Re: ReadyNas NV+ (v1) Upgrade Suggestions

nitro001 · ‎2016-04-18

Hello,

I am a long time ReadyNAS NV and NV+ User, I upgraded to the NV+ SPARC after my NV died well before NETGEAR was involved, and have been happy with it since, I have upgraded the memory to 1GB, upgraded the storage twice with XRAID, run it on 1 1GB switch and replaced the fan with a slightly quieter version when I had to move it to my office instead of the basement.

The problem I am having is it is getting a little long in the tooth such that read/write performance is VERY LOW in comparison to new systems. Some of this could be the CIFS/Samba with Windows 10/8.1, but some of it is age. When transferring large files, speed drops down to an abysmal 1-2MBps, smaller files are better but only go into the 5-6MBps range. And when I try to stream video over SMB to my Boxee Box (running Kodi) it can studder. I had just tried to transfer 100GB and it said it would take 24 hours!, where a USB 2.0 thumb drive attached to the computer took about an hour. A long time ago (In a galaxy far far away 🙂 for the Jedi Council ), this used to be the reverse. Transfers to the NAS were exponentially faster than USB.

So... While it works fine, it is probably time to upgrade. I originally bought the NV+ 4 bay since it was the powerful prosumer model and did some high-load stuff, running a lab of about 12 systems at home. Now, I have converted most of that all over to 1 large VMWare system, besides the Sun BLADE 2500 Solaris 10 workstation 🙂 and while the NV+ introduced iSCSI, I never used it, but if performance shows, it probably would not work very well.

The models have diverged a bit, so not sure where to look now. What I am looking for is a good 4 bay prosumer model, similar to the NV+ of this time, that I can do the standard Samba, NFS and even iSCSI with good performance (Bonding network links perhaps), something that won't make media stutter when I stream it, and something that could possibly transcode it as well although It doesn't have to be Plex as I usually connect internally to my network via OpenVPN. The final part is the price. Since my NV+ is working, I don't want to spend an arm and a leg for a new unit, I have the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) to think about (answering the why do you need a new one when the old one works... 🙂 ).

Thank you for your time.

StephenB · ‎2016-04-18

Your NV+ should be getting around 20 megabytes per second on large file transfer, not 1-2 megabits. Have you checked the disk health?

Any new NAS (including the entry-level RN104) will outperform your NV+.

If you are interested in transcoding with plex, get the RN214. If not, then perhaps the RN314 - it doesn't do real-time 1080p transcoding, but it does have lifetime chat support. Technical support (phone/CHAT) by the way is for brand new products purchased from authorized resellers.

You can of course repurpose the NV+ for backup.

View solution in original post

StephenB · ‎2016-04-18

Your NV+ should be getting around 20 megabytes per second on large file transfer, not 1-2 megabits. Have you checked the disk health?

Any new NAS (including the entry-level RN104) will outperform your NV+.

If you are interested in transcoding with plex, get the RN214. If not, then perhaps the RN314 - it doesn't do real-time 1080p transcoding, but it does have lifetime chat support. Technical support (phone/CHAT) by the way is for brand new products purchased from authorized resellers.

You can of course repurpose the NV+ for backup.

nitro001 · ‎2016-04-20

I will have to look into both of those further. AS for my current NV+,

On my Windows 10 and 8.1 machines, I was getting average 4.5 MB/s. On my Windows 7 PE test machine when I was migrating data off, I was getting about 2 MB/s.

I have 3 Seagate ST31000528AS 1TB Drives, and 1 Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH162 1TB Drive in a redundant X-RAID (3 TB Total, 1 Spare).

The SMART status' are OK. I have the following features enabled:

- Disable Full Data Journaling

- Optimize for OS X - My Wife has one Mac OSX pc, the rest are Windows.

- Enable Fast USB Disk Writes

I didn't enable fast CIFS writes though.

Also what might help, is when I run top via SSH without a copy, it looks like:

top - 11:24:03 up 100 days, 10:26, 1 user, load average: 0.23, 0.15, 0.18
Tasks: 66 total,   2 running, 64 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 1.3% us, 0.7% sy, 0.0% ni, 98.0% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si
Mem:   1010656k total,   966544k used,    44112k free,    22240k buffers
Swap:   767904k total,        0k used,   767904k free,   773808k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
30113 root 17 0 2992 1664 1328 R 2.3 0.2 0:06.96 top

When copying a file the CPU ramps up and smbd consumes MOST of it.

top - 11:26:06 up 100 days, 10:28, 1 user, load average: 0.40, 0.20, 0.19
Tasks: 66 total,   3 running, 63 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 7.8% us, 31.8% sy, 0.0% ni, 10.3% id, 0.0% wa, 8.7% hi, 41.4% si
Mem:   1010656k total, 1003680k used,     6976k free,    24208k buffers
Swap:   767904k total,        0k used,   767904k free,   818496k cached

PID USER      PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+ COMMAND
29708 data      16   0 21648 8944 7552 R 82.4 0.9   2:43.39 smbd
   42 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 3.6 0.0 37:33.64 pdflush
30113 root      16   0 2992 1664 1328 R 3.6 0.2   0:04.95 top

Thanks for the help and recommendations.

StephenB · ‎2016-04-20

It's been a while since I tested the NV+ speed, so I tried it with NasTester ( http://www.808.dk/?code-csharp-nas-performance )

On my Win-10 system it reports 16.65 MB/sec write and 26.0 MB/sec read speeds on 400 MB file transfers.

The Win-10 system is using an SSD hard drive. Disable journaling, optimize for OS x, Enable fast CIFS writes are all set on the NAS. Firmware version is 4.1.15-T3.

nitro001 · ‎2016-04-20

I Turned off Journaling and enabled CIFS writes and ran the NAS Test for the 400MB file, but for 1 itteration since it takes so long, it stil reports about the same for write speed. Read speeds are higher, but lower than what you are recording:

Running warmup...
Running a 400MB file write on S: once...
-----------------------------
Average (W): 4.96 MB/sec
-----------------------------
Running a 400MB file read on S: once...
-----------------------------
Average (R): 19.24 MB/sec
-----------------------------

Although I am only running 4.1.14. I have been waiting for 4.1.15 to be pushed to final before upgrading to it. Was hesitant on upgrading to a test firmware (T3), but if it makes that much of a performance different, I may have to.

StephenB · ‎2016-04-20

I don't think the speed difference is related to the beta firmware - all it has is a couple of security patches over 4.1.14.

You might want to do a backup and a factory reset - then rebuild the NAS and reload the data.

nitro001 · ‎2016-04-24

Sorry for the delayed reply, I had upgraded to 4.1.15-T3 without any changes; however, I got an idea.

I mounted the nas again on my machine using the Windows NFS Client and saw some slight improvement on write and DRASTIC improvement on read:

-----------------------------
Average (W): 6.01 MB/sec
-----------------------------
Running a 400MB file read on T: once...
-----------------------------
Average (R): 51.83 MB/sec
-----------------------------

Since I can use NFS, for now I will do this. I don't want to reset my NAS as I have a small percentage of stuff that isn't backed up. My NAS is 3TB, my backup drive for it is 2TB... so some of my media collection was excluded.

I will have to look at a new box to replace this and relegate this one as the backup.

Thanks again for all your help.

nitro001 · ‎2016-05-05

@StephenB wrote:
Your NV+ should be getting around 20 megabytes per second on large file transfer, not 1-2 megabits. Have you checked the disk health?

Any new NAS (including the entry-level RN104) will outperform your NV+.

If you are interested in transcoding with plex, get the RN214. If not, then perhaps the RN314 - it doesn't do real-time 1080p transcoding, but it does have lifetime chat support.

You can of course repurpose the NV+ for backup.

Sorry to bring this back up, but has anyone used Plex Server on the 214 or 314 NAS boxes? I was reading about it and it seems transcoding is locked to 480p on the 214. Most of my media is 720p or 1080p and would like to steam it to my Laptop and Fire TV Stick at full 720p or 1080p. Thanks.

JennC · ‎2016-05-06

Hello nitro001,

You might want to see this : PLEX NAS compatibility.

Regards,

StephenB · ‎2016-05-06

@nitro001 wrote:
I was reading about it and it seems transcoding is locked to 480p on the 214. Most of my media is 720p or 1080p and would like to steam it to my Laptop and Fire TV Stick at full 720p or 1080p.

Does plex need to transcode your video when you are streaming on your local network? Usually it won't, unless there is a codec incompatibility or a low-quality network connection.

nitro001 · ‎2016-05-12

Sorry for the late reply.

No on my local network no it doesn't need to transcode, and more than likely it wouldn't need to remote as I try to OpenVPN into my network. If it does on a remote network it would be from another high-speed network, not my phone as I don't want to waste data plan streaming video.

nitro001 · ‎2016-05-12

@JennC wrote:
Hello nitro001,

You might want to see this : PLEX NAS compatibility.

Regards,

I had seen this earlier and got a little confused about the wording:

NAS Make	NAS Model	CPU Type	CPU Model	Audio	SD (480p/576p)	HD (720P)	HD (1080P)	Notes
ReadyNAS	214	ARMv7	ARMv7 1.4Ghz Quad Core	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Real-time transcoding locked to 480p
ReadyNAS	314	x86	ATOM D2701 2.1GHz	Yes	Yes	No*	No	*May transcode some low bitrate 720p media

The 214 says yes for transcoding support for 720P and 1080P but says it is locked to 480p... how is that transcoding to 720p or 1080p if it is locked at 480p? At the same time, the 314 says no for 1080p and maybe for 720p (may transcode low bitrate)...

This was much easier way back when there was 2-3 models of ReadyNAS, a 2 bay, a 4 bay and a + model with LCD screen.

mdgm-ntgr · ‎2016-05-12

nitro001 wrote:

The 214 says yes for transcoding support for 720P and 1080P but says it is locked to 480p... how is that transcoding to 720p or 1080p if it is locked at 480p? At the same time, the 314 says no for 1080p and maybe for 720p (may transcode low bitrate)...

It is transcoding video from 1080p down to a locked output of 480p. It is transcoding 1080p video but to a locked resolution of 480p that is suitable e.g. for viewing remotely on your smartphone or possibly your tablet.

To transcode 1080p to 1080p you'd be looking at spending a lot more than you would on an RN214.

StephenB · ‎2016-05-13

@nitro001 wrote:

If it does on a remote network it would be from another high-speed network, not my phone as I don't want to waste data plan streaming video.

Well, it might not be a high-speed connection end-to-end. For instance, a hotel WiFi connection might be decent speed, but the hotel WAN connection can still become congested. Also, you are using your ISP's uplink - which for many people has a lot less bandwidth than the downlink.

Transcoding to SD resolution is a reasonable strategy for a remote connection (esp. for mobile device playback over wifi or cellular), but I agree it would not be ideal if the transcoding were needed to match codecs. But the only way I see around it is to host plex on a PC (mounting the NAS media shares as a drive letter on the PC).