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GT-AX6000 Slow transfer speed from USB 3.0 to 2.5gbps wired PC

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radeon7750

Occasional Visitor
Hi,
I have connected a Strix Arion enclosure with 2TB Kingston NV1 SSD x4 M.2 2280 to my Asus GT-AX6000 router using usb 3.0.

-I connected my computer to the router using CAT6 cable supplied with the router.
-In my PC, I have installed an ASUS PCE-C2500 2.5GBase-T PCIe network card and it shows 2.5 gbps connected speed in Windows.
-the PC cable is plugged in 2.5 gbps LAN port on the router, the one next to the Wan 2.5 gbps port.
- using the latest firmware on the GT-AX6000 router (3.0.0.4.386_48377) and Windows 10 21H2 up to date on my PC.

Whenever I copy files from usb 3.0 attached Strix Arion SSD to my PC (using samba share) I only get speeds up to 122 MB/s.

Why can't I get full 2.5 gbps transfer speed?

What am I missing here?

On a sidenote, if I use the regular 1 Gig Lan port the router and the regular 1 gig network card on my pc, I get transfer speeds up to 107 MB/s.



 
Well, there is theoretical and real world USB 3 speeds.
Welcome to the real world! Still faster than USB 2.
 
Watch the CPU utilization on the router while a transfer is in progress. It’s the most likely bottleneck.
 
USB 3 = 5gbps
2.5gbps = 312.5 MB/s

With overhead I would say maybe 2.1 (262.5MB/s)-2.3gbps would be possible.

However the controller on the USB drive / enclosure could be the bottleneck. When you test it on your PC directly do you hit up to 800MB/s?

When I tested a bunch of NVME enclosures I came up with wide ranging results directly connected to my laptop. Depending on the controller / cache being used in the enclosure / cable / drive could be as low as 275MB/s using 10gbps connections.

Ultimately using the Plugable enclosure with the RTL9210 I was able to hit consistent 600-800MB/s with the Nekteck cable.

As others mentioned it's probably a bottleneck in the router limiting the speeds to ~1gbps. It could also be a QOS limitation on the router as I've run into that over WIFI on my AP even though it's backhaul is 2.5gbps Ethernet. There's quite a bit of potential gremlins to the equation of trying to get full speeds from network connected data. Testing from another PC w/ the drive plugged in would be more reliable than off the router itself.

I built a DIY router/NAS though to get around this limitation of off the shelf junk. In a Raid 10 format, wired @ 5gbps I can hit 400MB/s+(~3.5gbps) which is a spinner speed limitation which is why I went with 5GE over 10GE in design.
 
USB 3 = 5gbps
2.5gbps = 312.5 MB/s

With overhead I would say maybe 2.1 (262.5MB/s)-2.3gbps would be possible.

However the controller on the USB drive / enclosure could be the bottleneck. When you test it on your PC directly do you hit up to 800MB/s?

When I tested a bunch of NVME enclosures I came up with wide ranging results directly connected to my laptop. Depending on the controller / cache being used in the enclosure / cable / drive could be as low as 275MB/s using 10gbps connections.

Ultimately using the Plugable enclosure with the RTL9210 I was able to hit consistent 600-800MB/s with the Nekteck cable.

As others mentioned it's probably a bottleneck in the router limiting the speeds to ~1gbps. It could also be a QOS limitation on the router as I've run into that over WIFI on my AP even though it's backhaul is 2.5gbps Ethernet. There's quite a bit of potential gremlins to the equation of trying to get full speeds from network connected data. Testing from another PC w/ the drive plugged in would be more reliable than off the router itself.

I built a DIY router/NAS though to get around this limitation of off the shelf junk. In a Raid 10 format, wired @ 5gbps I can hit 400MB/s+(~3.5gbps) which is a spinner speed limitation which is why I went with 5GE over 10GE in design.
Yes, when I connect the enclosure directly to my pc, I get constant transfer speeds between 700 and 800 MB/s for a 50 GB file. So the drive/enclosure is not the bottleneck.
 
I have done another test and kept an eye on the CPU this time. Only one core reached 100%. The other 3 cores hovered around 20 - 35 %.

 
While I have not connected a 2.5G USB network adapter to the GT-AX6000, I did to the RT-AX86U and I only got 1G connectivity, so I would expect similar slowness from a USB drive connected to an ASUS router.
 
There you go. Samba is probably single-threaded, so it can only exploit one core.
If so, shouldn't the other 3 cores have stayed idle?
What is more, on my previous router,the AC56U (dual core cpu), transfering files over LAN stressed both cores to the max. Hence, I don't believe this is true.

Bad/ inefficient firmware optimization seems more plauzible to me so far, imho.

And this is why I usually ignore or respond with don't use your router as a NAS.
Why not? I paid big bucks for this router. I expect nothing less from it. I used my previous router AC56U as a NAS for more than 8 years and it delivered what it promised and I was satisfied with it for all those years. (50 - 55 MB/s transfer rates in 2013 seemed great to me at the time...) . Fast forward to 2022, spending 4 times more money :eek::eek::eek:and not getting nowhere near advertised transfer rates is disappointing !:(
 
Has anybody here connected a 2.5Gbps (or above) NAS to the GT-AX6000 and tried transfering files over LAN? I would like to find out what transfer rates they got.
 
Has anybody here connected a 2.5Gbps (or above) NAS to the GT-AX6000 and tried transfering files over LAN? I would like to find out what transfer rates they got.
That's going to be totally different as it's handled by the ASIC and not the CPU.

Routers don't perform as a NAS very well because they're not supposed to. They're built to send and recent packets.
 
If so, shouldn't the other 3 cores have stayed idle?
No, Dave is correct. Samba is single threaded so that becomes the bottleneck with one core at 100%. The other cores will be running other processes during the file transfer, mostly the switch code (bcmsw_rx) and some USB i/o.

You can see this for yourself by SSH'ing into the router and running top and then press 1 to show the individual core usage.
 
Routers don't perform as a NAS very well because they're not supposed to. They're built to send and recent packets.

Agreed, and it does an amazing job as a router, I am stunned by how powerful and good it is. It is just that Usb to LAN transfer that has not yet risen to my expectations.

That's going to be totally different as it's handled by the ASIC and not the CPU.

You were right. It is different story. I tested transfering a 2 GB file from my laptop with AX wi-fi to my wired 2.5 gbps PC. The result is within my expectations.

 
I am stunned by how powerful and good it is

RPi-like hardware with limited RAM. Good for a router as long as NAT acceleration is enabled. Otherwise the CPU can't process >400Mbps. This is how "powerful" home routers are. If you want more, you have to look at x86 firewall options. Different price range though.
 

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