Re: Huge performance impact when Time Capsule is on Satellite?

sh2sg · ‎2019-10-30

Quick background:

I have 1 RBR-50 in living room and 2 RBS-50 in 2 guest rooms. All are in latest firmware.

Time Capsule is wired to one RBS-50.

I have 3 MacBook, wireless only. MacBookPro (late 2013) connects to the same RBS-50 which Time Capsule connects to. MacBook (2015) conencts to RBR-50, MacBookPro (2018, touch bar) connects to another RBS-50. All are backed up to Time Capsule, daily backup in different time.

I noticed the MacBookPro (2018) is backing up extremely slow compared to the other 2 laptops, it takes 20 mins to complete daily incremenent backup or 10 hours after an OS upgrade, while the other 2 laptops take only 5 mins for daily incremenent backup and 20-30 mins after an OS upgrade. When it is backing up, in Activity Monitor / Network, I noticed its network send/receive speed is also much slower than the other two, (300KB/s vs 28MB/s)

Internet speed on this MacBookPro looks pretty good ie 500Mbps on speedtest.net.

Is it because of number of hops when it tries to reach Time Capsule?

MacBookPro -> RBS-50-1 -> RBR-50 -> RBS-50-2 -> Time Capsule

While for the other two:

MacBook -> RBR-50 -> RBS-50-2 -> Time Capsule

MacBookPro -> RBS-50-2 -> Time Capsule

Adding one extra hop will cause so many latency? Or something wrong in the communication between 2 Orbi Satelliates?

I have disabled daisy chain, will it help?

Thanks

SW_ · ‎2019-10-30

Here is one thing that you can check quickly.

Launch "AirPort Utility App" from your iPhone and check Time Capsule's "Connection" state. If it says anything other than "Excellent", that's the issue. In that case, just plug the Ethernet jack into the right port in the back the Time Capsule, i.e. until "Connection" says "Excellent".

sh2sg · ‎2019-10-30

@SW_ wrote:
Here is one thing that you can check quickly.

Launch "AirPort Utility App" from your iPhone and check Time Capsule's "Connection" state. If it says anything other than "Excellent", that's the issue. In that case, just plug the Ethernet jack into the right port in the back the Time Capsule, i.e. until "Connection" says "Excellent".

Time Capsule is fine, the other two laptops don't have such problem when doing Time Machine backup.

SW_ · ‎2019-10-30

I had a similar issue with my TC because of half-duplex connection instead of full-duplex.

Di you get similar results when TC is connected to RBR50 instead of RBS50?

sh2sg · ‎2019-10-31

@SW_ wrote:
I had a similar issue with my TC because of half-duplex connection instead of full-duplex.

Di you get similar results when TC is connected to RBR50 instead of RBS50?

Yes, i tried to

1. connect MacBookPro (2018) to the RBS-50(1) which TC connects to,

2. connect TC to main Router

Both have improvement but still way slow than the old spec MacBook.

Now I started worrying about if it is network issue or TC issue or MacBookPro (touch bar) issue...

SW_ · ‎2019-10-31

Which TC Ethernet port is currently in used or connected to Orbi's LAN port?

Just to be sure, verify TC connection state is full-duplex.

sh2sg · ‎2019-10-31

@SW_ wrote:
Which TC Ethernet port is currently in used or connected to Orbi's LAN port?

Just to be sure, verify TC connection state is full-duplex.

TC is fine, AirPort Utility shows green sign, but i don't see status text mentioned anywhere.

TC is connected to main Router's GE port. RBR50 connects to main Router too, works in AP mode.

As mentioned, TC is fine, no matter where it is placed, other 2 laptops backed up very fast.

SW_ · ‎2019-10-31

If TC connection is half-duplex, it could wreak havoc in your Orbi network. That's the first easy thing to check and rule out. The green light just means that it's connected and its firmware is up to date. The TC connection status is only found via AirPort Utility. Launch AirPort Uitility App and tap on the TC icon. You should see it and TC firmware version along with the hardware info.

The Ethernet cable must plug into the WAN port of TC and LAN port of Orbi. Otherwise, TC will be operating in half-duplex and Orbi doesn't like half-duplex connection.

sh2sg · ‎2019-10-31

@SW_ wrote:
If TC connection is half-duplex, it could wreak havoc in your Orbi network. That's the first easy thing to check and rule out. The green light just means that it's connected and its firmware is up to date. The TC connection status is only found via AirPort Utility. Launch AirPort Uitility App and tap on the TC icon. You should see it and TC firmware version along with the hardware info.

The Ethernet cable must plug into the WAN port of TC and LAN port of Orbi. Otherwise, TC will be operating in half-duplex and Orbi doesn't like half-duplex connection.

It was conencted to TC's Lan port, let me try TC's WAN port, will update if it helps.

Thanks for the trick!

sh2sg · ‎2019-11-07

@SW_ wrote:
If TC connection is half-duplex, it could wreak havoc in your Orbi network. That's the first easy thing to check and rule out. The green light just means that it's connected and its firmware is up to date. The TC connection status is only found via AirPort Utility. Launch AirPort Uitility App and tap on the TC icon. You should see it and TC firmware version along with the hardware info.

The Ethernet cable must plug into the WAN port of TC and LAN port of Orbi. Otherwise, TC will be operating in half-duplex and Orbi doesn't like half-duplex connection.

I have connected TC back to RBS-50 (2) but changed to TC's WAN port. Monitored for one week... Honestly I am not sure if it helps. For daily increment backup, this 2019 MacBookPro is still slower than the two old models (15-20 mins vs 5-6 mins).

Retired_Member · ‎2019-11-08

@sh2sg wrote:
. All are in latest firmware.

what does this mean?

SW_ · ‎2019-11-08

@sh2sg wrote:
@SW_ wrote:
...
The Ethernet cable must plug into the WAN port of TC and LAN port of Orbi. Otherwise, TC will be operating in half-duplex and Orbi doesn't like half-duplex connection.
I have connected TC back to RBS-50 (2) but changed to TC's WAN port. Monitored for one week... Honestly I am not sure if it helps. For daily increment backup, this 2019 MacBookPro is still slower than the two old models (15-20 mins vs 5-6 mins).

Did you see similar performance after recabling TC to WAN port with this setup?

2019 MacBookPro -> RBR-50 -> RBS-50-2 -> Time Capsule
2019 MacBookPro -> RBS-50-2 -> Time Capsule

If you're still seeing the same slowness with the above setup, it's likely a TC/macOS issue. Another way to verify this is to move your older MacBook to RBS-50-1. If it's still tacking 5-6mins, then you have the answer. Alternately, you can try copying a large 4GB file to TC from both ends from both new and old MacBookPro and monitor the network transfer rate.

sh2sg · ‎2019-12-08

I moved the touchbar MacBook Pro to RBR50, deleted its sparsebundle from TC, deleted local snapshots and did a fresh backup, total backup size was about 90GB. The first 4.x GB backup speed was OK, but after thatI the performance was really bad, only few K per second as seen from Activity Monitor / Network tab, I am not sure if the slowness was from copying files over network or comparing/preparing files on MacBook. Since the other 2 old model laptops didn't have the issue on the same macOS, same Orbi, same TC, I suspect touchbar MacBook really behave differently on Time Machine backup...

In the end I gave up time machine, for now I enabled iCloud Drive documents and desktop sync, it is not a complete backup solution but better than nothing.

SW_ · ‎2019-12-08

@sh2sg wrote:
In the end I gave up time machine, for now I enabled iCloud Drive documents and desktop sync, it is not a complete backup solution but better than nothing.

Backing up to iCloud Drive is a much better backup option than TC. iCloud Drive is more reliable than TC.