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Monitoring CPU and RAM Usage (linux-dash and alternatives)
I have had a RN104, (OS 6.4.2), for some time now but have often thought that it was running a bit slow. For example I have DVBLink TV Server installed and when opening it up from another device it often take over two minutes for the EPG to populate, however when I tried building a server using a "proper" PC, (dual core 2.8GHz 8GB RAM etc), DVBLink was ready to go within 4 seconds!
I am aware that neither the CPU nor RAM can be upgraded on this ReadyNAS so I was thinking of upgrading the device. What I really want to do first is monitor the ReadyNAS' CPU and RAM usage to find out if there were any bottlenecks causing slow running, so I installed "linux-dash" from the ReadyNAS dashboard, (v0.5.1). I have found the results for CPU Load Average to be rather surprising:
Number of cores:1
1 min 5 min 15 min
1,194% 926% 899%
11.94 9.26 8.99
This is with the system apparently idling, not streaming any media or anything. I am used to using system monitoring tools on the desktop: how can the processor be running at over 1000%? What does the other figure mean, (% divided by 100)? Netgear Support tell me that they do not cover linux-dash, so what is the preferred method of monitoring CPU and memory usage - I would have thought that these would be standard for the ReadyNAS Admin page under System > Status, but apparently not? So how are you supposed to monitor it?
I have the following apps installed on the ReadyNAS:
Re: Monitoring CPU and RAM Usage (linux-dash and alternatives)
That was just my opinion. It isn't bogus or misleading, just only so much the little Marvell Armada CPU can do 🙂 Honestly, has I said it serves up my media files perfectly. I just found running some of the varous apps (Plex, the Virus scan, pigwo, and enabling iTunes or DNLA) running at the same time while trying to access the files via Plex (streaming mkv files) it isn't effient and uses a lot of CPU. That is why I mentioned running top and saving the output so you can see the CPU use and Waits.
The way we have it set up is probably simple but more or less it is the centralized storage for our home. All of our computers back up to it. It also serves our media (Music and Movies) via Plex. Plex is running on Ubuntu and NFS mounting the NAS shares. Once a week the 104 sends its data to another PC in the house with lots of storage who shoots it up to Crashplan. Documents, photos, computer backups, and music mostly - I don't back up the movies since I have the physical media still.
Down the road I'm sure I'll expand my Ubuntu server with a raid card and ZFS or some other files system/RAID and remove the 104 since it would be significantly faster with regards to disk I/O and network. But so far NAS to TV or other streaming device it is ok and I can tolerate the 20 - 30MB/Sec transfer rate it seems to see when transferring files.
So yeah, it is good at one or two things but not for running Plex or some of the more CPU intensive applications while also serving up media. I think that is pretty fair to say. It really comes down to the CPU and Memory amount it has as the limiting factor.
Re: Monitoring CPU and RAM Usage (linux-dash and alternatives)
I tried to explain what the stat means. At any point in time there can be 0-x processes either using the CPU or waiting for their turn to use it. That's the load. The load average is simply the average value of x. The total CPU utilitization is about 1% in your system, even though the load average is much higher.
The new kernel in 6.5.0 might be a factor in my load average being lower than yours. My number in the past was much higher, but I don't recall when that changed.
Re: Monitoring CPU and RAM Usage (linux-dash and alternatives)
Thanks for the replies, (StephenB - I think that we were both typing posts at about the same time earlier, which may have made it appear that what you had said was not clear?).
Generally performance is good, however as noted in my first post I have one particular concern:
As noted previously I have DVBLink TV Server installed. When opening it up from another device, (Android phone/tablet, PC etc), the first thing that happens is that the Electronic Programme Guide,(EPG), has to populate before you can do anything else: it usually takes over two minutes for this to happen. However when I tried building a server using a "proper" PC, (dual core 2.8GHz 8GB RAM etc), DVBLink was ready to go within 4 seconds! This time delay is what is mainly preventing the rest of the family from using DVBLink "it takes too long to get going". Using Top I have found that for a significant part of this period the CPU seems to be running at 99.9% for this application - I assume that there is nothing that can be done about this?
"phpsysinfo" looks to be very good - just the sort of detail and GUI presentation that I am looking for. Is there and equivalent tool for CPU usage?
I have asked Netgear if they can add some CPU and memeory loading info into the next OS upgrade - I still can't believe that it is not already there!
Re: Monitoring CPU and RAM Usage (linux-dash and alternatives)
Via command line top is going to be the primary tool of choice within the ReadyNAS 104's distro. It will more or less tell you what you need to know. You can just create a small script and have it write to a file. Then using awk, cat, grep, or whatever else you are comfortable with, just parse out the date, time, CPU / US (User), SY (system), NI (Nice), ID (Idle), and WA (Waits). If you want memory grab that too if you are so inclinded. What you want to do is throw this data into excel, make a pivot table, add date/time, user, sys, and idle. Here you will see how your ReadyNAS is doing vs. load. Pretty simple honstly.
Pay attention to the wa column w hich is I/O wait - or time waiting for I/O to complete. When that number is high you know you have reached the ReadyNAS's capacity with regards to I/O throughput and/or CPU.
Note: I thought someone had a application in the app store, for free, that did a single page presentation with regards to CPU, disk space, ram, etc. Again, I do not run any apps on my box has it only serves up files/media. The box does well with that but anything else running on it tends to bog the little CPU down. Mine is running 4x6 TB WD reds.
Re: Monitoring CPU and RAM Usage (linux-dash and alternatives)
Thank you all for your replies and advice. I have come to the conclusion that I may be expecting too much from the ReadyNAS104? ie just because it can do something, such as run DVBLink, does not mean that it can do it well?
I assume that this low end ReadyNAS was primarily designed to serve files / media and as saf1 mentioned in his post it does this well. The fact that it is also able to do other things at the same time should be seen as a bonus perhaps?
Apologies for the delay in replying - I'm having desktop PC problems.
Re: Monitoring CPU and RAM Usage (linux-dash and alternatives)
That was just my opinion. It isn't bogus or misleading, just only so much the little Marvell Armada CPU can do 🙂 Honestly, has I said it serves up my media files perfectly. I just found running some of the varous apps (Plex, the Virus scan, pigwo, and enabling iTunes or DNLA) running at the same time while trying to access the files via Plex (streaming mkv files) it isn't effient and uses a lot of CPU. That is why I mentioned running top and saving the output so you can see the CPU use and Waits.
The way we have it set up is probably simple but more or less it is the centralized storage for our home. All of our computers back up to it. It also serves our media (Music and Movies) via Plex. Plex is running on Ubuntu and NFS mounting the NAS shares. Once a week the 104 sends its data to another PC in the house with lots of storage who shoots it up to Crashplan. Documents, photos, computer backups, and music mostly - I don't back up the movies since I have the physical media still.
Down the road I'm sure I'll expand my Ubuntu server with a raid card and ZFS or some other files system/RAID and remove the 104 since it would be significantly faster with regards to disk I/O and network. But so far NAS to TV or other streaming device it is ok and I can tolerate the 20 - 30MB/Sec transfer rate it seems to see when transferring files.
So yeah, it is good at one or two things but not for running Plex or some of the more CPU intensive applications while also serving up media. I think that is pretty fair to say. It really comes down to the CPU and Memory amount it has as the limiting factor.
