Speeding up upload speeds from ReadyNAS 312

I suspect you might be mixing mbits per second and mbytes per second. Generally file transfer times are measured in bytes, but network speeds (including speedtest) are in bits. If (as is usual) file transfer is in bytes and network speeds are bits, then speedtest and your file transfer speeds are completely consistent - 800 kbits/sec is the same as 100 kbytes per second.

I don't know if increasing the MTU was what you had in mind, but that will not help your internet performance and can't be done with your 100 mbit ethernet setup anyway. You might need to decrease it. The way to tell is to use ping to probe an internet site (like google).

From a windows PC, open the cmd box and type

ping http://www.google.com -f -l 1472

If that succeeds (without an error about fragmentation), then 1500 is the correct value. If it fails, try lowering the 1472 until you find the biggest value that works. Add 28 to that value, and you get the MTU of that network path.

The exact options for ping depend on the OS you are using, if you google "ping MTU" you can find some guides that will include whatever you use.

Your WiFi speed looks about right (assuming you mean 3 mbytes/second), but a wired ethernet test would be helpful. There's a good tool here: http://www.808.dk/?code-csharp-nas-performance
Your router is limited to 100 mbits, so the fastest speeds you will see on the local LAN will max out around 11 MB/s (there is some overhead and latency that reduces the throughput a bit).

Thanks Steve
I am maxing out my upload speeds from my ISP (dodo). I tested using testmy.net and results show uploads between 24KB/s (189kbps) to 87KB/s (699kbps)..v. slow. Guess I didn't realise this when deciding to install my own NAS but you live and learn. I use a pc so I couldn't use the tool you recommended. I have Virtual Box but I could not get it to connect to my server. Will keep trying on that note.

Giving the google a try but substituting for mac and result in full packet loss at 1462 but zero loss and 1452; so guessing my largest packet size is 1452 + 28 = 1480. Is this correct?

--- google.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss
Shedz-MacBook-Pro:~ Shed$ ping -c 5 -D -s 1462 google.com
PING google.com (74.125.237.163): 1462 data bytes
1470 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=0 ttl=57 time=117.094 ms
1470 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=1 ttl=57 time=114.757 ms
1470 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=2 ttl=57 time=114.629 ms
1470 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=3 ttl=57 time=114.443 ms
1470 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=4 ttl=57 time=113.767 ms

--- google.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 113.767/114.938/117.094/1.131 ms
Shedz-MacBook-Pro:~ Shed$ ping -c 5 -D -s 1452 google.com
PING google.com (74.125.237.163): 1452 data bytes
1460 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=0 ttl=57 time=113.910 ms
1460 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=1 ttl=57 time=117.839 ms
1460 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=2 ttl=57 time=114.217 ms
1460 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=3 ttl=57 time=114.642 ms
1460 bytes from 74.125.237.163: icmp_seq=4 ttl=57 time=114.473 ms

Thanks Steve.

Did you see loss at 1472?

The test tool is for Windows.

yep
--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted at 1472, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss was the result.
I realised it was for windows but thought i could run it through virtualbox.app (an app that runs windows on a mac).

Ok. Since you have dsl, I think you are running PPPoE on your ISP connection. That usually lowers to MTU to 1480, which is what you are seeing.

You can try to limit the 312's MTU to 1480. That won't hurt performance on your local lan (at least not enough to matter), but could reduce fragmentation over the internet.

Cheers SteveB, will give that a go, and let you know the results.
g

I'm not sure if this was intended but my LAN (over ethernet) speed just went up from 11MB/s to 14MB/s. I'm using activity monitor on the mac so not sure how accurate it is. Anecdotally, this is a massive time saver considering the 2.3TB of data I need to send to the Little 312.