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[sholland]

We have a 2 week old DNS-321 NAS which seems to be having problems. Network setup: DIR-625 router (DNS plugged into that), 2 XP machines, and 1 Windows 7 machine.

After doing some trouble shooting, I've determined that it works well after being unplugged and then plugged back in (the off switch does not seem to work - if I hold it down long enough it starts flashing, but then nothing else happens even after being left for an hour).

At that point, I can access the NAS, and the read/write file access time is comparable to reading/writing to shared directories on the other computers.

However, after being on for a while, it gets slower and slower. Logging into the admin for the NAS also gets slower and slower, to the point of not being able to log in. It gets so slow as to be unuseable, so unless I was rebooting it hourly (or sooner), it would be unuseable.

Some details of the setup:
DHCP Client is on, jumbo frames off, DHCP server off, UPNP server off, firmware is latest, power management now set to HDD hibernation disabled (changed on Friday, doesn't seem to have affected anything), DDNS disabled, ftp server off.

Any suggestions highly appreciated!

Sarah

[ECF]

Is it slow accessing it from another machine as well?

[sholland]

Yes, it is slow accessing it from all 3 machines. (sorry, forgot to mention that before).

[JoeSchmuck]

Have you performed any speed tests for actual throughput for both after you cycled power and then say a few hours later, or whenever you deem it slow?  Also, I'd be curious to know what your network adapter throughput is for Bytes Total, Bytes Sent, Bytes Recieved and tell us what if any operations you are performing such as reading a large file or writing a large file.

Also, how is your NAS set up?  RAID 0, RAID 1, Seperate Disks?  What model drives do you have installed?

Did you flash to the lasest firmware (verison 1.03) and clear the settings to default?  One other thing you could try so long as you don't have hatachi drives and/or EXT3 format, try a previous flash version to see if the problem goes away.

If you didn't state this was linked to power cycling the NAS, I'd have said you have lots of traffic on your network.  Because you say you can't hold down the power button and turn off the device, I'm thinking the firmware is not working properly or you have bad hardware. 

Since it's only 2 weeks of age, seriously think about returning it for a replacement.

Last thought is remove your drives, set to factory defaults, download a fresh copy of version 1.03, reflash.  Now set up the NAS again as you had before (do not use a backup of the configuration to restore it, do it by hand).  Install your drives and see if it works.

Seriously, this is an odd problem.  Good luck and report back what you do.

[sholland]

I'm so relieved to hear this is an odd problem - I was beginning to think I was missing something very important!

The drives are Western Digital, I believe - don't have the model #s handy. Raid 1, nothing shows as an error for them.

For checking the speed, I downloaded "LAN speed test", and tried it out on a network share on one of the XP computers. For that one, reading/writing a 100MB test file, it measured out at writing 34.8 MBPS and and reading 24.8. When "slow", the NAS was reading/writing a 25MB file with speeds of 0.9 mbps writing and 0 reading (timed out).

When the NAS is unplugged and then powered on again, the write time is 23.5 mbps and 11.1 reading (25MB file again).

I will try resetting to factory defaults in the morning, and if that doesn't work, I'll seeing about returning it.

Thanks!

[JoeSchmuck]

I haven't been a member here long but I haven't seen a problem like yours reported.  Yea, seriously try to reset to factory defaults, reflash after obtaining a fresh downloaded copy fo the firmware just in case, although doubtful your last firmware was corrupt.  I honestly don't see how it could be a drive issue but you never know.  If you post the drive models then you would get feedback of if those specific models have been used by people.


-Joe

[sholland]

The drives are actually Seagate -  both model ST35000320NS, 500G. 39 degrees Celsius, this morning.

Rebooted DNS 321, reset to factory settings, changed name, and ran LAN speed test - writing 22.7 mbps, reading 19.26 mbps.

5 minutes later, LAN Speed test reports 25.6 writing, 21.8 reading.

Will test again in an hour.

[sholland]

And it's back to being almost completely unresponsive - can see directory listing, but a speed test from various computers gets errors on reading/writing files.

Argh.

[gunrunnerjohn]

Sounds like the unit has a problem.  I think I'd be looking for a box to ship it back.

[JoeSchmuck]

I agree, looks like it's time to send it back.

If you do send it back and in the replacement NAS you have the same problem, try a different hard drive or just one at a time.  Heck, you could try one at a time right now.  I doubt it's your drives but stranger things have happened.

[sholland]

New DNS-321, same problem!

Argh. Makes me want to just throw in the towel and admit defeat.

[Ryder]

Really sholland, it doesn't sound like it's your 321 causing your grief. I'm also wondering if it's a possible problem with 1 or both of your drives, although as Joe has said, that would be exceedingly odd but not impossible. A few things you could try here:

1. Try getting a file that is close to 100 megs and then move it around your home network, PC to PC, if it is set up so that each PC can see each other.

2. Are you using a switch or a router? Try rebooting your switch or router when the slowdown occurs.

I'd like to see you rule out the other common denominators between the NAS and each PC. Your switch or router would be almost the only other piece of hardware that I can currently think of (after a very long 12 hour shift at work!).

Ryder

[tfiveash]

I agree with Ryder that it could be one of your hard drives.  I have seen hard drives start having bad reads after they run for a while but you can restart them and they work okay for a while.  What happens is that every time the drive reads a sector it compares the CRC on the sector with the CRC it calculates on the read.  If there is a problem it rereads the sector again.  If after so many tries it cannot get a proper read the drive then times out with an error.  If after several tries it gets a successful CRC compare it goes on.  But since it has to reread every sector several times it just appears to run slow. If this is the case the drive will fail shortly.

I would probably pull one of the drives and reformat the remaining one.  I cannot remember if it makes a difference which drive you pull but maybe one of the other guys can tell us. Then do your speed test again and see what happens.  If you still have the trouble then swap drives and repeat.  It should tell you if and which one is the problem. I am guessing that one of the drives will not make it through format.  Also, if drive one fails then try drive two.  If it also fails then it is probably the DNS-321. I have not seen two drives fail at the same time the same way.

I also agree with everyone else that I have not seen this before on the DNS-321.  But this drive problem I have seen on desktops over the years and I am sure that it applies here.

Terry

[sholland]

OK - new fun tests and results.

I didn't test the hard drives, but I did check to see if the network was affecting it, by taking the NAS home and plugging it into my home network. And it worked just fine - faster speeds and no slow down even after 1 day.

So my guess is that it's something to do with the network, which I'm not that great at trouble-shooting. I did plug the NAS into the access point in my office (dlink DAP-1522), and it worked wonderfully for about an hour, at which point it slowed down dramatically again.

The truly weird thing is that I've also run speed tests on shared computer directories, and I'm not seeing any slowdown with file access to those directories - just a slowdown to the NAS.

Any suggestions for this? The router is a Dlink DIR-625, firmware up to date.

[peas]

You seem to have narrowed it down to some sort of issue with the network at your workplace.  Some things to try...

Replace the network cable.  It might work fine with a PC, might look fine, but there's always a chance the cable could be flaky.  Ask any IT folk and I'm sure they'll have a "doh!" story with an intermittent cable as the culprit.

There could be a virus/trojan/worm clogging up the network.  This might result in DoS attacks that affect the DNS-321 more than PCs.  The DNS-321 runs Linux and has different attacks/vulnerabilities than Windows.  Scan every PC at work thoroughly, or alternatively take them all offline except for a known clean PC and see how the '321 performs.  The most conclusive way to tell is to put a machine on the network that sniffs and analyzes packets, but that's beyond the scope of the average user.