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Browser DLs 2x fast as SMB file copies of same file

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civuck

Occasional Visitor
I am a new owner of the ASUS RT-AC66U and have it running the official 3.0.0.4.270 firmware.

I also have the ASUS PCE-AC66 PCI-E card.

I've just come to the very odd discovery that transfer speeds are nearly double when I login to my Synology NAS and download files with the browser (Firefox), versus doing a basic file copy in Win7 over SMB share.

This is as reported by the RT-AC66U built-in traffic monitor tool and copying/downloading the exact same file.

With Firefox, files are downloading at an average of around 35 to 40 MB/s which I understand is about what should be expected.

With a basic Win7 file copy over SMB, I am seeing speeds of 12 to 15 MB/s.

This phenomena is completely reproducible.

To illustrate, here is a screenshot from the traffic monitor tool of the same file being copied twice from my NAS: the first time as a Firefox download and the second time as a Win7 file copy over SMB:

2me5s7c.jpg


Any thoughts would be appreciated.
 
Samba is known to have performance issues.

There are a lot of ways you can tweak the socket options:
http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/speed.html
Thank you for the response.

However, Samba transfer speeds for the same file from my NAS over a wired connection are much higher. In fact they are about the same as the Firefox download speed over Wireless-AC.

Browser download from NAS over Wireless-AC: 35 to 40 MB/s
Samba file copy from NAS over Wireless-AC: 12 to 15 MB/s
Samba file copy from NAS over Wired: 40 to 45 MB/s

These results are testing with the same file coming off my NAS and the results are the same each time attempted.

So as near as I can tell, at least in my setup, there is a clear performance issue with Samba file copies over Wireless-AC. It's not clear why or if this is with the adapter/driver or the router.
 
If you have a look at the page I linked to they are mentioning slow ACK from Windows clients. This could mean that the latency for a wireless connection affects the transfer speed negatively because ACKs are delayed even more.

The server will only send a limited number of packets and then wait for confirmation from the client that the packets have been delivered.
 
Interestingly, since I posted that first speed graph in this thread, I have not seen any download speeds higher than about 21MB/s. This despite downloading the exact same file and not making a single change to my setup.

Something is limiting the speed despite having a good connection with a link of 877Mbps+ and no other neighboring signals in the 5ghz band. It seems like it is simply not up-shifting or throttling up to anything higher despite getting much higher speeds the day before as that graph illustrates.

I'm completely stumped as to what is causing this.
 
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Try adding your NAS ip address to your local intranet sites and verify that Automatically Detect Settings under Internet Options -> Connections -> Lan Settings is OFF
 
Interestingly, since I posted that first speed graph in this thread, I have not seen any download speeds higher than about 21MB/s. This despite downloading the exact same file and not making a single change to my setup.

Something is limiting the speed despite having a good connection with a link of 877Mbps+ and no other neighboring signals in the 5ghz band. It seems like it is simply not up-shifting or throttling up to anything higher despite getting much higher speeds the day before as that graph illustrates.

I'm completely stumped as to what is causing this.

I have exactly the same problem than you. However I am not so lucky than you was, my top speed with an AC66U + WD MyBookLiveDuo 4TB combo and a PCE-AC66 was 18Mbyte/sec (With wired connection the WD produces 40Mbyte/s write and 80Mbyte/s read speed). I am using the 5GHz frequency and channel 36(tried 48 too). When I measured the 18Mbyte/sec speed through Samba, the ftp connection produced 36Mbyte/s speed between the computer and the NAS....

Can you please share your AC66u wireless settings and the operating system that you use?

Ps: The PCE-AC66 report 702 - 866Mbps connection speed, the signal strength is around 48-56 db(I am the only one who use the 5G frequency).

Thanks,
P.
 
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I have exactly the same problem than you. However I am not so lucky than you was, my top speed with an AC66U + WD MyBookLiveDuo 4TB combo and a PCE-AC66 was 18Mbyte/sec (With wired connection the WD produces 40Mbyte/s write and 80Mbyte/s read speed). I am using the 5GHz frequency and channel 36(tried 48 too). When I measured the 18Mbyte/sec speed through Samba, the ftp connection produced 36Mbyte/s speed between the computer and the NAS....

Can you please share your AC66u wireless settings and the operating system that you use?

Ps: The PCE-AC66 report 702 - 866Mbps connection speed, the signal strength is around 48-56 db(I am the only one who use the 5G frequency).
Sounds like you've done better than me for speed with Samba transfers as mine are averaging 13 MB/s as reported by Windows; I haven't tried an FTP transfer yet from my NAS.

My PCE-AC66 adapter is setup on channel 149 with a signal strength of -43 dbm and a date rate between 877 and 1300Mbps. I've left the Tx Power at the default 80mW on the configuration screen.

By the way, ever notice the really bad typos on the the PCE-AC66 utility: "Tansmitted" and "Receivce"?
 
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Sounds like you've done better than me for speed with Samba transfers as mine are averaging 13 MB/s as reported by Windows; I haven't tried an FTP transfer yet from my NAS.

My PCE-AC66 adapter is setup on channel 149 with a signal strength of -43 dbm and a date rate between 877 and 1300Mbps. I've left the Tx Power at the default 80mW on the configuration screen.

By the way, ever notice the really bad typos on the the PCE-AC66 utility: "Tansmitted" and "Receivce"?

Well, for this transfer speed I had to modify/fine tune the WD SMB.conf file. Earlier the speed was around 15-16Mbyte/s.
 
What sort of mods did you make to smb.conf ?

strict allocate = yes
log level = 0
read raw = yes
write raw = yes
oplocks = yes
max xmit = 65535
getwd cache = yes
disable netbios = yes
sync always = no
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_RCVBUF=65536 SO_SNDBUF=65536
 
Actually I found an even better solution:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...-slow-through-explorer-but-ok-through-firefox

I disabled the socket parameters (socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_RCVBUF=65536 ) and the write speed increased from my computer to my NAS (over AC connection) to 36Mbyte/s!
Read speed is 51Mbyte/s!
My write speeds from my PC to my Synology NAS over Wireless AC are very slow - about 10 to 12 MB/s And that's using the Firefox browser to do the upload, not Samba.
 

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