D-Link Forums
The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-325 => Topic started by: Dynamite Monkey on July 31, 2011, 11:41:00 AM
-
Short and sweet: The NAS takes forever to allow an initial access. It can be 15 - 20 seconds of polling the drive before it responds. Once accessed, the NAS is very fast - around 38 - 40MB/s.
If it weren't causing issues, I could almost live with it but I have some automated utilities that push files out to the NAS and they're timing out and aborting the file copy processes.
Obviously I've got the power management settings set properly. (Drives never hibernate.) They're two Seagate 1.5TB 7200RPM drives configured in RAID1.
Any thoughts? I'm guessing it's a firmware glitch but I haven't seen anyone else mention it yet.
-
Short and sweet: The NAS takes forever to allow an initial access. It can be 15 - 20 seconds of polling the drive before it responds. Once accessed, the NAS is very fast - around 38 - 40MB/s.
That's interesting as I have an identical initial access delay with all 320 and 325s configured for Raid 1. In my case the drives power down and the delay is the time taken for the drives to spin up to speed. What is particularly irritating is that the drives spin up sequentially meaning that the delay is often double what it needs to be (fix please?).
Are you sure your drives aren't nodding off?
Jack
-
The delays each of you are describing sound like HDDs spinning up. I observe an identical delay in my two DNS-343. You can validate whether the drives are sleeping or spinning by physically inspecting the HDDs as you access them. Listen for audible queues and touch the drive before/during/after access and feel for vibration.
-
Yes, I stated that my delay was caused by the drives spinning up to speed.
What annoys me is that the (Raid 1) drives spin up to speed sequentially which, in my view, is a bug or at least, an over sight.
Jack
-
Yes, I stated that my delay was caused by the drives spinning up to speed.
I know...I was referring to the original poster (i.e. a confirmation of your observations)
What annoys me is that the (Raid 1) drives spin up to speed sequentially which, in my view, is a bug or at least, an over sight.
I don't think the DNS-343 has this issue. There are four HDDs, and from the observable delays, only the accessed HDD is spun up while the others remain dormant.
-
Gave your issue some more thought. My HDDs are formatted as four standard volumes rather than RAID, so there are no dependency between drives. Can't say if this issue would occur in my model if I were using RAID.
-
Thanks for the responses - I agree... it definitely seems like a spool-up delay. The setting is definitely disabled though.
In case it's a corrupt setting, I enabled power management, set it for 10 minutes, set it for 5 minutes and then disabled it again. I'll leave it overnight and will check it again tomorrow.
I'd love to physically check the drives but the NAS is located in an area which makes it impractical to do so. If I still have this issue, I'll remove the NAS from its location and will be able to physically check it at that time.
Jack: When you say you have the same issue with your 320s and 325s, do you have the power management enabled or disabled? I'd very much like to get confirmation as to whether this is a firmware issue.
-
Glad I could provide some insight. Also, do you have firmware v1.00 or v.101? I'm not sure of the difference between the two versions as I have not seen the release notes.
-
My unit shipped with 1.01
I haven't tried the beta firmware yet.
I don't know whether enabling and disabling the power management has worked yet - the drive has been in fairly constant use tonight so wouldn't have spooled down / timed out etc.
-
I don't know whether enabling and disabling the power management has worked yet - the drive has been in fairly constant use tonight so wouldn't have spooled down / timed out etc.
If you see a difference, please post your results.
-
Humm.. Well not sure about everyone else, but i kind of expect this. My roommate has an external drive with power management, and i (currently) have a server that puts the drives to sleep after so long. In both cases, it takes time to spin them back up.. If this NAS does the same thing, it wouldn't really bother me that much so long as it wasnt too long. 15-20sec does seem a bit longer than im use to (the external usually takes about 5-10 seconds to spin up)
Java, what is the average delay of the drives on Your NAS?
-
Java, what is the average delay of the drives on Your NAS?
The HDDs in my DNS-343s are typically asleep. For first access, there is a 5-10 second lag, after which everything is instantaneous. Keep in mind that my 8 HDDs are formatted as Standard Volumes, so there are no interdependencies between HDDs. One of the discussion points here is whether the DNS-325 serially wakes HDDs or wakes/spins up in parallel. Also, if the DNS-325 spins up drives serially, does this only occur for RAID configurations where there are HDD interdependencies?
-
Finally had a chance to test it after an overnight lull. It still has a long pause upon first access.
I'm guessing it's a firmware bug at this point. I'm going to get the drive out sometime soon so I can hear if the drives are spooling up during the delay.
-
Again, from what you describe, it sounds like your NAS is spinning up, but you say hibernation is deactivated, which is throwing me for a loop. The only true way to find out if the HDDs are involved is a physical inspection of the device.
-
Finally had a chance to test it after an overnight lull. It still has a long pause upon first access.
I'm guessing it's a firmware bug at this point. I'm going to get the drive out sometime soon so I can hear if the drives are spooling up during the delay.
Did you have an opportunity to physically inspect the drives?
-
Sorry for the long delay but I have finally been able to test the NAS.
I can confirm that the drives are DEFINITELY powering down even though I have HDD hibernation disabled. I've enabled the feature and disabled it again just to make sure the flag wasn't erroneously reporting.
When attempting to access the NAS, the drives spool up sequentially. It takes around 8 - 10 seconds per disk.
What would be the next steps for reporting this issue and hopefully having D-Link fix it in the somewhat near future?
-
Try enabling hibernate and increase the delay to the maximum time. Assuming the hibernation settings are working, that should minimize the performance disruption.
-
I've been thinking about your issue a bit more. Do you have Green HDDs? My thought here was that Green drives have an internal controller to manage power cycling which may impact performance. Even if this is the case, I'm not sure if the NAS hibernate settings supersede the HDD on-board controllers or Vice versa. Just a thought.
-
I've been thinking about your issue a bit more. Do you have Green HDDs? My thought here was that Green drives have an internal controller to manage power cycling which may impact performance. Even if this is the case, I'm not sure if the NAS hibernate settings supersede the HDD on-board controllers or Vice versa. Just a thought.
Great thought but they're not green drives - I hate those things.
Both of my drives are Seagate 7200RPM ST31500341AS units. http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=511a8cf6a794b110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD (http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=511a8cf6a794b110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD)
And from your previous post, I did enable hibernate support and set the maximum time of 5 hours. The unit is still powering down. I'll make do until this "feature" is fixed.
-
Great thought but they're not green drives - I hate those things.
Both of my drives are Seagate 7200RPM ST31500341AS units. http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=511a8cf6a794b110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD (http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=511a8cf6a794b110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD)
And from your previous post, I did enable hibernate support and set the maximum time of 5 hours. The unit is still powering down. I'll make do until this "feature" is fixed.
Hey, I gave it a shot. The only thing I can think of (and this is a stretch) is that the DNS-325 firmware was somehow corrupt.
(1) Save the DNS-325 Configuration Settings file to your local desktop. This functionality should be under "Management" in the web interface. The configuration settings file will permit you to quickly restore your custom settings.
(2) Flash the firmware to the factory default by holding down the button on the rear of the unit for > 10 seconds. Flashing the firmware should have no affect on your HDD configuration or data
(3) Upload the Configuration Settings file
(4) Test the DNS-325
-
Well, I've updated to the latest firmware (1.02b3) and the issue is resolved.
I'm not sure whether there is a specific fix in this release or if my firmware was corrupted but everything is working fine now.
Interestingly enough, even when I had the power management setting enabled and set to 5 hours, the drives would spin down after just a few minutes of inactivity so not only was the setting permanently stuck on, it was permanently set to a very low time.
Anyway, all's well that ends well.
Thanks for all the suggestions and assistance everyone.
-
No problem, I'm glad everything worked out for you.
-
Well, I've updated to the latest firmware (1.02b3) and the issue is resolved.
No problem, I'm glad everything worked out for you.
Before I start simply making blind tests, I thought I might get a quick answer from this forum.
I have a DNS-325 and WD Caviar Green 3TB drive, Firmware level is 1.02b3. The NAS never seems to hibernate the HDD.
Can this be due to:
1) uPNP and iTunes Server enabled?
2) PM2 mode on HDD not enabled (it is the factory default)?
PS Should the PM2 mode (http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/958/session/L2F2LzEvc25vLzEvdGltZS8xMzE4MDMwMDI2L3NpZC9vKkFQYl9Gaw%3D%3D) be enabled on HDD when used in a NAS in general?
>>How to enable and disable PM2 (power management) on WD SATA drives (http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/958/session/L2F2LzEvc25vLzEvdGltZS8xMzE4MDMwMDI2L3NpZC9vKkFQYl9Gaw%3D%3D)<<
UPDATE: The reason for HDD not hibernating is clear now. As ever so often, it was my own stupidity. I had configured HDD to go to sleep after 15 minutes of idle time. However, I also had configured the iTunes Server to re-scan the HDD for media updates every 5 minutes! So the 15 minutes of HDD idle time never came to be!
However, usefulness of PM2 Mode in a NAS application and DNS-325's support for it remains.
-
there is a utility to change the time parked the heads of your caviar green on the official website of wd. see that the general framerate greatly improves nas