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ReadyNAS 3200

smansfield
Aspirant

ReadyNAS 3200

I've just got a ReadyNAS 3200 with 6 x 1TB Hitachi HUA722010CLA330 drives, and I've run an IOMeter test from my desktop to the server using the iometer.icf file found on http://www.readynas.com/?p=310

These are my results:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As8QYW2aDdwgdGU1ODRPUWRkeXZMbjRPUWJxQjdZQXc

If someone could take a look and give their impressions, we'll see whether they match mine, which is :shock: why the hell is it performing that poorly!?

Oops, few things I forgot:

Model: ReadyNAS 3200 v1 [X-RAID2]
Firmware: RAIDiator 4.2.20
Memory: 4096 MB [DDR2]
Volume C: Online, X-RAID2, 6 disks, 14% of 3683 GB used

Disabled full data journaling. Enabled disk write cache. Enabled jumbo frames.

Running with IEEE 802.3ad LACP with a xmit_hash_policy of Layer2.
Message 1 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Ok, I think I've just solved my own problem, I've gone into the rack with my laptop and done the test directly through the gigabit switch that the NAS (& VM Cluster) is connected too, and the performance has rocketed. Interestingly though, with Jumbo Frames on I get LOWER read/write performance than with it disabled in my network card configuration.

ON: 37 MB/s Read 62MB/s Write
OFF: 60MB/s Read 80MB/s Write
Message 2 of 28
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Hi smansfield.

There is a newer firmware available: http://www.readynas.com/RAIDiator_x86_4_2_21_Notes

Yes it does sound like there is some issue on your network.

As for Jumbo Frames, many find it's more trouble than what it's worth to use. You need all of the NAS, PC and switch to support jumbo frames and have the feature enabled. Also a good idea to ensure the NIC drivers for the NIC in your PC are up to date.

Note that if you use Jumbo Frames you need to make sure that the MTU is set correctly: http://help.expedient.com/broadband/mtu_ping_test.shtml

The performance numbers you mention with the connection via the switch would also be affected by the drive in your laptop. The hard drive in the laptop is almost certainly the bottleneck on performance.

Looking at your volume capacity it appears you are using X-RAID2 dual-redundancy (RAID-6). I do recommend using dual-redundancy and this does provide good peace of mind. If any two disks fail data remains intact. Important data primarily stored on the ReadyNAS should still be backed up regularly. See Preventing Catastrophic Data Loss

Do note that the performance article you linked to was written quite some time ago now, back before the x86 (Intel) line of ReadyNAS products was released. Many things are still the same, but some things have changed. Obviously the x86 ReadyNASes are much faster and more powerful than the discontinued Sparc line. Also the "Disable Journaling" option mentioned in the article is no longer present in x86 firmware as it's obsolete.

Welcome to the forum!
Message 3 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

mdgm wrote:
...Also the "Disable Journaling" option mentioned in the article is no longer present in x86 firmware as it's obsolete...


"Disable full data journaling" appears on my Pro under system/performance. Was this just removed in 4.2.21? (I am still on 4.2.20).
Message 4 of 28
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

StephenB I said "Disable Journaling". "Disable Journaling" is obsolete not "Disable Full Data Journaling".
Message 5 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

mdgm wrote:
StephenB I said "Disable Journaling". "Disable Journaling" is obsolete not "Disable Full Data Journaling".


Though of course "disable full data journaling"is related and will still help write performance. I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you have a UPS though.
Message 6 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

The reason why I'm wondering about performance is because I'm getting some pretty awful numbers back from the VMware management console, like:



A seven second read delay is just completely un-acceptable. It causes the virtual machine to stall / lock-up.

I should mention that this is connected via NFS with 1 NFS thread on the ReadyNAS 3200 selected.
Message 7 of 28
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

What happens if you increase the thread count?
Message 8 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Even worse!! I put it up to 4 threads.



That's over 10,000ms of latency!
Message 9 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Looks to me like average write latency went down with more threads, but average read latency went up.

Though the different scales make it hard to tell, it seems to me that typical requests are serviced much more quickly in the second chart, with the two massive spikes between 16:00 and 16:05 as exceptions.

Are you using a script to drive this, or is it an uncontrolled test?
Message 10 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

This is just a sample from a virtual machine running on the ReadyNAS 3200, it's a web server, and it's under little to no-load at all. In fact the whole system is under next to no load at all, yet it's really noticeable when these latency spikes happen; the whole system just completely freezes.

I'm not doing anything in particular to generate these results, this is a fairly standard normal operating result-set. It makes the entire system unusable, to the point at which we are thinking of returning the ReadyNAS 3200 if we can't sort this issue out; the VMs must be able to run and serve data to clients without a 10 second delay.
Message 11 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

I'm not a VM expert, but it sort of looks like more NFS threads helps performance, but some other event is creating the unacceptable spikes.
Message 12 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

There isn't anything else going on with the NAS at all it; it doesn't host any "normal" file shares, it's just running 2 VMs both of which are suffering from the same issue.

Is there any way to test access latency from a desktop machine? Preferably (due to the intermittent nature of this issue) over an extended period of time? ie. Like an IOMeter for latency.
Message 13 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

BTW have you put in a support request?
Message 14 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Not as yet, no. However I'm getting somewhere, I have disabled the Jumbo Frames option and disabled the link-aggregation and changed it from IEEE 802.3ad LACP to just a simple single-failover setup. So far, I haven't had a latency spike bigger than 18ms which is a massive improvement. Now I just have to figure out which of these settings was causing it! (My moneys on the IEEE 802.3ad LACP)
Message 15 of 28
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Support may be able to help you get the teaming setup for your environment. It could well be worth contacting them. Depending on your requirements you may wish to consider purchasing a ProSupport contract. See http://www.readynas.com/prosupport for more information.
Message 16 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

smansfield wrote:
Not as yet, no. However I'm getting somewhere, I have disabled the Jumbo Frames option and disabled the link-aggregation and changed it from IEEE 802.3ad LACP to just a simple single-failover setup. So far, I haven't had a latency spike bigger than 18ms which is a massive improvement. Now I just have to figure out which of these settings was causing it! (My moneys on the IEEE 802.3ad LACP)
It could also be the combination of course. If I had to pick one to enable, I think in your application I would pick teaming. Though I generally am not a fan of jumbo frames anyway, the gain doesn't seem worth the pain.

Anyway, I'm glad you are getting somewhere.
Message 17 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Just saw this: http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/201 ... d-vmotion/

I thought you might find it interesting.
Message 18 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Well I've re-enabled jumbo frame support to see what effect it has, if it doesn't increase the latency and the performance is better (even slightly) I may well leave it on.
Message 19 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Sounds reasonable. You also enabled it in the VM itself?
Message 20 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

No I haven't, I've enabled it on the Virtual Host, Switch, NAS and vCenter Server. I didn't think that the VMs themselves would benefit, as their NICs don't actually access the NAS directly (they see it as their hard drive). Although I guess it would still help for inter-VM comms..?
Message 21 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

I think that jumbo frames directed to the VM from outside will result in IP fragmentation in the VM.
Message 22 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Right, well I've tried with and without Jumbo Frames and the results I have put into the Google Docs Spreadsheet, feel free to take a look:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... WJxQjdZQXc

I'm still worried by some of the numbers I'm seeing in the Maximum Read/Write Response Times... Is that normal?
Message 23 of 28
StephenB
Guru

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

So 1-7 is with jumbo frames on? And all responses are in ms?

Not sure what is normal, though of course rows 8-14 are performing better.

Since the really long response times are rare, its hard to compare the maxes unless you have a really long run. It might be useful to choose a performance threshold, and report the percentage or response times that exceed it.
Message 24 of 28
smansfield
Aspirant

Re: ReadyNAS 3200

Rows 1 -> 7 Jumbo Frames ON
Rows 8 -> 14 OFF

Yeah, I guess the max response times are more variable.. but I'm still shocked to see that it can take close to or over a second to get a response sometimes.
Message 25 of 28
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