Question How to place my Asustor NAS between PC and switch

[MegaDamo]

Hiya,

i have the following kit...

1) Windows 10 PC with 10Gbe network card
2) Asustor Nimbuster AS5304T NAS with two 2.5Gbe Ethernet ports
3) A network switch with only 1Gbe Ethernet ports- connected to my router

The NAS is new.

If I connect the NAS to the switch, all is fine but then the PC will only be able to communicate at 1Gbe with the NAS.

So I tried connecting the PC to NAS port 1, and NAS port 2 to the switch. When I do so the PC can see the NAS but cannot see the world beyond the NAS, e.g. no internet etc.

I think I need to make my NAS perform as a virtual switch, but I don’t know how.

Any help would be gratefully received.

 

[mxnerd]

I wonder how loud that fan is...a single tiny fan

Datasheet says it's only 21db at 25°C

 

[mxnerd]

Asustor AS5304T does support SMB 3.0

https://www.asustor.com/materials/datasheet/Datasheet_AS5304T_US%20ENG.pdf

 

[sdifox]

Datasheet says it's only 21db at 25°C

View attachment 17756

That's good. My Baystack 5525 sounds like death metal

 

[mxnerd]

That's good. My Baystack 5525 sounds like death metal

How old is that stuff? 😛

And how much wattage?

Why do you need 48 port gigabit switch at home?

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Asustor AS5304T does support SMB 3.0

https://www.asustor.com/materials/datasheet/Datasheet_AS5304T_US%20ENG.pdf

Unfortunately, all the cool SMB 3.0 features (SMB Direct, Transparent Failover, Multichannel, etc), are optional parts of the spec, and the vast majority of systems out there outside Windows don't support it, especially because Microsoft left some operations around Oplocking vague until 2019. NetApp only started supporting it last year. Same with RedHat. Except for some boutique startup Storage vendors, solid non-experimental support for multichannel has been non-existent.

Unless that NAS explicitly called out SMB 3.0 Multichannel support, I doubt it's there

 

[sdifox]

How old is that stuff? 😛

And how much wattage?

Why do you need 48 port gigabit switch at home?

Cuz I can? It's poe :awe:

 

[SamirD]

...so I can link aggregate the NAS to the switch giving 5Gbe and then run 10Gbe to the PC (5Gbe NET speed).

If you're looking into link aggregation, static IPs are a walk in the park.

And you have to remember, your nas will actually need to be able to transfer files in excess of 333MB/s (megabyte, not megabit) to exceed the 2.5Gbit bandwidth. While this is possible by a nas, if yours can't, at 2.5Gbps link directly to your 10GB card will work great.

 

[SamirD]

Why do you need 48 port gigabit switch at home?

Ummm...maybe they have 48 things to plug in? I know my parents patch panel has over 48 runs on it, and all of them even haven't been terminated as of yet.

 

[Arkaign]

If you're looking into link aggregation, static IPs are a walk in the park.

And you have to remember, your nas will actually need to be able to transfer files in excess of 333MB/s (megabyte, not megabit) to exceed the 2.5Gbit bandwidth. While this is possible by a nas, if yours can't, at 2.5Gbps link directly to your 10GB card will work great.

This is a good point. There are a lot of ARM and Atom based NAS models out there that actually aren't terribly fast.

It's important to know which one, what the real world performance is, if the CPU and/or Memory on the device are upgradable, and of course if there are notable firmware updates for the NAS which are critical for security or stability aspects.

 

[MegaDamo]

Ok, so I finally found time to take another look at this. Im very grateful to all for your advice and comments

Sdifox, I followed you advice, albeit have not manually altered any IP settings as of yet.

I should clarify that the 'switch' I have at the PC/NAS end is actually a two port AV2000 Powerline adapter (TP-Link TL-PA9020P). Seems to work fine as a two port switch.

1. PC (NIC 1, 1Gbe) to AV2000 (1Gbe Port 1)
2. Asustor NAS (2.5Gbe Port 1) to AV2000 #1 (1Gbe Port 2)
3. Asustor NAS (2.5Gbe Port 2) to PC (NIC 2, 10Gbe)
4. AV2000 #1 (via mains) to AV2000 #2
5. AV2000 #2 (1Gbe) to my ISP's Router (1Gbe)

My NAS contains the following:

1. One Toshiba N300, 4Tb mechanical NAS grade hard drive
2. One Cache drive (Nine year old Crucial 256Gb SATAIII SSD)- not visable to users, cache only

Here are the CrystalDiskMark results from my PC to NAS (unencrypted folder):


And here are the results for a folder encrypted by and on the NAS:


Not bad right?

The NAS to PC IP adresses are totally different to all others on the network- start with 169 instead of 192. Is this why it works?

Now, at the router end, things are not so good. I'm seeing maybe 10% of the above on my laptop (WiFi or ethernet). The AV2000 PL adapers have only previously been used to connect my PC to the router for the internet really, which is only 300 Mbps. So this might be a bottleneck I haven't noticed before- need to investigate further.

Would love to hear what you make of the above, especially speed and IP addresses.

Cheers,

Damo

 

[sdifox]

Ok, so I finally found time to take another look at this. Im very grateful to all for your advice and comments

Sdifox, I followed you advice, albeit have not manually altered any IP settings as of yet.

I should clarify that the 'switch' I have at the PC/NAS end is actually a two port AV2000 Powerline adapter (TP-Link TL-PA9020P). Seems to work fine as a two port switch.

1. PC (NIC 1, 1Gbe) to AV2000 (1Gbe Port 1)
2. Asustor NAS (2.5Gbe Port 1) to AV2000 #1 (1Gbe Port 2)
3. Asustor NAS (2.5Gbe Port 2) to PC (NIC 2, 10Gbe)
4. AV2000 #1 (via mains) to AV2000 #2
5. AV2000 #2 (1Gbe) to my ISP's Router (1Gbe)

My NAS contains the following:

1. One Toshiba N300, 4Tb mechanical NAS grade hard drive
2. One Cache drive (Nine year old Crucial 256Gb SATAIII SSD)- not visable to users, cache only

Here are the CrystalDiskMark results from my PC to NAS (unencrypted folder):
View attachment 17796

And here are the results for a folder encrypted by and on the NAS:
View attachment 17797

Not bad right?

The NAS to PC IP adresses are totally different to all others on the network- start with 169 instead of 192. Is this why it works?

Now, at the router end, things are not so good. I'm seeing maybe 10% of the above on my laptop (WiFi or ethernet). The AV2000 PL adapers have only previously been used to connect my PC to the router for the internet really, which is only 300 Mbps. So this might be a bottleneck I haven't noticed before- need to investigate further.

Would love to hear what you make of the above, especially speed and IP addresses.

Cheers,

Damo

yes, two different subnets. expensive solution for 4TB

 

[mxnerd]

The performance from PC to NAS is absolutely not bad. The bottleneck will be AV2000 power line adapters.

Power line adapter will never achieve the max speed it claims. There are just too much noises on the power line.

OP needs to use wired ethernet or coaxial MOCA adapters.

 

[SamirD]

So a couple of things stand out right away.

One is that you are getting those speeds because of the direct link between the PC and the NAS over the other IP addresses. However, only the 192.168.x.x, 172.16.x.x and 10.x.x.x addresses are not publicly registered, while 169.x.x.x is. So the problem you can run into is when 169.x.x.x resolves to a site you want to visit, it will instead try to go to your nas and error out. What I would have used for your nas-pc link is a 172.16.x.x or 10.x.x.x address. This way it is completely different than the 192.168.x.x addresses and still private.

Two is that while those speeds are great for being over a network, they are the exact same I get from a WD Easystore usb external. There are cheaper ways to share the storage than setting up a NAS like you have. However, if this is the start of something bigger to come, you're definitely off to a great start as just adding a second drive and third drive and redoing the raid level will give you much higher speeds that can approach nvme ssd speeds on a 10Gb network like you have.

The powerlines are definitely going to be a weak link for sure. If you have coax, I would look at using moca versus powerlines, especially the 2.5Gbps moca units that are now on the market. This would completely remove the bottleneck as moca can run full 1Gbps speed.

 

[mxnerd]

Missed the 169 IP part. It's likely an APIPA IP address starts with 169.254 (a private IP range). It happens when there is no DHCP server on that network segment.

Definition of APIPA

What does APIPA actually mean? Find out inside PCMag's comprehensive tech and computer-related encyclopedia.

www.pcmag.com

APIPA - Automatic Private IP Addressing

APIPA is short for Automatic Private IP Addressing, a feature of Windows operating systems, meant for non-routed small business environments, usually less

www.webopedia.com

It's absolutely not ideal to use APIPA addresses to establish connection between devices, it's only for temporary solution.

OP need to set static IP addresses on NAS NIC2 2.5Gbps port and PC 10Gbps NIC. Use 10.x.x.x or 172.16.x.x suggested by SamirD. Do not set any gateway on NAS's NIC2 and PC's NIC2 though, leave them blank.

Ex.
NAS IP 10.1.1.1 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 no gateway
PC IP 10.1.1.2 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 no gateway
No DNS servers need to be set.

PC can communicate with outside world through NIC1 (192.168.x.x) without problem.

 

[SamirD]

Missed the 169 IP part. It's likely an APIPA IP address starts with 169.254 (a private IP range). It happens when there is no DHCP server on that network segment.

Definition of APIPA

What does APIPA actually mean? Find out inside PCMag's comprehensive tech and computer-related encyclopedia.

www.pcmag.com

APIPA - Wireshark Wiki

It's absolutely not ideal to use APIPA addresses to establish connection between devices, it's only for temporary solution.

OP need to set static IP addresses on NAS NIC2 2.5Gbps port and PC 10Gbps NIC. Use 10.x.x.x or 172.16.x.x suggested by SamirD. Do not set any gateway on NAS's NIC2 and PC's NIC2 though, leave them blank.

Ex.
NAS IP 10.1.1.1 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 no gateway
PC IP 10.1.1.2 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 no gateway
No DNS servers need to be set.

PC can communicate with outside world through NIC1 (192.168.x.x) without problem.

Good point on the APIPA address--that didn't occur to me at all.

 

[MegaDamo]

I could be wrong but I think the NAS might have been acting as a DHCP server in the direct to PC Ethernet.

Ive changed a couple of things:

1) Set the NAS to PC IP addresses as you suggested MXNerd. This was a breeze on the NAS, but surprisingly a pain on Windows- I found the Windows 10 network panel would not accept my change of IP address, it was only when I went into the old control panel interface where could do this, no idea why.

2) I went into the router settings and reserved IP addresses for the remaining PC and NAS ports by putting in two rules for the corresponding MAC addresses. I just assigned the IP addresses that the routers DHCP had already given these devices. I’ve then allowed these NICs to be assigned IP addresses automatically, but I expect what I’ve done will mean they are in effect static.

The Powerline performance is definitely a bottleneck and rather disappointing. The TP-Link utility they came with states I’m getting around 1000 Mbs, seems it’s overstating by a factor of three when I use CrystalDiskMark on my laptop. Unfortunately I have no proper network cabling between rooms and I have concrete floors, so I guess not easy to do properly.

 

[MegaDamo]

Is the above better?

 

[mxnerd]

Use DHCP to reserve IP addresses vs setting static IP addresses makes no big difference, as long as it works. It's all about preferences.


It's about right to get around 300Mbps of the speed from the powerline adapters.

The essential guide to powerline ethernet adapters (including 7 hands-on reviews)

Powerline Ethernet adapters that use your home's electrical wiring are great supplements to Wi-Fi networks. We sort through the standards, HomePlug and G.hn, and review 7 new models.

www.pcworld.com

To get 1Gbps guaranteed speed, the only way is to use ethernet cable or use MOCA adapters.

 

[MegaDamo]

Thanks for all your help, much appreciated everyone.