Performance

• What performance can I expect with jumbo frames enabled?
• What transfer speed can I expect when reading and writing large files like CD or DVD images to/from the ReadyNAS?
• Will increasing the amount of memory in the ReadyNAS improve performance?
• Will mixing SATA types (I and II) have an impact on performance?
• How do I improve write speeds of USB External Drive attached to ReadyNAS?
• How do I improve my read/write speed of ReadyNAS?
• I'm getting poor performance with my Mac. Is there anything I can do?
• The ReadyNAS stalls while downloading file via FTP or HTTP/S. What can I do?

Performance

What performance can I expect with jumbo frames enabled?

In our performance lab, using IOMeter in sequential read/write test with the ReadyNAS NV, we can achieve 30 MB/sec on reads and 24 MB/sec on writes. This is using a Dell 2.8GHz PC running Windows XP Pro.

What transfer speed can I expect when reading and writing large files like CD or DVD images to/from the ReadyNAS?

The transfer speed should be similar to what you would get with the above IOMeter test, except that you would have to take into account the read speed from your PC hard disk as well.

Will increasing the amount of memory in the ReadyNAS improve performance?

We've seen an increase of 12% on both reads and writes with IOMeter when going from the default 256MB memory to 1GB. Depending on the application you may or may not see any improvements. Typically if you will be indexing a large number of media files, running rsync backups, or accessing large folders, you will see improvements.

Will mixing SATA types (I and II) have an impact on performance?

The ReadyNAS supports SATA II disks in SATA I compatibility mode. There should be little if any difference if the disk speed is the same. That said, performance will be limited by the slowest disk.

How do I improve write speeds of USB External Drive attached to ReadyNAS?

You can enable the Fast USB Write option in the Performance tab. You will need to properly unmount the USB disk if you select this option; otherwise, you should run a file system check on the disk before accessing it next time. With RAIDiator 3.00+, you can use the front Backup button to unmount and mount a USB disk. Depressing the Backup button for 5 seconds until the disk LEDs blink will unmount a mounted disk or mount an unmounted disk.

How do I improve my read/write speed of ReadyNAS?

Performance can be a hard thing to measure with the ReadyNAS because of so many different user environments. Folks have different switches, hard disks, PCs, operating systems, and different OS settings. If you feel you have a performance issue, please run IOMeter following the instructions at http://www.infrant.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=265 so that we can ascertain where the performance bottleneck might be. Update to the latest RAIDiator release before doing so.

As a reference, our performance lab uses the following:

Note that the PC is not highest performing system we can possibly use -- in fact, the PC was a $399 special including the LCD monitor. We utilize the iometer.icf file posted in the link above, creating a 1GB file on the ReadyNAS. The ReadyNAS is setup for Share security mode, and we run the same test in Domain security mode. We reboot the Windows PC before starting the test and do several runs.

With the above setup, we can obtain:

Troubleshooting Steps

Your results can vary depending on several factors. The most common problems we see are the following:

1. Marginal cabling (check Network tab for errors, replace cable as needed.)
2. Incompatible or bad switch/router (try setting ReadyNAS for static and going direct-connect).
3. Wireless router (try updating firmware).
4. NIC on PC (if you have a Intel or Airlink gigE, try using that).
5. Disk fragmentation. To workaround this is a little harder. You would need to back up your data and remove your data before running the test. Sorry, there's no defrag option at this time.
6. UPS device causing connection timeouts. Try disconnecting USB storage and UPS cable.
7. Marginal disks. Check the SMART logs in the Health tab. Check for non-zero ATA errors and re-allocated sector counts. They usually point to possible timeout conditions causing slowness.
8. Check System.log. Do a Download All Logs and check System.log. Sometimes this will give you some clues with low-level errors codes.
9. Disable virus scanner.
10. Close RAIDar and FrontView. Running them will cause extra scanning of device health every minute.
11. Make sure you do not have any snapshots running or active. Delete all snapshots and disable snapshots before running any performance testing.

I'm getting poor performance with my Mac. Is there anything I can do?

Try setting TCP delay_ack to 0. Default is 3, which causes handshake problems with the ReadyNAS, causing severe performance penalty. You can set the delay_ack with the following command from the OS X terminal:

If you want the setting to stick when you reboot, add the line to /etc/sysctl.conf. For reference, see:

http://julipedia.blogspot.com/2006/02/samba-performance-under-mac-os-x.html http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-net/2003/01/28/0004.html http://systemsboy.blogspot.com/2006/02/delayed-a

The ReadyNAS stalls while downloading file via FTP or HTTP/S. What can I do?

The optimization performed on the ReadyNAS may adversely affect compatibility with some routers. To turn off this optimization, and thus providing better compatibility, change the MTU setting on the ReadyNAS FrontView Network tab to 1492 (from default 1500).