Making ReadyNas 204/214 faster (by SSH Shell)

[8ohmh]

To make ReadyNas 204/214 faster (LAN Connections) either go to Network section in Webinterface and use for LAN Adapters the MTU value 8000 - or by

SSH SHELL to Readnas (Root Shell) use

ifconfig eth0 mtu 8000
ifconfig eth1 mtu 8000

Although all ReadyNas have automatically created swap space on each disk, you can add another swap space on free disk space with

nameofswapfile="/video/extraswap"
dd if=/dev/zero of="$nameofswapfile" bs=1G count=2 # 2GByte extra swap
losetup /dev/loop5 "$nameofswapfile"
mkswap /dev/loop5
swapon /dev/loop5

All should be put carefully into startup of ReadyNas (Do not do this without knowledge of Linux and ReadyNas environment)

[StephenB]

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@8ohmh wrote:

To make ReadyNas 204/214 faster (LAN Connections) either go to Network section in Webinterface and use for LAN Adapters the MTU value 8000 - or by

9000 is more typical for Jumbo frames.  But this depends on what your switches/routers and your various devices can handle. If you set the MTU too large, you can end up with packet fragmentation that will hurt your performance instead of help.

So I recommend exploring the actual MTU ceiling for your devices after trying this.  You can do that with ping.

There is a reasonable guide here: https://www.pcwdld.com/ping-mtu

The amount to add to the payload ceiling in this guide is a bit vague.  If you are using IPv4 on your home network (as pretty much everyone is), then just add 28.  The PPPoE stuff in the guide is relevant for internet connections, but not on your home network.

On the performance aspect:  Jumbo Frames don't make the network more efficient.  What they do is reduce the per-packet processing in the client devices (since larger packets means fewer packets per second).  Most modern NICs have off-loading features - so they are doing a lot of the per-packet processing in the NIC itself, and not in the CPU.  As a result, Jumbo Frames don't always improve the transfer speeds - but they do require more memory in the clients for packet buffering.  So it is a good idea to test performance with large file transfers before and after you change the MTU.  In many cases, there is littel or no performance benefit - and if that is your situation you are better off just leaving the MTU at the default 1500 for ethernet.

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@8ohmh wrote:

Although all ReadyNas have automatically created swap space on each disk, you can add another swap space on free disk space 

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This won't make anything faster, and if you haven't installed apps then you really don't need more swap space. 

As far as improving performance goes, disabling protocols you don't use and being careful about what apps you install is IMO better advice.

That said, you certainly don't want to run out of swap space, and if you see any signs of that happening then you should either add some, or you should do something to reduce the resource footprint of the system..