Hi,

 

I am setting up a new Unraid server. I followed the Configuration tutorial from the wiki. Basically I have (for now) a 2TB Hitachi drive for parity, a 1 TB and a 2TB Hitachi drives in the array, and a 500GB WD drive (blue) for cache. All connected directly to motherboard SATA ports.

 

I pre-cleared all these drives, configured and formatted them. The array is up and running.

 

To begin with, I want to use Unraid to serve my media files to a couple HTPC's. I created a User Share called "Media". For now, I disabled using the Cache drive for this share.  I then plugged a SATA drive (directly to port on motherboard), this is an NTFS drive that has a chunk of my movie collection (MKV's in HD format).

 

I followed the tutorial here http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Configuration_Tutorial#Copy_Files_to_the_Array to mount the NTFS drive. I used MC to copy the files over to /mnt/user/Media/ folder. I am getting extremely slow copy transfer rates. Currently it is still copying the first file and I am getting 450 KB/sec speed. At this rate I will never be able to copy my movie collection to the array.

 

I have tried copying both with the Parity sync in progress and with stopping the parity sync. Nothing improves the copy speed.

 

I am using putty to open a terminal window to run MC. I have also tried doing this directly on the Unraid machine. Nothing helped.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks.

Howdy and sorry for your problems, that obviously is way too slow.  We need more information, so please detail your hardware and attach a syslog.  See the Troubleshooting page for help with capturing your syslog.

Thank you Rob.. I will try to provide as much info as possible. Just to recap, I rebooted Unraid, I mounted my NTFS drive and tried copying files via MC from the NTFS drive to a User share on the array. First file went through at aroung 30MB/sec, second file started at 2MB/sec and quickly deteriorated to around 600KB/sec, and I aborted the procedure at 3% of the file copy progress. Then I copied my syslog file and I am attaching here.

 

My new system is:

Intel BOXDB43LD LGA 775 Intel B43 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard (using on-board video)

Intel Celeron E3400 Wolfdale 2.6GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core

2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory

 

My Parity drive is a Hitachi 2TB

Array Drives: 2Tb Hitachi and 1TB Hitachi

Cache Drive: 500GB WD Caviar Blue Drive

 

I have 3 User Shares

  Media (cache drive is disabled while I copy from my existing library) using High Water

  Documents (cache drive is disabled while I copy from my existing library) using High Water

  Downloads (to download Sickbeard files) also cache drive disabled at the moment.

 

My Parity sync is only at 3.5%, I don't have any data copied yet to my array to worry about it.

 

My Go file contains the following:

 

#!/bin/bash
# Start the Management Utility
/usr/local/sbin/emhttp &


#Hernando added below

sleep 30
for i in /dev/md*
do
   blockdev --setra 2048 $i
done

echo nameserver 192.168.0.1 >/etc/resolv.conf
echo 192.168.0.200 tower >>/etc/hosts/boot/unmenu/uu

cd /boot/packages && find . -name '*.auto_install' -type f -print | sort | xargs -n1 sh -c 

# determine if cache drive online, retry upto 7 times
for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
do
   if [ ! -d /mnt/cache ]
   then
     sleep 10
   fi
done

# If Cache drive is online, start SABNzbd
if [ -d /mnt/cache ]; then
 # Start SABnzbd and sickbeard
 installpkg /boot/custom/SABnzbdDependencies-1.3-i486-unRAID.tgz
 python /mnt/cache/.custom/sabnzbd/SABnzbd.py -d -s 192.168.0.201:88
 nohup python /mnt/cache/.custom/sickbeard/SickBeard.py &
fi

/boot/unmenu/uu

 

EDIT: I am using Unraid 4.7...

 

I have also tried copying large files through the network, and I also start getting painfully slow transfer speeds. So slow that I have to cancle the copy because it is barely moving.

 

As I mentioned, I am trying to copy my HD format MKV files which run around 4GB in size.

 

Please any help would be greatly appreciated. I really want to get this working.

 

Thanks.

 

 

syslog.zip

You have gigabyte HPA on data disk 1 (sdc) in your array (size 976761492). I'd suggest fixing this before finally bringing the array online. Your SATA ports appear to be in IDE or compatible mode, try changing them to AHCI.

 

I'd stop the array, unassign the parity disk (unprotected array) and repeat the copy, you'll then see if the issue is unRAID or OS related. Cant see any issues in the syslog. However copying data and running a parity check at the same time will definetly hurt performance (although not to that extent).

 

30MB/s is approx. what I'd expect to see.

 

When I first created my array, I copied some the data to the data disks, ran some random MD5 checks to make sure all was well. Then I did bulk move of data and then started the array and run a parity check to protect the array.

 

 

Thank you Kaygee,

 

I changed my bios from IDE to AHCI.

 

I disconnected the drive that had the HPA, then I rebooted and did a initconfig. Rebooted and started the array, there are no HPA messages in the syslog.

 

I mounted the NTFS and tried a copy, and sadly I got the same low transfer rates.

 

 

Edit: I am attaching my current Syslog.

Edit 2: Fixed the HPA issue with hdparm.... it no longer shows up in my syslog. Thanks.

 

Edit 3: I am thinking that it has to be Unraid. I put the 4 drives into another computer system I have, different motherboard and CPU and I am still getting the same problem. This is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P with an Intel Core 2 Quad and 4 GB of RAM.

syslog.zip

You do have some small issues, but I believe the main problem is that you may not have been aware that a parity build operation is extremely disk I/O intensive.  You *can* do other things during it, but performance is going to be really terrible as you have seen.  The server is working all drives as hard as it can to complete the initial building of the parity drive, and if you request any other I/O, it has to pause (when it can), move the drive heads well away from its current work, then deal with a few packets of your request, then return to what it is doing.  A parity build is usually only done one time, so it is better to let it finish, before attempting to use your server.  You can monitor the progress on the unRAID web page, refresh it now and then to keep the page up-to-date, and once the build is complete, the server will be idle and able to give its full attention to your needs.

 

You have apparently disconnected Disk 1.  Did it already have data saved to it?  If you try to add it back now, you will either have to perform the parity build all over again, or format Disk 1 as a new disk.  If you want any data on Disk 1 saved, then you might as well cancel the current parity build, add Disk 1 back, do another initconfig, then start another parity build.

 

By the way, a parity build of 2TB drives takes a very long time!!!  Thankfully only has to be done once.  More later ...

Thank you Rob

 

It is indeed rebuilding parity. It has about 10 hours to go. I will be patient and wait. I will report my findings. Stay tuned...

Parity has finished and now I am getting 30 MB/s transfer speed. Much nicer!!! Thanks for the advice.

 

I am in the process of transferring the first half of my movie collection.

 

Rob, you mentioned that I have a couple of small issues. I am worried about committing my data to the Unraid, if there could be problems lurking. Could you please elaborate?

 

Many thanks,

 

H.