
May 17, 201016 yr Author Nope everything is fine. 9MB/s is my limit going down hill. I'm to the opinion that the problems are from the giga-byte board. My biggest problem is all the mobo I have laying around are giga-byte. I would use my Nforce4 board but it only has 4 Satas. Need to get a card first. I wish I could help you with your issue, but all I can add is that I would not blame it on the Gigabyte name. They make fairly solid boards.... I'm using a gigabyte board for unRaid, and I'm getting writes from my PC to unRaid and cache drive at around 45MB/s, without cache @ 40MB/s. The majority of drives (including parity) are WD Greens... I would say a bad switch or router, but you've already tested with another unRaid box.... Maybe try a PCI or PCI-e SATA controller card to see if problem is still occurs?... [EDIT] I'm running 4.5.3 Giga-byte is a great mobo company. I have 7 Giga-byte boards and two asus boards. Before I buy a PCI-e SATA controller I went ahead and bought a Hitachi 7200rpm 2TB drive. Newegg had them for $119 free shipping this weekend. When it arrives on Wednesday I will exchange it with my WD 2TB EADS parity drive. I don't know if this has anything to do with my slow write speeds, but the WD parity drive came out of a "MY Book". I find it very unusual that going from a AMD 770 chipset to a Nforce 5 chipset didn't fix the problem. After sleeping on it a few night I figured a new parity drive was the next best step. If a new drive doesn't solve the problem, then I will be getting a supermicro 8port sata controller card. I may have thrown in the white towel, but that is only for my current build. I accept that my current system is slow. I'm willing to change HDs and controller cards until I speed the system up.
May 18, 201016 yr Giga-byte is a great mobo company. I have 7 Giga-byte boards and two asus boards. Before I buy a PCI-e SATA controller I went ahead and bought a Hitachi 7200rpm 2TB drive. Newegg had them for $119 free shipping this weekend. When it arrives on Wednesday I will exchange it with my WD 2TB EADS parity drive. I don't know if this has anything to do with my slow write speeds, but the WD parity drive came out of a "MY Book". I find it very unusual that going from a AMD 770 chipset to a Nforce 5 chipset didn't fix the problem. After sleeping on it a few night I figured a new parity drive was the next best step. If a new drive doesn't solve the problem, then I will be getting a supermicro 8port sata controller card. I may have thrown in the white towel, but that is only for my current build. I accept that my current system is slow. I'm willing to change HDs and controller cards until I speed the system up. If you have a few extra PCI-e slots, you might want to try one of the cheap monoprice 2 port pci-e cards (Silicon Image SIL3132) before you spend the cash on the 8 port. I have 3 of these guys in my system, and they work quite well. No noticeable speed difference between them and onboard (http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=2530&seq=1&format=2). They sell for $15... They come with a raid bios installed, and it didn't seem to cause any problems for me other then an error at boot, but I flashed them anyways with a standard controller driver from Silicon Image's website....
May 18, 201016 yr Author If you have a few extra PCI-e slots, you might want to try one of the cheap monoprice 2 port pci-e cards (Silicon Image SIL3132) before you spend the cash on the 8 port. I have 3 of these guys in my system, and they work quite well. No noticeable speed difference between them and onboard (http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=2530&seq=1&format=2). They sell for $15... They come with a raid bios installed, and it didn't seem to cause any problems for me other then an error at boot, but I flashed them anyways with a standard controller driver from Silicon Image's website.... Good idea. For $14.30 it can't hurt.
May 19, 201016 yr I've got one of those monprice pci-e cards also the four port pci card. I'm using a gigabyte amd 785 board. I've never had a problem with it. Recently I added a intel nic to the setup. I'm seeing 35-40 MB's writes without cache. I can't tell you what I was getting before since I just don't remember. The card didn't work until the later unraid releases which is also when they improved write speeds so I couldn't tell which made a bigger difference. My suggestion would be to try one of the intel pci-e nics. They're about $30, and you can't go wrong with an intel nic. All the other forums I read complain about realtec nic's, and usually their first suggestion is to get an intel nic. I've got them in my main PC, my WHS, and Unraid and my speeds have never been better.
May 20, 201016 yr Author Well I have found the solution. I exchanged my 2TB WD EAD parity drive (it was out of a my book) with a 2TB Hitachi 7200rpm. My max parity writes were less than 9MB/sec with the WD as a parity. Now with the Hitachi as a parity I'm getting around 22MB/sec. I'm starting to think the problem was with the drive being out of a "My Book". I'm going to exchange the WD 750GB data drive with the old WD EAD parity drive and see what kind of performance I get off of it. If the WD EAD suffer as a data drive, then all my questions will be answered. It will take me a day to find out, but I will post more results.
May 20, 201016 yr I'm starting to think the problem was with the drive being out of a "My Book". Oh that can definitely be a problem. They put very differently configured drives in those, with different firmware. I had to get one of those once in an emergency, and the drive was a dog. What is the sub-model after the "WD10EACS-"
May 21, 201016 yr Author I'm starting to think the problem was with the drive being out of a "My Book". Oh that can definitely be a problem. They put very differently configured drives in those, with different firmware. I had to get one of those once in an emergency, and the drive was a dog. What is the sub-model after the "WD10EACS-" Here are some "hdparm -i /dev/sdX" WDC WD20EADS-11R6B1 is the My Book drive. Model=WDC WD20EADS-11R6B1 , FwRev=01.00A01, SerialNo= W D-WCAVY1156698 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq } RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=50 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=32767kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?16? CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=18446744073321613488 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled Drive conforms to: Unspecified: ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7 All the rest look similar to this: /dev/sdc: Model=WDC WD20EADS-00R6B0 , FwRev=01.00A01, SerialNo= W D-WCAVY1818092 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq } RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=50 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=32767kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?0? CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=18446744073321613488 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled Drive conforms to: Unspecified: ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7 /dev/sdd: Model=WDC WD20EADS-00S2B0 , FwRev=01.00A01, SerialNo= W D-WCAVY0422389 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq } RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=50 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=32767kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?0? CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=18446744073321613488 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled Drive conforms to: Unspecified: ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Model=WDC WD20EADS-00R6B0 , FwRev=01.00A01, SerialNo= W D-WCAVY2125130 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq } RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=50 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=32767kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?0? CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=18446744073321613488 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled Drive conforms to: Unspecified: ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7
May 21, 201016 yr Maybe the drive has acoustic management set on. Also do hdparm -I for more details about the drive\ or hdparm -I /dev/sdd | egrep -i acoustic
May 21, 201016 yr Author Maybe the drive has acoustic management set on. Also do hdparm -I for more details about the drive\ or hdparm -I /dev/sdd | egrep -i acoustic "hdparm -I " lookes the same on all WD drives Now that I have the 2TB My Book as a data drive I did some benchmarks again. Writing to the my book maxes out at 9MB/s. WD must do something to my book drives.
May 22, 201016 yr WD must do something to my book drives. Or, it's something wrong with this particular drive. Two of my drives came from mybooks and they behave exactly like the rest of my drives.
May 29, 201016 yr Author Maybe the drive has acoustic management set on. Also do hdparm -I for more details about the drive\ or hdparm -I /dev/sdd | egrep -i acoustic "hdparm -I " lookes the same on all WD drives Now that I have the 2TB My Book as a data drive I did some benchmarks again. Writing to the my book maxes out at 9MB/s. WD must do something to my book drives. Putting the "My Book" 2tB EADs on a SIIG 3132 controller still results in 9MB/s writes. I then put it back into the "My Book" enclosure and I'm getting 27MB/s writes to it over the USB 2.0 on a win 7 machine.
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