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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-323 => Topic started by: topikito on June 01, 2009, 04:09:24 PM

Title: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: topikito on June 01, 2009, 04:09:24 PM
Hi!

I'm having a very slow acces to the NAS. I mean, when I access through a filemanager (Finder) to the NAS, it's OK, but if i open a folder that has music and play it (VLC), there's an incredible lag. The music stops every 2 seconds for about 1 sec. And so on. This happens also when I open video, but just more significant. This didn't happen before. Does anybody know why this could be? It just appeared from night to day. :S:S i dind't do anything!

Thanks!
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: topikito on June 03, 2009, 02:41:22 PM
:( no one knows why??

It also happens if I access through windows :(
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: sergey on June 04, 2009, 01:09:59 PM
It seems that what you see could be similar to what I noticed in the following. You may want to do some tests after a "on-OFF" or a soft RESTART or your NAS, and see if it makes a difference.


Because of Vista access and issues, I upgraded from firmware 1.03 to 1.06 about 10 days ago.

Since that I have a performance problem. It only  shows after specific actions/situations. It has a bypass which is a "pain in the neck".

During regular actions it seems Ok (although I had noticed that restarting/Power off-on sometimes helped in firmware 1.03).

Now with 1.06, when I run a daily differential backup of the DNS-323 files (about 800K files close to 300GB on a 500GB raid mirror), it suddenly  starts to crawl at very low speed (approximately 1/30 to 1/10 of speed after a clean/fresh restart). The slow crawling starts after about scanning ~100K files, or about 120-180 GB.

The good scanning speed is about 100 files/sec. When it slows down, it is between 0 to 10 files/sec.
- When that happens, one can hear a lot of disk access, though not much happens on the network link (like 0.01% of a 1GHz connection)


The bypass is then:
- pause the backup (to avoid backup error for inaccessible device).
- Logon on the NAS browser , and use TOOLS>SYSTEM>RESTART
- Wait for the system to come back (~less than 1 mn, as documented)
- Select Continue on the BACKUP software.
- The access immediately and systematically restarts a  ~ 100 files/sec.
- Keep doing that until "automated night backup" completes. (2 to 4 times depending on circumstances)


Note:
- A few days ago, I also disabled the unused ITunes server. It seems to have helped the issue somewhat, but not enough.
- I have another scanning daily process (X1 Indexer, which does ot seem to have the issue, or has it in a milder way).
- 1.03 did not have theses issues in such a drastic way, or did not have them, tough I had noticed that an occasional restart often improved things.
-  did not update to 1.07, since it did not seem necessary for my issues (except if it has hidden/undocumented improvements).


products;
- Win XP Pro Service Pack 3
- EMC Retrospect for backup
- X1 from www.X1.com to index data.
- 1 GHz network connection to NAS, PC & switch.

I have noticed that a number of people have performance issues. What I described here is a systematic problem with a simple bypass. I am convinced that it has an explanation, and hopefully a solution.
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: topikito on June 04, 2009, 05:02:22 PM
You are right when you say that it don't stop reading de HD when i just want a little file, of only a pair of MB. It's even reading (or writing?) the HD's when i'm doing nothing! I just disabled the UPnP, but still the same. My case isn't the problem during backups. I've for example, downloaded something with the BT, and i want to view it from the NAS in my laptop... i just can't! The lag is INCREIBLE! also music, or text files! Yesterday i opened a *.doc for editing it, and there were just so much lag, that the program froze down a couple of times while saving the file. :S The most icreible thing is that this began happening from night to day! Without doing anything!

EDIT: Just restarted the switch (Let's see how it goes tomorrow)
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: topikito on June 09, 2009, 04:40:35 PM
Please, check this screenshot

http://www.topikito.com/img/im3.png

How can 75 MB take 8 minutes to transfer? And no, it's not an eventual lapse of time, it really takes 8 minutes!
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: topikito on June 11, 2009, 03:07:19 PM
If I connect it directly to the NAS, it connects at 1000 Mbs and it's incredibly fast! I limit it to 100 mbs, and it's also faster than through the router. :S:S Through the router the speed is about about 1,2 MBs :S Router fail? Cable fail?
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: ECF on June 12, 2009, 02:02:56 PM
Looks like it. Have you tried checking for updates for your router or changing out the cables yet?
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: sergey on June 12, 2009, 03:11:26 PM
Hi ECF,

Topikito's Pb seems possibly different from mine.

I even upgraded to 1.07, and have the same issue (though possibly slightly milder). It seems that after reading (or reading data about) about 180K files, or about 180GB of data, It crawls to a slow speed, but seems very busy inside the box. After a web based NAS restart, it goes very fast again, until the next hump. it visibly does that when read by EMC retrospect backup software with the goal of refreshing the NAS backup.

It used to work fine with V1.03 (But then Vista stations had difficulties accessing it).

A search/indexing software like X!, which updates itself daily does NOT have that issue (or mild enough that it is bearable).

Even under V1.03, I had the feeling that a Restart always sped up things in the immediate future.

I have posted the problem, but have not heard or seen any feedback from the D-link tech guys.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: topikito on June 12, 2009, 03:57:44 PM
Well, i've tried with both ethernet cables, and with both, its fine when connected directly. I'll buy a 10/100/1000 switch (I allready needed it for getting the 1000 Mbs speed to the network). I'll post when done :)
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: topikito on June 13, 2009, 07:09:08 AM
This might sound stupid, but, is there special cables for Gigabit connections? The 1000 Mbs speed is unavailable in the WebGUI with some cables
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: lizzi555 on June 13, 2009, 08:17:07 AM
You need Cat 5e or better Cat 6 cables.
Normal Cat 5 is up to 100 M connections only.
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: topikito on June 13, 2009, 12:00:34 PM
Thank you!
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: Tank_Killer on June 22, 2009, 08:47:11 AM
here is a great little article about gb networking and performance.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gigabit-ethernet-bandwidth,2321.html

Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: sergey on June 23, 2009, 08:33:54 AM
Thanks Tank-Killer for some clarifications.

However, for true problems in the DNS-323, how do we get D-link to simply acknowledge & fix the problem. It is too easy to replace true tech support by a forum which works well except for true Product problems.

The problem was reported (I am sure that other people must have experienced the bug too, one way or the other). but as of now:
- No question or human feed-back from D-link
- No reply.
- A black Hole ?

The unfortunate conclusion could be that there is NO tech support, only minimal upgrades aimed at highly visible issues impacting future sales (like TB drives,and Vista issues).

I have to believe that the problem I experience is a true DNS-232 problem:
- No problem with firmware 1.03 (but Vista issues).
- A problem with 1.07. the easy bypass is a software RESET on the NAS (~3 times for a successful full
backup, like at 2:00 am ?).
  -  After the RESET, it acts fast.
  -  After about 150K files/150 Gb of read activity, it is just busy noisily accessing the disk, but at an extremely slow practical throughput.
  - Immediately after the RESET,  it acts fast again (about 100 files/sec), until the next RESET.
  - With 1.03, the differential backup update was done in 1 or 2H max, without any human intervention.
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: Fatman on June 23, 2009, 08:46:19 AM
I am getting tired of typing this out so I am going to quote myself from yesterday, please understand that the tone of the below is not what I intend for this thread, I am just being too lazy to type it again.

Again I repeat, you have been very reasonable from what I have read sergey (admittidly only the last post) and I am not trying to be anything other than helpful to you.

This forum is a community for users to help each other, the mods here are not a Tech Support team for your fora pleasure.  If you want to complain call customer service, if you want to have a problem troubleshot call technical support.

D-Link is under no onus to respond to anything on these boards, the mods post as themselves, they ban as D-Link agents.  We are given the freedom to speak as ourselves, and we participate where it amuses us to do so, or where we think we can help.  Every D-Linker could quit posting right now and we would not be violating anyone's expectations.  If you need to communicate with D-Link, use one of the above numbers.  If you want to communicate with experienced users of the same products you use (regardless of their status as D-Link employees or not) then I suggest you act in a civil manner and enjoy the forums we are all building together.

While it was stated a little defensively (that thread wasn't going well), the fact remains the same.  If you are here because you think it is a contact with D-Link concerning what you belive to be a product issue (I don't know the facts in this case, I don't use this product) then you are in the wrong place.

D-Link employees tend to choose to respond where they belive there is fertile ground to help someone (or where they feel challanged, whch is too often the case for me, and addmittedly what is making me post here).  If there is a product issue, often they know of it long before someone posts it in the forums (again I don't know the specifics here) and can't tell you anything (either because they don't have anwsers, or because we all sign a pretty little NDA, or any one of a dozen reasons) that would make you feel any better.
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: ECF on June 23, 2009, 10:01:51 AM
sergey

If you believe that there is an issue with the unit specifically please provide me the exact reproduction steps and I will see if I can replicate the issue you see. Also please explain the issue in detail so I know what I am looking for exactly.
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: sergey on June 23, 2009, 10:37:12 AM
Hi Fatman,

Sorry if I offended any-one.  The tone might have been "too agressive". I hope this one is better. I will try to comply, and follow advice & guidelines.

However I would like to mention the following:
- Documenting a problem and its effective simple bypass ought to be helpful to someone else. (it took time, effort and risk taking [losing the data]). we hope it help repay the commuity for help found on the web.
- One can see that some users lost a lot trying to achieve different things. Their testimony helps us to be cautious and wise.
- I did not expect to find a tech originated answer on this post. It is clearly a forum.
- Deciding to upgrade to 1.06 & 1.07 was based on multiple user comments & remarks from this forum.
- When stating a lack of answer, it was to a "reported problem" to the tech support (beyond the forum). I reported the issue before exploring the forum (and after checking the knowledge base). May be "here, this forum " was not the correct location to mention it.


Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: Fatman on June 23, 2009, 11:17:32 AM
You didn't offend me at all, and I was trying to show that I have nothing but respect for the way you have been handling the problem.

At this point it appears I had misread your intent and my intervention was unnecessary.  I apologize.

I am a slightly socially handicapped person (what geek isn't) and I find that text often is incapable of expressing the necessary range of emotion and intensity.  I am working every day to read these things right and respond to them in a way that conveys myself properly.  Unfortunately it looks like I failed on both counts today.

My rampant use of imperial Russian geographical features (czar-chasm) is probably also not helping.  I know it is truly pun-ishing reading through my posts.
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: ptalindstrom on November 15, 2010, 09:34:35 AM
Would just like to confirm that YES the dlink NAS has some pretty sever performance issues. This is not router issues (although connected through a dlink wireless router adds a while slew of other performance issue).

For me, the issue with the NAS (hard wired to dlink router) seems to be start up.. i think the NAS goes into sleep mode when it hasn't been touched for a while.. but it is still a bit more odd than that.

sometime i can access via Win7 file browser some of the folders on the NAS (which only list a few other folders).. but then when i get to the final folder it takes much too long to open (possibly as long as a minute).

i also have a few working files  (i.e. not simply media files which i just open once - but files which are continually accessed via the app that use them).. and occaisionaly these apps will even crash due to delays in accessing their files.

i am sure it is network firmware issues in the NAS.. not sure of my f/w rev or how to upgrade.. but i guess if dlink commented that this was a known issue.. and has been fixed.. then i would look into what is involved in upgrading f/w.
Title: Re: Very slow acces to the NAS
Post by: sergey on November 15, 2010, 02:36:46 PM
Hi Palindstrom,

I believe the issue you see is not exactly the same one as mine.

If it goes to sleep, the wake-up is very clear; if you are next to the D-link, you will see/hear it wake-up. It should be a process in the vicinity of 7 to 10-15 sec max, happens once and then subsequent actions are quick.

However, unrelated, I have seen behavior which may fit your description when accessing the D-link through an old type of wireless (11 M bits/sec) with a new Vista laptop. I suspect that there was a lot of repeat on the link. The internet link status would show 100MB exchanged when I am trying to deal with a 5Mb or 10 MB file. Every other wired PC would work as usual.

Since that time, the wireless has been upgraded to a more recent & faster one, and I have not seen that behavior. What is described here is not the first issue I had in the thread (and it is still an issue). I just hope that it may help you solve your current problem.

Upgrading the firmware is not a big deal to perform, but it is a big deal to plan/decide, because you do not want anything to go wrong, and depending on your current level, you may want to read about enhancements and think about their consequences for you.

For an example, I could go back to some earlier version to solve my performance problem, and lose some Vista connectivity. Going backwards could also be risky, because untested:Most people upgrade, rather than "de-grade". !!


Good luck. I hope it helps. ::)