Re: ReadyNas Pro6 Rx Dropped On Ethernet 1 (but not Ethernet 2)

nhelder · ‎2015-11-08

Hi, all~

I've been noticing poor performance on my LUN that's dedicated to a single Windows 10 VM in my VMware whitebox setup (that single LUN is the only thing shared off the ReadyNAS).

I've tried a number of different things without any real change in the poor performance (it's most noticeable when opening a folder with a lot of items: loading the last change date and other metadata takes a very long time): I've had jumbo frames on and off (they're currently off), I've had the NAS configured to be a WINS server and not (currently on), I've had IPv6 off and on (currently on), etc.

...one constant throughout all this is that I've had NIC Teaming enabled with Adaptive Load Balancing as the teaming mode.

Tonight I noticed an indicator as to where the problem might lie:

After a rebooting the device to apply RAIDator 4.2.28, Ethernet 1 has 1598 Rx Dropped errors, but Ethernet 2 has 0.

Underneath the "Standard Settings" page, the MAC address listed at the top of the page is for Ethernet 2.

In my router, under the ARP table, I have both the MAC address for Ethernet 1 and Ethernet 2 associated with the IP address of my NAS (10.0.0.2)... so I suppose it's possible(?) my router is sending requests to either of those two MAC addresses.

...what is the best practice in this case? - I thought by having both MACs associated with 10.0.0.2, I would be doing myself a favor - either MAC could fail and my router would still be able to direct traffic to the device. But, perhaps that's not the best logic to follow in this sort of case?

I did just now try removing the MAC address for Ethernet 1 from my ARP table and then rebooting the ReadyNAS and the router. Interestingly, out of 38031 Rx packets, Ethernet 1 has 144 errors, and out of 290 Rx packets, Ethernet 2 has 1 error.

There is one switch between my ReadyNAS and the VM in question.

I think my next step is to try replacing the network cable for Ethernet 1, but I'd be very interested to hear any other suggestions folks might have given the above.

Thanks in advance,

- Nathan

StephenB · ‎2015-11-09

I don't think you should be configuring both MACs to use the same IP address in the router. ALB already has some receive load balancing processing built in (adjusting the ARP replies in the Pro). So I'd leave that off.

I'd start by swapping the cables connections at the pro, and see if the problem shifts to ethernet-2.

nhelder · ‎2015-11-10

Well, I'm at a bit of a loss... I'm still using Adaptive Load Balancing and I'm seeing that:

With only Ethernet 1 connected, there's zero Rx Drops
With only Ethernet 2 connected, there's zero Rx Drops
With both connected, I start seeing drops again - but depending on ? it those drops can be showing up on one adapter or the other (but never both)

So, this has me thinking that it must be something up-stream - namely my router - that is at fault.

My NAS is configured (locally) for 10.0.0.2 and that IP is also reserved for the NAS within my router.

The router firmware I'm using (Shibby's Tomato) allows me to tie up to two MAC addresses to a single IP and choose whether they're "bound" or not:

However, it doesn't seem to matter if I specify only Eth1's MAC, only Eth2's MAC, both, or both bound: in every case I end up with one of the NICs getting a lot of Rx Drops.

So, from a lack of other options to try, I deleted the NAS line from the ARP table all together, shutdown the NAS, rebooted the router, attached both cables to the NAS, powered the NAS back up... and, I'm still seeing drops on Eth2.

...at this point, don't I think poking at the NAS as if it were a black box and trying different configurations is going to get the issue resolved.

Can anyone point me to where on the NAS there might be a log file that would give some indication of why these packets are being dropped? - presumably, there's some additional debugging to turn on to see the needed details?

Thanks again,

- Nathan

nhelder · ‎2015-11-12

Incidentally, I've resolved the performance issue originally observed with feedback from:

http://superuser.com/questions/738978/how-to-prevent-windows-explorer-from-slowly-reading-file-conte...

Specifically, telling Windows 10 to treat my "video" folder and subfolders as "General Items" rather than "Videos":

Right-click on top level of your video folder(s) > Properties > Customize (tab) > Select: Optimize this folder for: General Items > Check: Also apply this template to all subfolders]

That said, I am still interested in further researching the Rx Drops if anyone has further suggestions towards that end.

Thanks,

- Nathan