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Performance halved at a stroke (ReadyNAS Duo, 4.1.8) ...
In a busy few weeks, my little ReadyNAS Duo's performance seems to have halved at a stroke. The problem seems to be a consequence of upgrading to RAIDiator 4.1.8 (release) and performing a full factory reset but ... just in case ... here's a full rundown of its recent life ...
* After swapping my ageing PC for a shiny new iMac (really shiny, by the way), I noticed a very modest (but welcome) *increase* in performance from the ReadyNAS.
* Running Windows 7 (directly through Boot Camp, fully Windows Update'd) and RAIDiator 4.1.8 beta (for Lion compatibility) the little Duo could saturate my Gigabit Ethernet to 25-30% (transferring data at around 250-300Mb/s, then). Everything was running great ...
* Then a mini-disaster ... after three years use the ReadyNAS power supply gave up. The unit shut down without warning and wouldn't power up again.
* Some excellent online support put me back on track. "Some time later" and with a new power supply connected (an identical Netgear part) I was up and running again.
* The unit started first time and all was well ... everything was accessible and usable ... but restarting the unit once more (from front-view) the ReadyNAS unexpectedly froze on boot.
* Blue light flashing at 1Hz, fan at medium-volume, no activity or drive lights and invisible to RAIDar, I gave it four/five hours ...
* Not responding to physical (power) button presses, I had to pull the plug. Fortunately, the unit picked itself up and booted without issue. Scouring downloaded log's I could see *no trace whatsoever* of the failed boot.
* To eliminate any possibility of data corruption or similar badness (and with a new release-version of RAIDiator 4.1.8 now available) I updated the unit firmware, performed full factory reset and reconfigured the unit to match its old settings (all from front-view). Perhaps this was a beta glitch?
* Now running solidly and without issue, I copied data back to the unit using Windows Explorer and a local backup. It should have close to zero fragmentation, then.
Doing this, it was clear performance had halved. The unit now saturates just 10-15% of the network ... transferring at around 100-150Mb/s only (no RAIDar or front-view pages open).
This doesn't look like a hardware problem ... the drives look fine (a matched Seagate ST3500630AS pair, their SMART reports look good and their temps are normal), the network looks fine (private LAN, both Mac (on-board Broadcom NetXtreme) and NAS are wired to the same Netgear WNDR3700 (gigabit router, latest firmware), no concerning errors ... a few TCP retransmits which are not unusual) and there are no errors or warnings in the logs. But for a new power adapter, nothing has changed hardware-wise.
The old and new front-view settings match near-exactly (same network settings, same shares, same users and access rights, one or two *fewer* services running than before, no bittorrent/photo's/remote/vault, full data journaling, oplocks enabled, fast CIFS writes enabled, jumbo frames disabled), the unit isn't resynching or indexing media, there are no scheduled backup jobs (internal or time machine) and ... to be absolutely sure ... I've also confirmed performance several times over the last week to eliminate any other invisible, transient activity ... no luck :?
Performance seems to have halved at a stroke with no clear reason.
It looks very much like a RAIDiator 4.1.8 issue but I'm happy to help troubleshoot. Any chance a Jedi (or other expert) can help?
Thanks,
Justin
* After swapping my ageing PC for a shiny new iMac (really shiny, by the way), I noticed a very modest (but welcome) *increase* in performance from the ReadyNAS.
* Running Windows 7 (directly through Boot Camp, fully Windows Update'd) and RAIDiator 4.1.8 beta (for Lion compatibility) the little Duo could saturate my Gigabit Ethernet to 25-30% (transferring data at around 250-300Mb/s, then). Everything was running great ...
* Then a mini-disaster ... after three years use the ReadyNAS power supply gave up. The unit shut down without warning and wouldn't power up again.
* Some excellent online support put me back on track. "Some time later" and with a new power supply connected (an identical Netgear part) I was up and running again.
* The unit started first time and all was well ... everything was accessible and usable ... but restarting the unit once more (from front-view) the ReadyNAS unexpectedly froze on boot.
* Blue light flashing at 1Hz, fan at medium-volume, no activity or drive lights and invisible to RAIDar, I gave it four/five hours ...
* Not responding to physical (power) button presses, I had to pull the plug. Fortunately, the unit picked itself up and booted without issue. Scouring downloaded log's I could see *no trace whatsoever* of the failed boot.
* To eliminate any possibility of data corruption or similar badness (and with a new release-version of RAIDiator 4.1.8 now available) I updated the unit firmware, performed full factory reset and reconfigured the unit to match its old settings (all from front-view). Perhaps this was a beta glitch?
* Now running solidly and without issue, I copied data back to the unit using Windows Explorer and a local backup. It should have close to zero fragmentation, then.
Doing this, it was clear performance had halved. The unit now saturates just 10-15% of the network ... transferring at around 100-150Mb/s only (no RAIDar or front-view pages open).
This doesn't look like a hardware problem ... the drives look fine (a matched Seagate ST3500630AS pair, their SMART reports look good and their temps are normal), the network looks fine (private LAN, both Mac (on-board Broadcom NetXtreme) and NAS are wired to the same Netgear WNDR3700 (gigabit router, latest firmware), no concerning errors ... a few TCP retransmits which are not unusual) and there are no errors or warnings in the logs. But for a new power adapter, nothing has changed hardware-wise.
The old and new front-view settings match near-exactly (same network settings, same shares, same users and access rights, one or two *fewer* services running than before, no bittorrent/photo's/remote/vault, full data journaling, oplocks enabled, fast CIFS writes enabled, jumbo frames disabled), the unit isn't resynching or indexing media, there are no scheduled backup jobs (internal or time machine) and ... to be absolutely sure ... I've also confirmed performance several times over the last week to eliminate any other invisible, transient activity ... no luck :?
Performance seems to have halved at a stroke with no clear reason.
It looks very much like a RAIDiator 4.1.8 issue but I'm happy to help troubleshoot. Any chance a Jedi (or other expert) can help?
Thanks,
Justin
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humberty wrote: I wonder if adding some Ram would potentially cure it)especially on write speed.
In the reports on my NV and NV+, I've maxed out RAM (1GB), so that is not very promising for you :-(- Hi,
I wonder why Netgear isn't taking this problem more seriously? There are no hot fixes or new betas for us to try. I won't go back to 4.1.7 because of the sharing problems I had with that release.
Netgear is becoming very slack with responding to firmware issues created by faulty firmware updates. :(
Regards,
Ian. - Yeah they are NOT holding their end of the bargain.
Won't be recommending Readynas to anyone if they can't even keep these running at descent speed! Chewbacca wrote: I was able to reproduce the issue. Will have our engineers take a look into the issue.
I too have the same performance problem - after applying 4.1.8 upgrade, data transfer speeds appear to have dropped by approximately 50%.
Is there going to be a fix in the near future? I really don't want to downgrade to 4.1.7. The upgrade sent my duo scatty and I had to backup / re-initialse / restore. Took the best part of two days to sort out.
Many thanksChewbacca wrote: I was able to reproduce the issue. Will have our engineers take a look into the issue.
Hi Yoh-dah and Chewie,
Thanks for picking up on this.
We're closing on 2 months since RAIDiator 4.1.8 released, a little over 6 weeks since problems started being raised and evidenced here on the forum and over 2 weeks since Chewie independently confirmed the issue (Thanks Chewie!) with a promise your development guys would investigate.
You can probably appreciate from the recent posts here, it's been a relatively frustrating experience for many of us and ... it's probably fair to say ... this has been made a little more frustrating by your earlier lack of engagement in the thread and a general lack of feedback from the team.
I really appreciate the effort you guys put into supporting and developing your products ... I'm sure everyone here does, too ... but right now that good work doesn't seem to be showing in its best light.
Could you help allay our concerns and offer a positive update on the development teams progress?
Thanks,
Justin- Unless Netgear show some POSITIVE Action regarding the Poor Performance when using 4.1.8 firmware, I am going to go out buy a WESTERN DIGITAL NAS Drive.
I have been UNABLE to use my ReadyNAS DUO since upgrading? to 4.1.8 several weeks ago, because of the slow transfer speeds and also the problems with AFP access with MAC OS X Lion 10.7.
I have tried downgrading back to 4.1.8-T9, and then back to 4.1.7 s/w in order to restore the performance.
Please reassure all sparc users that we still have a usable NAS device, otherwise I suggest that we remove the HDD and reformat it as an Ext. device.
Very Frustrated NETGEAR DUO User
IS there a V 4.1.9 BETA s/w being tested, and WHEN will we be able to download it? Chewbacca wrote: I was able to reproduce the issue. Will have our engineers take a look into the issue.
Hey Chewie, did you get anything out of your engineers?
Really appreciate some feedback, even if it's "revert back to previous, a fix isn't going to appear in the near future".
Cheers
p.s. my results ... haven't got time to wait for the remaining tests ...
NAS performance tester 1.3 http://www.808.dk/?nastester
Running warmup...
Running a 400MB file write on drive P: 5 times...
Iteration 1: 16.1 MB/sec
Iteration 2: 16.18 MB/sec
Iteration 3: 16.22 MB/sec
Iteration 4: 16.15 MB/sec
Iteration 5: 16.2 MB/sec
------------------------------
Average (W): 16.17 MB/sec
------------------------------
Running a 400MB file read on drive P: 5 times...
Iteration 1: 23.65 MB/sec
Iteration 2: 24.54 MB/sec- Before everyone gets TOO pissed at Netgear - a couple of comments:
1) I too am an embedded systems engineer - written lots of firmware over the years. As they say "S**T Happens"! I'm sure they're running regressions now to figure out what broke...
2) Count your blessings that they are STILL even writing UPDATES for the (obsolete) SPARC systems. Ok, I guess NG still officially sells them, but I doubt there's much volume compared to the x86 systems.
3) I just bought an Ultra 4 Plus with 4x2TB Seagate LP Green (new version ST2000DL003). I hope I don't regret it (seem to be some issues with these drives) - but have had good luck with ReadyNAS so far (my original NV+ was an Infrant - too slow now, but still running).
I simply downgraded back to 4.1.7, and got back to 22MB/s writes (was only getting 5MB/s under 4.1.8). - OOPS - looks like the "Eight )" got turned into a smiley - meant 4.1.8
Forgot to mention, I'm also a happy owner of a Pro 6 with 6x1TB Seagate Enterprise drives... simath wrote: Before everyone gets TOO pissed at Netgear - a couple of comments:
1) I too am an embedded systems engineer - written lots of firmware over the years. As they say "S**T Happens"! I'm sure they're running regressions now to figure out what broke...
2) Count your blessings that they are STILL even writing UPDATES for the (obsolete) SPARC systems. Ok, I guess NG still officially sells them, but I doubt there's much volume compared to the x86 systems.
3) I just bought an Ultra 4 Plus with 4x2TB Seagate LP Green (new version ST2000DL003). I hope I don't regret it (seem to be some issues with these drives) - but have had good luck with ReadyNAS so far (my original NV+ was an Infrant - too slow now, but still running).
I simply downgraded back to 4.1.7, and got back to 22MB/s writes (was only getting 5MB/s under 4.1.8).
Hi Simath,
I don't think anyone's cursing Netgear yet and I'm glad you're happy to rollback to 4.1.7 to restore performance ... good for you.
It's worth keeping in mind that this isn't an option for many in the thread though, who rely on 4.1.8 for compatibility with Mac OS X. Stuff happens and no one's demanding an immediate fix ... just some feedback on how investigation is progressing and some confidence that this confirmed issue will be addressed in good time.
Even given Wednesday's announcement (new ARM based Duo's and NV+'s on the way) it's too early to call time on Sparc support. These units are still shipping, readily available, actively used and under warranty. While that's the case, it's not unreasonable for anyone to expect them to be fully supported.
Thanks,
Justin
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