Win 7 routing with dual NICs

[Balforth]

I have a simple home network using a 192.168.1.x subnet. I have a computer with 2 NICs running Windows 7 with a static IP of 192.168.1.60. I have a NAS with a static IP of 192.168.1.50. I would like my computer to read from the NAS on one nic, but perform writing operations to the NAS on a different one. Is this possible when they're on the same subnet?

 

[imagoon]

Without over hauling the core of Windows you can't do that. Also it doesn't really make sense either. What are you trying to accomplish?

 

[Balforth]

The computer is a home theater PC in my living room that is constantly in use streaming videos from the NAS. Occasionally, it processes semi-large files and moves them to the NAS. When it does this, it causes buffering and interruptions to whatever is being watched.

Obviously it could be a bottlneck with the NAS reading and writing at the same time, but I don't have any other solution for that. And as I said that I had an idea...

The router my HTPC is connected to runs Tomato firmware... could I configure QoS to simply limit outgoing packets from my HTPC to something reasonably small?

 

[imagoon]

You are more likely seeing disk limitations. The problem with most consumer disks is that performance hits the floor as the disk is required to do random I/O. The NAS also could be CPU limited and not have enough RAM to cache the requests. A loaded 7200 RPM disk reading a file for streaming and writing a large file at the same time can easily drop to less than 10MB/sec which gets consumed by both streams.

Gigabit is full duplex. It can send and receive 125MB/sec at the same time. Before doing odd ball network configurations, check the NAS for the network utilization. On a gigabit link it would take 125MB/sec in both directions to fill the wire. I would guess the NAS CPU or the disk is over loaded before the network.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

I have a simple home network using a 192.168.1.x subnet. I have a computer with 2 NICs running Windows 7 with a static IP of 192.168.1.60. I have a NAS with a static IP of 192.168.1.50. I would like my computer to read from the NAS on one nic, but perform writing operations to the NAS on a different one. Is this possible when they're on the same subnet?

Ethernet to a switch is full duplex (reads and writes at full speed, simultaneously).

You're seeing disk or NAS bottleneck issues.

QoS might solve it, if you can squeeze below the disk speed threshold.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

To answer your question, in your config you can't INITIATE connections on a different NIC very easily (unless you have software that can force this - Windows file sharing cannot).

If you were to make one of the links to the system use a different subnet (put them both in 192.168.2.x), and have a second IP on the NAS (may or may not be supported using a virtual interface) then you could specify the other IP subnet and it should work.

 

[Enigma102083]

NAS specs?

 

[Mark R]

Most home-grade NASs have a very weak CPU (a typical smart phone has close to 8x the power).
Writing to a home-grade NAS will usually max out the CPU and reads will lag out.

 

[Balforth]

Thanks for the replies... I have a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+. I upgraded the ram to 1GB. I'm using 4x2TB WD Red 7200RPM hard drives.

I'm not sure how reading and writing at the same time effects the hard drive and or memory/CPU performance, but I know multiple people in our house can stream from the NAS without issue.... typically 3-4 different computers at night. Literally the only time I see problems is when I'm watching the HTPC (reading from the NAS) and it's moving files to the NAS.

I don't know what the underlying OS of the ReadyNAS is, but I posted over on the Netgear forums if it's possible to multihome the single NIC, but so far the only response I have is somebody telling me I need to upgrade to a NAS with dual NICs.

I know it's a crappy home-grade NAS, but do I have any real options here? Looks like Windows uses destination ports 137-139 and 445 for file copies. I'm not sure what port XBMC is actually using when it's streaming files, but could I slash those ports down really far, restricting the flow of data to the NAS so it doesn't get overwhelmed? I really don't care how long it takes to copy the files to the NAS, I just don't want it to interfere with streaming from the NAS.

Thanks again for all the replies.

 

[imagoon]

That unit has a peak transfer of 36MB/s. That is basically 1/4 of gigabits max speed. Monkeying with the network won't fix your issue since it isn't the problem. You are simply running out of performance. You have a computer that can dump more data to it than the unit can handle. Since 4 WD black drives should easily do 80-100MB/s, The unit is likely maxing out the CPU. Droping you computer to 100mbps would likely fix the issue.

http://www.readynas.com/?p=331#Performance

Also (magnetic) drives performance fall off pretty quickly when ever there is seeking. Writes require the unit to seek empty space, write and verify which is slower than reads. During that time the unit can be reading data. That can cause skips in streams since they are timing sensitive.

 

[Balforth]

Wow... some interesting things going on. I bumped the NAS interface down to 100/full, then tried copying a 3.1GB file from the NAS to my HTPC. it was copying at around 160KB/s. I figured the NAS just needed to be rebooted after the change because that's friggin crazy, so I rebooted it.... same thing. What???

Setting it back to 1000/full and copying the same file again gives me speeds of 19.8MB/s, which is still significantly slower than 36MB/s.

Maybe I needed to reboot the switch too because it couldn't handle the change from 1000 to 100? But it was still working without any errors...

I'm guessing I should quit trying to squeeze water out of a rock and get a new NAS? I'm not really up for the extra expense (especially with Christmas coming up). Ugh, I've always been disappointed with the NV+, but never more than now. It has a 1000gb NIC and has a processor that can only handle 36MB/s. What a joke...

 

[JackMDS]

You can reboot, play, install 10 NICs in your computer and so On.....

The 36MB is very Good for a Stand alone None computer NAS that its "Internal Organ" are paper rated 1GB.

You want more? use a real computer as a NAS and you might go twice (or more) than what you are getting Now.

 

[Balforth]

Well I just realized the bulk of my problem is that my HTPC is not just streaming files from my NAS, but downloading, processing, and copying files back to my NAS. With a weak processor in my NAS, it is a major bottleneck.

My HTPC isn't just streaming from my NAS, but also downloading files from the internet, processing them, and moving them back to the NAS. If all of that overhead were able to processed by the NAS itself, this problem wouldn't exist.

I think the smartest decision I could make is to build a budget PC to serve as the NAS that has more processing power than my current NAS, let that run the apps that I have to download and process files that currently reside on my HTPC. That relieves my HTPC from ever reading and writing at the same time, increases the processing power of my NAS to read and write (even though at that point it's not really necessary), and would probably be a lot cheaper... I can use an old video card, my existing hard drives... all I'll need is a cheap case, mobo, RAM, and processor.

Any advice/links anybody could provide for building this type of solution would be greatly appreciated.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

Well I just realized the bulk of my problem is that my HTPC is not just streaming files from my NAS, but downloading, processing, and copying files back to my NAS. With a weak processor in my NAS, it is a major bottleneck.

My HTPC isn't just streaming from my NAS, but also downloading files from the internet, processing them, and moving them back to the NAS. If all of that overhead were able to processed by the NAS itself, this problem wouldn't exist.

I think the smartest decision I could make is to build a budget PC to serve as the NAS that has more processing power than my current NAS, let that run the apps that I have to download and process files that currently reside on my HTPC. That relieves my HTPC from ever reading and writing at the same time, increases the processing power of my NAS to read and write (even though at that point it's not really necessary), and would probably be a lot cheaper... I can use an old video card, my existing hard drives... all I'll need is a cheap case, mobo, RAM, and processor.

Any advice/links anybody could provide for building this type of solution would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like a good plan.

I suggest taking your question to one of the system building forums on here, rather than networking. A clean thread will help people respond too.

 

[Zargon]

note that you are also limited by the speeds of the disks as well

 

[Makaveli]

Also wouldn't having a different drive for playback and a different drive to dump the files to help in this situation?

 

[Lorne]

Yes you can depending on the NAS, Some NAS will work as a SANS with 2 NIC Win7 will work.
Not advisable, Would be better to have a good GB switch for the LAN.

 

[imagoon]

Yes you can depending on the NAS, Some NAS will work as a SANS with 2 NIC Win7 will work.
Not advisable, Would be better to have a good GB switch for the LAN.

Even if his did iSCSI, it wouldn't work doing dual NICs for what he wants his to do.