VERY slow file transfer to QNAP TS-453Be

[gustavo1spbr]

- Experiencing < 20MB/s transfer from desktop computer to NAS with very large file (> 256GB), when expected would be full Gigabit speeds (~125MB/s)

- QNAP system is 16GB RAM and 4 HDDs in RAID5 (raw write performance in this configuration should be the same as of a single hard drive, ie ~150MB/s).

- QNAP also includes 512GB NVMe SSD working as cache, which should prevent write bottlenecks.

- Low CPU and memory usage of both computer and NAS

- Tested with different CAT5e cables and router ports

- All hard drives and SSD reporting OK on SMART test

- Already stopped most services on QNAP in order to prevent competing hard disk access

- Same file transfer to much older Synology that sits side by side on the desk maxes out the Gigabit connection (~125MB/s), therefore ruling out bottlenecks on the computer or router

Any ideas what could be happening? Thank you.

 

[sfx2000]

Check your SMB version settings on the QNAP - default is pretty conservative...

 

[gustavo1spbr]

I think I know what is happening. I'm using cheaper SMR drives instead of standard CMR. I did not know what that meant when I bought them in 2019, and they worked flawlessly for a good number of years. But now as the NAS is getting full, these drives write performance suffer *A LOT* due to their complicated writing characteristics. Only found out what SMR is while researching for what could be going on. Will have them replaced ASAP for CMR disks.

Good reference:

What are PMR and SMR hard disk drives? - Synology Bilgi Merkezi

Synology Knowledge Center; sık sorulan soru yanıtlarını, sorun giderme adımlarını, yazılım eğitimlerini ve ihtiyaç duyabileceğiniz tüm teknik belgeleri de içeren kapsamlı bir destek sunar.

kb.synology.com

 

[Tech Junky]

SMR

That would impact speed a bit since they have to restructure data to make room. I don't think it would decrease by 80% though.

 

[degrub]

What is the actual ethernet cable link rate ?
1,000 or 100 Mbit/sec ?

load the nas and a hardwired recent spec pc .use parallel streams and run it both directions

that will give you an idea if it is the nas board or ethernet port.
if it looks up to spec, then it may be the disk or disk mechanical interface.

 

[gustavo1spbr]

I was convinced the culprits were the SMR drives (Seagate Barracudas) getting full and therefore showing much slower write performance due to the limitations of SMR technology.
The whole adapter/router/switch/cabling setup are 1 gigagit and I do get gigabit speeds on a much older Synology DS-713+ using the same desktop, router and cable set (I switched the cables to make sure the cables were not the problem)
I ended up removing the 4 drives and redoing everything. Lost 10TB of data plus 5TB of snapshots, but had backup. Now I have 2 volumes, one with two Seagate Exos in RAID0 and another with two of the original four Barracudas, also in RAID0. Both are running fine at gigabit speeds.
I even took these SMR drives out and connected them locally in my desktop, and they wrote just fine at their top 180MB/s. But to do so, they had to be erased first, so I could never know for sure if the problem was because they were getting full AND in a RAID5 setup.
I think the cultprit must have been a combination of the SMR drives getting full and them being in a RAID5 arrangement, which also increases write count due to the parity calculations.
Interestingly, when these drives were new and near empty, even though they are SMR and were in a RAID5 setup, write speeds were at gigabit speeds (100-125MB/s). But got severely depleted afterwards.
Since I have external backup of the data, I will leave these drives in RAID0 as I will be upgrading my network and NAS to 5/10Gb very soon.

 

[Tech Junky]

will be upgrading my network and NAS to 5/10Gb very soon.

Good to see you got the speed back. I didn't think the SMR issue would be that impactful though.

If you're going to upgrade you should consider building your own with a PC to avoid costly unit replacements each time you decide to up your NAS game. It allows for as many drives as you want and NIC upgrades as needed for higher bandwidth. All you need is Linux, NIC, drives. This unlocks the full potential of the drives and if you regularly DL things to the NAS you can bypass the pipe and do it directly and only restricted by the ISP speed. Of course most NAS traffic is LAN based. If you do playback of video though having a full fledged CPU helps if you need to transcode to a different format.

 

[gustavo1spbr]

Good to see you got the speed back. I didn't think the SMR issue would be that impactful though.

If you're going to upgrade you should consider building your own with a PC to avoid costly unit replacements each time you decide to up your NAS game. It allows for as many drives as you want and NIC upgrades as needed for higher bandwidth. All you need is Linux, NIC, drives. This unlocks the full potential of the drives and if you regularly DL things to the NAS you can bypass the pipe and do it directly and only restricted by the ISP speed. Of course most NAS traffic is LAN based. If you do playback of video though having a full fledged CPU helps if you need to transcode to a different format.

Thanks! We are moving to a different topic... for years I have been considering this, but having started my NAS journey with turnkey solutions (QNAP and Synology), I ended up sticking to it, despite ending up paying a premium and getting weak processors. I would like to try TRUENAS or UNRAID (although I like RAID for speed) on a PC setup, but would need a compact and quiet build supporting multiple HDs. Is there a setup you would suggest? Essentially I think I would need a mini PC plugged to a multi-HD container that could run RAID arrays. I'm now moving to 10GbE, so my HDs need to be in RAID0 to provide both speed and high capacity (need 20TB +). I think SSDs still not an option when we need that much capacity (open to be shown otherwise).

 

[Tech Junky]

I just went silent with all nvme drives. For small size there are a few options depending on HDD vs nvme. There are even options that kind of look like a NAS with a bunch of bays on the front.

https://a.co/d/4Yqhtrk $189

It all depends on how you want to setup things though. Using WD Red 8TB drives I couldn't hear them unless I put my ear on them. Different drives though have different acoustics.

I use just plain Ubuntu and EXT4 for the file system. Getting into weird things like ZFS and pools and BTRFS is nonsense unless you're into making things more difficult than they need to be.

The obvious issue though is with SATA you need enough ports on the MOBO to support the disks or use HBA cards to get more ports. The case I linked above micro ATX though can find boards with 8 ports on them fairly easily. I was using an ASRock board in a Node 804 just fine w/ 5 drives and even the 804 is compact w/o the drive bays on the front in a more refined cube appearance.

If you want to keep it simple you can use normal PC cases and just put all of your stuff inside. A good case for tons of drives is the Meshify 2. It has a rack inside for 13 HDDs to be mounted to and plenty of room for fans to keep it chilly.

If you want to segregate things w/ a mPC and enclosure you can but, performance might be compromised depending on what you pick and how it connects. If I were going that route I would use a DAS that gets full throughput over USBC 10gbps.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KY73BNQ/?tag=snbforums-20 - $180 / 4 bays has reviews showing 400MB/s+ which is what they would do internally in Raid 10 anyway.

If you want to hit higher speeds but retrain capacity per drive there's the SSD option in the 2.5" format. It will cost more than HDD but it will be silent and light in terms of weight. Easier to get creative w/ cases that are more compact using some double sided tape to put them in places w/o mounts.

It all depends on how much you want to spend and how fast you want it to be. The good thing is the CPU isn't the priority since moving data isn't a heavy load. RAM might factor into things if you over complicate it w/ ZFS but, I have 16GB in my setup and it rarely uses more than 2GB when moving data around. There's a ton of different ways to do things like this depending on how you approach it.

 

[gustavo1spbr]

Wow, thanks! Quite extensive! I liked the (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KY73BNQ/?tag=snbforums-20), would pair well with a mini PC for an independent NAS setup. I found these enclosures quite large though, considering they do not carry the computing parts, but only the HDDs. I like the idea of a proper NAS OS, like TrueNAS, for an easy centralized and remote management as well as mobile apps for administration. I also like BTRFS for its efficient snapshotting ability. Some setups have been delivering it with stability for quite some time (mostly Synology). Don't know what Linux distro has the best BTRFS implementation for an independent build. I hear OpenSUSE but I don't like it anymore. Mint delivers a stable BTRFS implementation too, would probably be the way to go. My EXT4 setup on QNAP used almost a third of the total storage for the snapshots alone. I understand TrueNAS uses ZFS, which requires 16GB+ of RAM, but I would be OK with that requirement. Just thinking out loud.

 

[Tech Junky]

Apps for accessing things are a security issue. DDNS and knowing your IP and then mapping it to the storage is a better idea.

6.77 x 5.03 x 8.85 inches isn't really all that big compared to putting the drives internal to a PC case. Of course it's smaller and you could plop a mini PC on top to be a smaller footprint if you need to keep things small. Considering 4 x 3.5" drives and then put some plastic over them and a backplane for the drives and you have the DAS. The reason for that particular model is all others have 1/2 the throughput over USBC or use archaic USBB.

All of the NAS centric options can be implemented with apps to support the NAS functions. Being Pidgeon holed into a specific setup can be cumbersome as time goes on. Being agnostic allows you to build onto things easier if you want to add functionality / hosting to the data. It's goin to be a bit of a learning curve at first if you haven't used Linux but, once it's setup you can leave it alone. The only thing to keep tabs on is kernel updates to patch things up and that's a simple procedure.