Networking & NAS Throughput - is there a bottleneck?

[Selsherb]

Hey Guys - will be the first to admit that I am not up on a lot of the terminology when it comes to home networking and NAS. I guess I have not figured out the conversion/calculations between MB/s and Mbps/s and the like, and am wondering if my network speed between my desktop computer, router and NAS are where they should be or not. At the risk of including too much information, here is what I have setup:

• Router - DLINK DIR-615, Revision B2
• NAS - Buffalo Linkstation Live - LS-CHL (1TB)

Desktop Computer Configuration

• CPU - i7-920
• Memory - 6GB DDR3-2000
• Mobo - Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5
  • LAN - 2x RTL8111D ports (10/100/1000 Mbit)
• Hard Drives:
  • 2x1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA drives in RAID 0 array (connected on Marvell 9128 chip/ports in mobo)
  • 1 300GB WD Raptor SATA
  • 1 640GB WD Caviar SATA
• OS - Windows 7 Ultimate - 64bit

Now, the desktop is hard-wired to the DLINK router, which has the NAS connected (hard-wired) to it through an RJ-45 port on the router. Assume all items detailed have the latest drivers. I have been unsuccesful in updating the firmware for the router (DLINK upload is not recognized by the router for some reason) and the Linkstation (Buffalo does not recognize my serial number on the NAS so I have been trying to deal with them on that).

In light of that, when I am copying over data from the desktop pc to the NAS, the maximum speed I can get (from looking at windows details, etc) is 10MB/second. I am not sure if that is good, close to good, or slow.

For example, it takes about 30GB of data to copy over to the NAS in about 45-55 minutes.

So, two noobish questions -

1. With this setup as outlined above,what speeds should I be anticipating?
2. If there is a lag/bottleneck somewhere, where can I address it (PC, router management, etc)

Thanks for your patience in the meantime. Please do not hesitate to ask me any questions that can help paint the picture better. I apologize ahead of time for asking what appear to me to be a really elementary question.

Thanks much!

 

[RebateMonger]

You should be able to find some benchmark tests of that Buffalo NAS. Historically, most consumer-grade NAS units had rather low throughput. 10 MegaBytes per second was in the ballpark. Or lower. And if you don't have a Gigabit network between your PC and your NAS, 10 MB/sec is all you are going to get with 100 Mbps Ethernet.

 

[Emulex]

you think that linkstation could push full gigabit with that many spindles?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I get 10-12MB/sec to my "Gigabit NAS" (its real name). NS-349 is the model.

 

[JackMDS]

Reality is.

100 Mb/sec. on regular peer-to-peer Networks usually yield 8 - 10MB/sec. transfer.

Standalone sub $500 NAS' usually yield about half of the above.

Giga peer-to-peer Networks are more variable, while sophisticated users with good hardware can push it up to 60-70 MB/sec.) Real transfer not short burst of tools like ipref) regular mainstream users would see only 25-35 MB/sec. of sustained transfer.
Like in the case of the 100Mb/sec. NAS’ Giga rated NAS’ would yield half or less of the Giga traffic produced by regular computers.

Why?

Stand alone NAS’ are actually under powered propriety computers that in order to save on cost use badly programmed open source firmware (OS).

Therefore, what is the best solution?

Do not use standalone NAS’, for the money One can build a low energy computer based on Intel ATOM Mobo/CPU and use whatever type of Windows (Windows Home server is a nice solution), or freeware NAS’ OS.



😎

 

[tnt118]

From what I've found online, your router doesn't pass gigabit Ethernet, and as RebateMonger pointed out you are pretty much already seeing capped speeds because of that.

Additionally, on one chart I just looked at, the max speed you would get (with an upgraded network) would be about 17MB/s. So yes that would be an improvement, but it wouldn't exactly be "blazing" at that point either.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_nas/Itemid,190/ ... I've no idea how frequently this is updated or anything, I just stumbled across it today.