Transfer speeds for unRaid NAS and OSX/SMB - what to expect


p_jas

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Hi all, 

 

I'm trying to determine if unRaid is the right choice for me.
What I want is a relatively fast NAS solution for a "unified" backup for my photography related workflow (hourly/daily backups for 2 osx and 2 windows machines) - unified as in "one box instead of a bunch of external drives scattered everywhere around" with the added benefit of having some shared storage. 4-6 TB of total storage should do the trick for the daily backups.

If that works well, I would be considering moving from my current archiving solution (archive HDD + an exact copy offline) to unRaid parity array, instead of the "active" archive HDD, to gain one extra level of security and more storage in one place.   

 

My doubts, however, revolve around expected transfer speeds - I was hoping to saturate GigabitLAN connection with every transfer, but that only happens with large files on WIN machines (max 110 MB/s, as reported by windows explorer). With 20-50MB files I get around 90-95 MB/s, which would still be acceptable for me (for now). However, for apple devices, and only after extensive googling osx-SMB compatibility issues, I managed to get to 80 MB/s for large files and about 60-70 MB/s for smaller 20-50 MB files, which I'd call sub-optimal to say the least. Using AFP yields only 50 MB/s. This is a deal-braker for me as Macs are my main workstations. Are these speeds normal?


Hardware does not seem to be the issue here. My test NAS setup is based on AsRock's J3160dc + 8GB ram - so far with one disk array with one cache ssd in order not to complicate things. Everything is connected via airport extreme router (the old model). Cables are fine (Cat6 for future proofing). The network seems ok - I am able to fully saturate 1GbitLAN when transferring all but the smallest files when using direct connection between all machines with osx's or win's built in file sharing features - all workstations are SSD only. I also tested the AsRock with windows on it and same story - full 1Gbit speeds with "direct connections" to other machines. During testing the unRaid server and each machine were the only ones using the network.

 

I was even toying with the idea of 10Gbit LAN but the issues I've read about (120MB/s writes with 10GbitLAN - for extreme OSX cases) and the high cost make it a really scary option. It means I'd be better off just buyig another set of SSDs for my workstations just for backup....
The OSX transfer issue also means I would essentially get faster transfers for 1Gbit connections with OSX just by attaching a fast 8TB external usb3 drive to one of the Macs - and using that as my go to backup place... Which really defeats the purpose of a NAS used predominantly for daily backups. Am I missing something here?

 

I'd be grateful for your comments on the transfer speeds and perhaps you'd have better solution/suggestion for unRaid configuration here?  



 

Edited by p_jas
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1 minute ago, tdallen said:

Hi - what is the configuration of the disks in your array?

 

it's a very simple test setup - 1 HDD + 1 cache SSD 
I'm working with user shares. 

The SSD is a 250GB Samsung 850 EVO, HDD some HGST 750GB drive. The write speeds which I'm concerned about are for the cache SSD for Apple computers over LAN. The SSD is capable of 500 MB/s-ish read/write speeds. it was force "trimmed", reconditioned and checked for read/write speed immediately before use as cache in this array. It is basically empty now with more than 80% free space. 

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So long as you are writing to the SSD and not that old, slow HD then it seems like you've isolated the issue to Mac/OSX SMB and AFP.  Unfortunately I can't help you there, but you might want to change your post title to reflect the Mac focus of your issue - there are folks here with Mac/unRAID experience.

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49 minutes ago, tdallen said:

So long as you are writing to the SSD and not that old, slow HD then it seems like you've isolated the issue to Mac/OSX SMB and AFP.  Unfortunately I can't help you there, but you might want to change your post title to reflect the Mac focus of your issue - there are folks here with Mac/unRAID experience.

 

Good point! I will change the topic accordingly.

 

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This is exactly what we do with a pool of 4 main windows Photoshop workstations plus another 4 laptops all windows based. The 4 main PS computers are connected via gbit lan. We keep active data only on the workstations, all archives are on unRaid. We create up to 100gb of new content daily. Our backup only needs to move new or edited content. Static content doesn't move daily. Another unRaid backup server is off-site.

 

How much new content are you creating daily?

 

At 100 megabytes per second you can move over 300 gb per hour? My unRaid servers are 24 Bay units with parity so 50mb/second is what you get with normal parity protected array over gbit wired connections. Since the backups happen in the background hourly on all workstations we are nowhere near saturating our network. I don't understand your concern about speed?

 

We tried Macs but they failed the affordability and compatibility tests in our use so I can't comment further on Macs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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For Windows/SMB to unRAID I don't think I've ever hit a speed limit related to network protocols on a 1Gb network, though it's hard to say.  I can hit full line speed with large files and Turbo Write directly to the parity protected array.  Even with small files and no Turbo Write I don't usually drop all the way down to 50MB/s, again going directly to the array.  Going to an SSD cache drive should be quite fast so I understand the OP's concern with 50-80MB/s from his Mac clients.  Odd, but I traded in my Macs long ago so I don't have recent experience... 

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1 hour ago, tr0910 said:

This is exactly what we do with a pool of 4 main windows Photoshop workstations plus another 4 laptops all windows based. The 4 main PS computers are connected via gbit lan. We keep active data only on the workstations, all archives are on unRaid. We create up to 100gb of new content daily. Our backup only needs to move new or edited content. Static content doesn't move daily. Another unRaid backup server is off-site.

 

How much new content are you creating daily?

 

 


I work in "sessions", I don't produce content daily. Each session can be anything between 60 to 250 GBs of 30-70MB files + a lot of large tiff files during postproduction. The concern with speed is twofold:
1. for daily backups - Ideally - I'd need that while i'm working so I'd like to minimise any interference with current work. I usually need to deliver work quickly after client approval, so when I'm in the middle of image editing/postproduction I want the backup to be as fast as possible as frequently as possible - which would mean backing up the same large tiff file a few times during the time I spend editing it, or, for that matter,  image editing software metadata library, like Lightroom or C1, without slowing down the work. For instance: backing up 1 - 1,5 gig Tiff file is about 10 - 16 seconds at full speed, but I get 30-45  with osx. In the past I had some performance issues with solutions such as time machine so I guess I will have to do more testing to see if that is a real issue or just a psychological effect of knowing that I'm missing out on available hardware performance ;) (btw - switching to PCs only is not an option right now)

2. for archive solution:
I need quick access to about 6 - 12 months worth of content - that can be somehere between 2 and 6 TB. Right now juggling data between ssds and external drives is cumbersome so if I have to do the same with NAS (move data back to local storage) - then what's the point? The main concern is that when I need to re-load and browse through a set of, say 2000, images from 6 months before, every single MB/s counts towards smoother operation and faster work. Hence the question about real life speeds as I suspect in this case It is not feasible to keep all that data on unRaid's ssd cache :) If that really is about 50 MB/s on average on arrays with parity, then it actually makes more sense to me to invest in more local storage rather than a NAS server.

I guess the problem here is that I'm near that threshold of cost-effectiveness right now. I don't need a large 30+ TB array (where server hardware can be a fraction of the cost of the needed hard drives). I want a fast 4TB array for current backups and/or I'd be happy with 8TB for the archive solution.

 

Btw - thanks for the input!   




 

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On 3/1/2018 at 2:41 AM, limetech said:

 

Sorry I'm kinda late to the topic... Do you have any need/desire to use Time Machine, that is, to have unRaid shares as Time Machine targets?

 

Not too late :) I'm still considering different configuration options both for unRaid itself and the entire backup solution.

I don't need time machine at this point (and if not having that option altogether could boost performance then I could definitely live entirely without it)

 

On 3/1/2018 at 3:27 AM, 1812 said:

try the following and disable SMB signing: https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/54641-increase-os-x-networking-performance-by-80-or-your-money-back/?do=findComment&comment=573995

 

while this is use case was on a virtual nic, the premise should be the same.

 

I've already implemented that solution - it allowed for a boost to 50 MB/s - without it the speeds were at a 30 MB/s level...

Oddly enough, it was only after forcing TLS connection from the unRaid menu (changed from Auto)  that the speeds increased further to the current level.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Weird thing...
 

changed the mobo to an industrial one from Advantech (AIMB-274) with Intel Lan chipsets (I217LM and I211AT) and speeds from apple computers now saturate the 1Gigabit Lan on par with Windows machines... Previously checked the Realtek RTL8111GR (on AsRock J3160dc itx) as well as Atheros L1E (on Asus P5QD Turbo). Just wondering, could the OSX speed issues be a driver+hardware compatibility thing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Realtek chips are like the old WinModems - there's no processing going on on the chip, it's done on the CPU.  As the J3160 is a pretty weak CPU, it's no surprise things were slow. 

 

The Intel chips you're using now do all the processing on chip, so the CPU has very little to do.

 

So, not weird at all, pretty much typical. :)

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  • 1 month later...

soooo, almost three months and one trial extension later I managed to complete the test build and I have identified the issue with slower MAC transfer speeds to - suprise surprise - the presence of cache SSD....
I mean - WTF?
- no cache disk - - - - - MacOS transfer speeds equal that of Windows machines - (practically max out GigabitLAN)
- cache disk present - MacOS transfer speeds get flaky and vary between 50 and 90 MB/s.

 

Any ideas?

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  • 1 year later...

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