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Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

ScottChapman
Apprentice

Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

So, thought this was just an issue with EXT4, but reformatted to EXT3 and am still getting ridiculously slow write performance.

Any ideas on how to make it more reasonable? I see that barrier=1 is in mtab.
Message 1 of 22
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

What write speeds are you getting?

How are you writing to the USB disk? From your PC?
Message 2 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

I am doing an RSYNC backup on the NAS and seeing about 4MB/sec. Should be getting about 10x that. So disk-to-disk on the NAS.

ESATA not USB.

I was running NTFS for a while (before frontpanel formatting was available) and was getting about 40MB/sec.

'm guessing it is combo of journaling, barrier=1 and data=ordered. I think some of this can be tweaked with tunefs but other parts are managed by setup_usb_storage (from what I can tell)

Any advice?
Message 3 of 22
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

Rsync is CPU intensive.

The use of Rsync explains the performance. Rsync is great for incremental backups (especially over the internet) as it only has to copy the changes to files across.
Message 4 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

I think it is more than that, like I said I was getting around 40MB/sec when I was running the same backup command to the same drive formatted with NTFS
Message 5 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

... and I am seeing worse performance when I am using tar to copy the files.
Message 6 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

Out of curiosity what's the commands to format as either NTFS or EXT4 from the command-line? I am getting somewhat flaky results using the frontend to format. Want to try going back to NTFS just to confirm above.
Message 7 of 22
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

There are commands such as mkfs.ntfs, mkfs.ext4 etc.
Message 8 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

OK, thanks. I tried formatting to NTFS in frontpanel, frontpanel shows it is formatted NTFS, but device isn't mounted (/media is empty). I tried rebooting but it still didn't mount (and still shows as formatted NTFS)

What would the command look like to format exactly? And once formatted how would it get mounted? Or would I just restart after formatting and let the system recognize it?
Message 9 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

And I do see "External storage device is connected but the filesystem is not recognized" as most recent entry in log.

But like I said, it shows as NTFS in the front panel.

root@Storage:~# sgdisk -p /dev/sdg
Disk /dev/sdg: 5860533168 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 0402E486-EC37-4D7F-B4C6-7A5BEAF28BE6
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860533134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2925 sectors (1.4 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 5860532223 2.7 TiB 0700 Basic data partition
Message 10 of 22
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

Not sure what options we use, but you can do

# mkfs.ntfs --help

to see options you can use
Message 11 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

Yea I was right. NTFS is showing about 35-40MB/sec

So, any recommendations on EXT4 formatting options to try?
Message 12 of 22
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

I will try to find out what may be causing this from product engineering.
Message 13 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

I turned off journaling and that appears to help a lot. Barrier=1 might also be an issue, but that is a mount option... So, I don't think I can easily mess with that.

For what its worth I *think* the problem doesn't exist on the Pro series. I am doing the same backup scheme (except USB3) on my dad's Pro series machine, formatted to EXT4, and it performs like a champ.
Message 14 of 22
TonV
Aspirant

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

Are you sure data compression is switched off when using rsync?

Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk
Message 15 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

Yes. rsync -a same command I have always been using for making my backups. More specifically:
rsync -a --progress --exclude="*/snapshot" --log-file=backup.log /data/* data
Message 16 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

OK, so I compared my OS6.2.1 system (slow) with my Pro 2 system (fast), and there are differences:

Mounting Options:
Pro2:
/dev/sdd5 /USB/USB_HDD_3 ext4 rw,noatime,acl,barrier=1,nodelalloc,data=journal 0 0

316:
/dev/sdg1 /media/ESATA_HDD_10 ext4 rw,sync,noatime,nodiratime,user_xattr,barrier=1 0 0


And File System Features:
Pro2:
Filesystem features:      has_journal ext_attr filetype needs_recovery extent flex_bg sparse_super large_file huge_file extra_isize

316:
Filesystem features: ext_attr resize_inode dir_index filetype extent flex_bg sparse_super large_file huge_file uninit_bg dir_nlink extra_isize


NOTE: on my 316 I removed journaling from my FS which helped.
Message 17 of 22
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

I assume from the above you have SSH access to your NAS?

You could try adding

DISABLE_USB_SYNC=1

to your /etc/default/services file, unplugging the USB disk, then reattaching it.

Note, with this option in use you will need to make sure you cleanly eject your USB drives before unplugging them.
Message 18 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

Uh, sure I can try that. Though I think I was on the right track with the FS/mounting options. Just disabling journaling brought things from 4MB/sec up to about 30 or so MB/sec

Will need to re-enable journaling and try this. Will report back.
Message 19 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

is there a way to detach/reattach via command line?

Also, I am assuming this just affects whether or not the drive write cache is used? I'm not sure that's the issue, since I am seeing 40+MB/sec when I format the same drive on the same NAS with NTFS.
Message 20 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

(retracted a few posts)

OK, so it appeared to be running MUCH faster. And I am quite certain it was. It wrote about 400G in just a couple of hours (or so).

But now... It appears very slow again.

Back to low single digit MB/hour.
Message 21 of 22
ScottChapman
Apprentice

Re: Write performance on EXT3/EXT4 is REALLY SLOW!

... and just rebooted NAS and it is wicked fast again...
Message 22 of 22
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