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Small business running 6 x PCs with a VOIP phone system and 2 x printers.
Office has a cheap GB Tenda unmanaged switch at present connecting everything.
They run Sage accounts off a NAS (say nothing please! lol) and have problems with Sage freezing/locking up on their 4 workstations when they all access the data file on the NAS.
They say it happens when the internet access is also really slow so as the switch is the common factor I though I would start there.
I recommended they get a GS716T switch to replace the Tenda and it should be here by Friday. (When its connectected I will run the cable test facility in it.)
Whats the best way to maximise the bandwith for the 4 Sage workstations and the NAS? eg Create 5 LAGS? Use LACP?
Im NOT a network expert (or even close) but I am IT savvy and a bit of advice now (apart from hire an expert! lol) would be greatly appreciated!
I know this is not what you want to hear but I'm going to say it anyway - your problem is most likely the NAS.
The chances of six PCs being able to saturate the switch fabric of a gigabit switch, even a cheap one, so that it becomes a bottleneck is slim to nil.
Use Google to search for a "free" 10 sensor copy of Paessler's PRTG, one of the older versions (V6.x) is preferable if you are new to SNMP monitoring, configure it to monitor the bandwidth utilization on the GS716, monitor the ports the NAS, the workstations, and the internet firewall/router are connected to - let it run for a week or so, and then look at the stats.
You can also search for NASTester which is a little utility that was written to test the read/write performance of a NAS and use that to get an idea of how well (or poorly) the NAS performs.
Now - I have, for the most part, completely ignored the fact that you mentioned a VoIP phone system, and that is because you also said small business - VoIP can be a major contributor to bandwidth utilization and network congestion, especially if the network structure is flat - I would not expect this to cause Sage to freeze/lock up, but it could cause significantly degraded response times.
Depending on how that telephone system has been implemented, it might be an idea to have separate voice & data VLANs.
I know this is not what you want to hear but I'm going to say it anyway - your problem is most likely the NAS.
The chances of six PCs being able to saturate the switch fabric of a gigabit switch, even a cheap one, so that it becomes a bottleneck is slim to nil.
Use Google to search for a "free" 10 sensor copy of Paessler's PRTG, one of the older versions (V6.x) is preferable if you are new to SNMP monitoring, configure it to monitor the bandwidth utilization on the GS716, monitor the ports the NAS, the workstations, and the internet firewall/router are connected to - let it run for a week or so, and then look at the stats.
You can also search for NASTester which is a little utility that was written to test the read/write performance of a NAS and use that to get an idea of how well (or poorly) the NAS performs.
Now - I have, for the most part, completely ignored the fact that you mentioned a VoIP phone system, and that is because you also said small business - VoIP can be a major contributor to bandwidth utilization and network congestion, especially if the network structure is flat - I would not expect this to cause Sage to freeze/lock up, but it could cause significantly degraded response times.
Depending on how that telephone system has been implemented, it might be an idea to have separate voice & data VLANs.
Thank you so much for the fast advice and the pointers to monitoring software!
I agree about the NAS, especially as its a cheap £50 dLink one, and I'm trying to talk them in to getting a Synology or Qnap one at £300-400 but as the switch was under £100 they decided to try that first. (And that may not even solve the issue as Sage 50 is inherently notorious for this sort of behaviour!)
As they will now have 2 switches I was contemplating putting the VOIP on one and the PCs on the other Netgear one but I'm still finding my feet in relation to their actual network atm!
