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I know this has been written about for many of the ReadyNAS servers, but I haven't seen it for exactly the same issues I'm having.
It's slllllloooooowwwwww. Get the point. It will take weeks to perform a Timemachine backup. Days to copy a TB folder from my Mac to my NAS and Days to write it back.
I've changed hard drives, cables, switches. It's slow with ALL of my computers, not just one. I've tried Jumbo Frames and normal size frames. I've tried with/without antivirus.
I thought I'd close this discussion with the final outcome.
I did open a ticket with Netgear. They did replace the unit. But it was still dreadfully slow. It must be something in their OS that makes writes of small files dreadfully slow. I even tried it on a high end Windows PC. Same slow speeds.
And I did once again verify that I did not have these slow speeds with an old Buffalo NAS that I still had lying around. I got between 30-45 MB/second with that vs the 1 MB/second with the Netgear NAS.
So I ended up purchasing a 5-bay USB-C drive enclosure to connect to my Mac. Of course, I get blazing speeds with this.
For now, I've put some old 3TB drives into the RN3138 and I've relegated it to be a backup NAS for my small computers.
If/when they ever fix this issue, I might come back. But I don't expect that to ever happen.
Also, download the log zip file from the NAS, and look at the packet statistics in network_settings.log. You can cut/paste them into a post here if you aren't sure what you are looking at.
Have you measured the speed for normal NAS access (not time machine)? If not, try copying a large file (perhaps 500 MB) in both directions, and let us know how fast that works.
BTW, is the NAS model in your first post correct? The RN3138 is a 4-bay rackmount model.
Well, apparently, it didn't like my first reply. I wasn't sure which network log file you needed, so I'm sending 2.
I copied a 507.9 MB file. I made 3 copies as follows:
1. Copied from my Thunderbolt 2 RAID array -> Thunderbolt 3 drive - 3 seconds.
2. Copied from my Thunderbolt 3 drive -> ReadyNAS - 8 seconds
3. Copied from my ReadyNAs -> Thunderbolt 3 drive - 6 seconds
None of those were bad.
I also noticed while looking at the logs, one of my other computers was trying to connect to the ReadyNAS and was being rejected because the account no longer existed. However, it was logging each of those attempts. That could have been slowing it down. So I recreated that account.
I will also copy a 1 TB folder to see how long that takes. That's where I've been having issues.
More info that I had put in my earlier reply that I forgot to add this time.
I am running (2) 12 TB drive in the RN3138. They are in a JBOD configuration. I previously had (4) 10 TB drive in it in a RAID 5 configuration (as I recall). But since they were running slowly, that's one of the changes I made to try to speed things up.
I copied a 507.9 MB file. I made 3 copies as follows:
1. Copied from my Thunderbolt 2 RAID array -> Thunderbolt 3 drive - 3 seconds.
2. Copied from my Thunderbolt 3 drive -> ReadyNAS - 8 seconds
3. Copied from my ReadyNAs -> Thunderbolt 3 drive - 6 seconds
So you are seeing about 65 MB/s write times and 85 MB/s read. Normally I'd expect 100 MB/sec in an RN3138 (from internal PC SSDs). Still, this should give you decent TM speeds.
I am running (2) 12 TB drive in the RN3138. They are in a JBOD configuration. I previously had (4) 10 TB drive in it in a RAID 5 configuration (as I recall). But since they were running slowly, that's one of the changes I made to try to speed things up.
What drives are you using (manufacturer and model)?
BTW, it's been nearly an hour since I started the copy of the 1+ TB folder. As I recall, it has more than 2 million files. After nearly an hour, it has only find 69,000+ files.
I did copy a 180 GB folder down yesterday. It took about 12 hours to copy.
BTW, it's been nearly an hour since I started the copy of the 1+ TB folder. As I recall, it has more than 2 million files. After nearly an hour, it has only find 69,000+ files.
I did copy a 180 GB folder down yesterday. It took about 12 hours to copy.
Lots of small files will be slower, but 12 hours for 180 GB is much slower than it should be.
No. Asking for information on the Mac just sits there and calculates. It's about 1.2 million files. It's at 141,000 files that it's found after 2:15. Still very slow.
It didn't use to. And I copied them from a USB hard drive to the Thunderbolt RAID in less than 2 hours total earlier this a.m. I'm now at 3:15 for it just to FIND 227,000 files. It hasn't even started copying yet.
The current transfer to the NAS is a straight copy (as opposed to Time Machine)?
You are using two NIC connections, but you don't appear to be using link aggregation - is that correct? If it is, then disconnecting the second port, and see if the speed improves.
Also, it would be helpful to know if your router and Mac also support the 9000 byte MTU you have configured.
After you've confirmed the Mac's MTU setting, try opening terminal and enter
ping -c 5 -D -s 8972 192.168.2.231
If you get
ping: sendto: Message too long
Then reset the MTU to 1500 on both the NAS and the Mac.
Is it an issue with full-duplex and that's why it needed to be 1/2?
It's not a duplex issue - the MTU (maximum transmission unit) is the largest packet size your network can handle. If you set it too large in the Mac or the NAS you'll end up with packet fragmentation and sometimes loss- both of which hurt performance.
9000 is too large for your network. There's something on the path that is limiting the size (probably a switch or router).
I also tried it back at MTU=1500 and changed -s to 1492. I also got that message.
So I cut -s to 740 and it worked fine.
So I went back to MTU=9000 and tried -s 4492. That worked fine.
Try setting the MTU back to 9000, and find the largest -s that doesn't get the message. Add 28 to that value, and you'll get the biggest MTU your network supports.
Alternatively, set the MTU back to 1500 and try -s=1472. That shouldn't give you the message (though -s=1492 will, as it is too big for that MTU).
The reason for the mismatch between MTU size and -s: The MTU size includes the 28 byte packet header for ping. The -s value only includes the payload size.
If you have older devices on your network that use fast ethernet (100 mbps link speed), you should stick with MTU=1500, as those devices can't handle anything larger.
The main speed benefit from larger MTUs comes from reducing the interrupts per second in the devices - since there are fewer packets per second with the larger size. There is a slight network efficiency gain, but it is inconsequential. So once you find the max MTU for your network, you should do a speed test with both MTU=1500 and MTU=max value. Just do a single large file transfer (500 MB for example). You want a test that consistently uses the larger packets, not one uses the mixed sizes.
The answer is 8164. But Ping tells me that it transmitted 8172, not 8192 as you would have thought.
I don't have a Mac, and the output does vary by platform. But I suspect that ping might be including the 8 byte ICMP header in it's output, but not the 20 byte IP header.
So if all your wired devices support jumbo frames you can test a single large file transfer (both read and write) with both MTU=8192 and MTU=1500 on both the NAS and the Mac, and see which gives you better performance. It'd be helpful to post those results here.
FWIW, if it's close I'd just stick with MTU=1500 (which is the ethernet standard).
If you go with MTU=8192, you can also repeat the ping test with -s=8164, just to confirm that it's working correctly.
