SLOW backing up to USB

There's not much you can do if you insist on using NTFS. Why do you btw? NTFS performance is terribly slow. EXT3 (used by the ReadyNAS for the internal disks), a native Linux filesystem is much quicker and for those who don't want journaling, EXT2 is quicker again.

mdgm wrote:
There's not much you can do if you insist on using NTFS. Why do you btw? NTFS performance is terribly slow. EXT3 (used by the ReadyNAS for the internal disks), a native Linux filesystem is much quicker and for those who don't want journaling, EXT2 is quicker again.

I really want to use NTFS for this, because it will be the only storage repository for my data while I do a factory init on my NV+, and if something (else) goes wrong, I want to be able to access the data easily from a PC. I know there are ways to mount an EXT3 volume from win, but I don't see that it's worth it.

I understand you are implicating the format of the USB disk as the reason for the slow performance. How much faster would it be using EXT3? And why can a many-year-old laptop running WinXP do so much better? We're not talking about a minor speed problem here, this is severe.

Thx
-Arthur

russella wrote:
I really want to use NTFS for this, because it will be the only storage repository for my data while I do a factory init on my NV+, and if something (else) goes wrong, I want to be able to access the data easily from a PC. I know there are ways to mount an EXT3 volume from win, but I don't see that it's worth it.

I think it is worth it. If your files are all under 4GB in size per file FAT32 is an option.

russella wrote:
I understand you are implicating the format of the USB disk as the reason for the slow performance. How much faster would it be using EXT3?

See this post which has some rough estimates that chirpa came up with:

chirpa wrote:
The speeds are something close to this: NTFS = 2.5MB/s FAT32 = 5MB/s EXT3 = 10MB/s EXT2 = 14MB/s

russella wrote:
And why can a many-year-old laptop running WinXP do so much better? We're not talking about a minor speed problem here, this is severe.

Your ReadyNAS uses a slow CPU. USB backups are fairly CPU intensive. The newer x86 ReadyNAS handle NTFS backups a lot better. Remember NTFS is native to Windows whereas it isn't to Linux. It's much easier to handle filesystems that are native to the OS you are working with. The ReadyNAS RAIDiator OS is a customised form of Debian Linux.

OK, I am canceling the backup now. I will format EXT3 (or EXT2 if I can figure out how) and start the job over again now.

...

mdgm wrote:

russella wrote: I really want to use NTFS for this, because it will be the only storage repository for my data while I do a factory init on my NV+, and if something (else) goes wrong, I want to be able to access the data easily from a PC. I know there are ways to mount an EXT3 volume from win, but I don't see that it's worth it. I think it is worth it. If your files are all under 4GB in size per file FAT32 is an option. russella wrote: I understand you are implicating the format of the USB disk as the reason for the slow performance. How much faster would it be using EXT3? See this post which has some rough estimates that chirpa came up with: chirpa wrote: The speeds are something close to this: NTFS = 2.5MB/s FAT32 = 5MB/s EXT3 = 10MB/s EXT2 = 14MB/s

You should be able to format it under Volumes > USB Storage in Frontview.

Thank you mdgm...my old (bad) transfer rate agreed with the chirpa calcs you posted, and after formatting the target USB drive to EXT3, the new transfer rates *also* agree with the calculations...I am now getting around 9.5MB/s. Thank you for the suggestion!

By the way, under the (options) button in frontview, there was only an option for EXT3 format. Since the performance is even better with EXT2, is there a way to get frontview to do that...for next time?

Thx,
Arthur

mdgm wrote:

russella wrote: I really want to use NTFS for this, because it will be the only storage repository for my data while I do a factory init on my NV+, and if something (else) goes wrong, I want to be able to access the data easily from a PC. I know there are ways to mount an EXT3 volume from win, but I don't see that it's worth it. I think it is worth it. If your files are all under 4GB in size per file FAT32 is an option. russella wrote: I understand you are implicating the format of the USB disk as the reason for the slow performance. How much faster would it be using EXT3? See this post which has some rough estimates that chirpa came up with: chirpa wrote: The speeds are something close to this: NTFS = 2.5MB/s FAT32 = 5MB/s EXT3 = 10MB/s EXT2 = 14MB/s

Not using Frontview, no. You could use a Linux machine or shell access to the ReadyNAS (if you are comfortable with that) to do it.

You can get your NTFS backups up to the performance level of FAT (5 MB/sec) by using a newer version of the NTFS-3G driver:
viewtopic.php?p=257645#p257645

The advantages being:
1. You can directly plug the external drive into a Windows PC and access the files without adding any drivers to Windows
2. You don't have the 4GB limitation of FAT32

In addition the very latest version of the driver also supports proper copying of file ownership, permissions and ACLs which means that instead of your files on NTFS all becoming owned by root with permissions 777, you can preserve the permissions that were on EXT3.

The other key thing to make performance acceptable is to use RSYNC to do the backup. i.e.Here are the settings I use in Frontview "Backup Jobs".

Note that RSYNC must be switched on in Services -> Standard File Protocols.

STEP 1
- Select "Remote: Rsync Server" from drop down menu
- Host: localhost
- Path: <name_of_share>/<subdirectory> (Note there is no preceding '/')
- Login: admin
- Password: <frontview password for your Readynas>
- Enable compression: OFF
- Remove deleted files on source: ON

STEP 2
- Select "Share: USB_HDD_1" from the drop down menu
- Path: backups (or whatever the name of the directory is on your USB drive where you want to store the backup. Note there is no preceding '/')

STEP 3
Choose when you want the backup to be performed

STEP 4
- Schedule full backup: First time
- On backup completion, send "errors only" to the alert email address
- Remove the contents of the backup destination before a full backup is performed. This will clean the backup destination of files which were removed in the backup source. Warning, This will delete all files and folders in the backup destination. OFF
- After backup is complete, change ownership of files in the backup destination to the share owner if the destination is a ReadyNAS share. OFF

Anybody who have tried any later build of mount.ntfs-3g?

I also have a NV+ and also having problems with slow backups to my USB drives. I need to use NTFS since I can rely on that everyone else will be able to use ext2 or ext3 so I'm really interested in making the best with what I have. Atleast until I buy a new NAS with a better/faster CPU but with 3x2Tb disks in this one I'm probably going to stick with it for the foreseeable future.

If you have tried using a later build of mount.ntfs-3g I'd really appreciate a guideline as to how you did it. I'm not a developer and I'm not an expert at Linux so the more details and info the better for me.

Thanks in advance

A new version of ntfs3g is now included in the latest raidiator firmware so there's no need to manually install ntfs3g any more. if your performance is slow then there's not much you can do except make sure you use incremental backups.