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Help with Synology ds411j NAS

nightfly13

nightfly13

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2008
679
0
Ranchi, India
I posted a few days over on the Synology forum, but only 31 views and no help so I thought I'd try my luck with my favorite internet community. I know a lot of Mac user lean toward synology solutions, so here goes nothing!

As a new Synology owner I'm still learning my way around. I have 2x 2TB drives (new) and an older 500GB drive in SHR. All was well with the volume (still shows status normal on all drives) and I copied 1TB of data over a couple days (not constant copying) at over 30MB/s. Now I've been trying to transfer a 5GB file and my speeds zip up and down from 200KB/s to 1.3MB/s and average around 900KB/s. My Synology CPU is low, ram is at 40%, so I can't figure out what happened.

We did have a power outage that shut everything down, and I didn't run the Synology for a couple days after this, but now it's back on and the transfer speeds are very slow.

Running gigE directly connected through my Apple Airport Extreme - same setup that gave me vastly higher speeds before.

Input appreciated.
 
I have a Synology DS710+ which is gigabit connected through a Netgear gigabit switch. After a power failure I've noticed that my DS710+ often comes back up at 100Mb/s only. If I reset the Netgear switch, it then reconnects at 1Gb/s. You can check in the Control Panel, Network, Network Interface what speed you are connected at (assuming you are using DSM 3.0 or above).
 
thanks for that

Nice to get some feedback :)

It's at 1000mbps full duplex. I just realized I haven't fully trouble-shot it by wiring in a second Mac to see if the same issue persists.
 
No problem. I suspect my problem is my Netgear switch rather than the NAS! Good idea to try a second device. Go through a process of elimination. Good luck :)
 
Still slow... and sporatic

So as I type this I finally got around to plugging my new MBP into the Airport Extreme (which is also connected to the DS411j).

I'm transferring a 10GB file. It's averaging around MB (reading from the NAS to the MBP). Considering that I wrote that file to the NAS at around 30MB, and earlier tests had showed it writing at 45-50MB/s, this is very disappointing. SMART status says all the drives are fine. I wonder if the older 500GB HDD inside the NAS is under-performing..?

The speeds jump around quite a bit (I use menumeters): 17MB for one 2-second interval, then 63KB, then 1.5MB, then 5MB, then 8, then 2.6 etc. etc.

The NAS Resource Monitor says the CPU is under 5% and RAM is under 50%.

I tried streaming some HD over wifi - the drop-offs I'm getting made that impossible. If this NAS can't even deliver 1 HD stream, I'm not sure I should keep it. Thoughts?
 
It sounds to me like it may be a problem with the HDD(s). Is it possible to try the NAS performance with different HDD's? I've certainly never had this problem with either my DS710+ or DS109+...?
 
FearGhost said:
It sounds to me like it may be a problem with the HDD(s). Is it possible to try the NAS performance with different HDD's? I've certainly never had this problem with either my DS710+ or DS109+...?
Click to expand...

Ditto to this. When transferring a single file, I get 65-75 Mbps consistently over gigabit lan.
 
FearGhost said:
It sounds to me like it may be a problem with the HDD(s). Is it possible to try the NAS performance with different HDD's? I've certainly never had this problem with either my DS710+ or DS109+...?
Click to expand...

Not sure how I'd do this... I suppose if I had another HDD lying around I could pull all 3 of mine out, put that in and download the software to it and install a volume and test it - then when I power down and put mine 3 HDDs back in like before, it's still going to function normally? My volume will be in tact? Finding 1 spare hdd shouldn't be a huge problem...
 
nightfly13 said:
Not sure how I'd do this... I suppose if I had another HDD lying around I could pull all 3 of mine out, put that in and download the software to it and install a volume and test it - then when I power down and put mine 3 HDDs back in like before, it's still going to function normally? My volume will be in tact? Finding 1 spare hdd shouldn't be a huge problem...
Click to expand...

In the Storage Manager settings, there is an option to run a SMART test. Try doing this on all 4 drives, and post the test results (smart info screen).
 
blevins321 said:
In the Storage Manager settings, there is an option to run a SMART test. Try doing this on all 4 drives, and post the test results (smart info screen).
Click to expand...

Well I think I have it narrowed down. Originally I put an old 500GB drive in with 2 brand new 2TB drives. The two new drives come back quickly with a 'normal' after I do the quick SMART test. The 500GB drive just hangs indefinitely at 10%. I think I can shuffle some files around to find an alternative old 500GB drive to put inside in its place....

If the 500GB drive is dead or struggling, I'm surprised the NAS doesn't tell me that. It's SMART status is 'normal' although it's 6 degrees hotter than the 2TB drives. This would explain why the speeds are slow (its' crunching parity checks on the fly) but not why it doesn't report errors. Anyway - I'm closer to my answer - thanks!
 
So it's better but still mediocre..

Well I swapped an (identical) 500GB drive, allowed it to rebuild (took 90min or so) and now it's better, but still only reading (and writing to my desktop) at 8-9MB average, with drops down to 1MB or worse sometimes. Some peaks hit up at 30MB, but it's still performing poorly. I'm still transferring that same 10GB file so I haven't tested the write speed yet (will do so shortly) but I still feel like I have a problem.

Curiously, the replacement 500GB drive also times out on the 'quick' SMART test, just like the one it replaces. It seems the answer is to replace the 500GB drive, and I'm willing to do that, but I'm curious why it performed so much more 'normally' with that drive in there initially.

How often does Synology update their firmware?
 
Yeah, writes are still super slow - less than 1MB/s.

I'm hesitant to buy and put in another 2TB drive when I don't really know what the problem is....

Any ideas?
 
Being able to mix and match drives in these enclosures sounds great, but coming from a background in traditional RAID I would tend to want to ensure that the drives in a RAID set have matched spindle speeds and throughput specs at a minimum.
 
If you have a spare drive available that you know is good I would remove all of the existing drives and build the system again from new (without raid). Then test your transfer speeds. If all is well then you know that your original drives are the cause of the problem.

The fact that your 500Gb drive wont complete the SMART test indicates that is the cause of the problem (to me anyway) :)
 
FearGhost said:
If you have a spare drive available that you know is good I would remove all of the existing drives and build the system again from new (without raid). Then test your transfer speeds. If all is well then you know that your original drives are the cause of the problem.

The fact that your 500Gb drive wont complete the SMART test indicates that is the cause of the problem (to me anyway) :)
Click to expand...

I'm willing to do this, but I just want someone to confirm to me that I can put my 3 drives back in and their RAID volume will still be in tact? I'm assuming the Synology doesn't care of you remove one volume's drives, reinstall another volume on other drives, and then swap it back - no issue, right?

As for your last statement, I agree, except for the curiosity that neither of my 2 tested 500GB hdds complete SMART testing. They are the same model drive I've been using for years..
 
I have just run some testing myself to both my DS109+ and DS710+ and found some very interesting results!

When I quoted my read/write speeds before I was using a Windows desktop. I have now tried connecting my Macbook Pro to my network using an ethernet cable (I only ever accessed my NAS' from my Macbook Pro using wifi) and found that I have very bad performance issues as well!

OSX is quoting me 7 hours to read a 2 gig file :eek: The network interface on the Mac is linked at 1gbps and so is the NAS. So it would seem that Synology NAS' currently have problems with Mac computers. This is very, very worrying and has also been talked about on the Synology forums!

http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=34172

I have DSM 3.1 installed on both NAS too...
 
DS211 with two 2TB Samsung drives connected (Hybrid RAID 1) using GB wired ethernet....using my iMac in my sig below (not the G4). DS211 running latest firmware.

Copied 1.5 GB file TO DS211 - averaged 33 MB/s
Copied 1.5 GB file FROM DS211 - averaged 45MB/s

Something's f'd up in your setup.
 
You're right! I just tried a direct cable connection between my MBP and the NAS and Im getting speeds over 75Mb/s in both directions. In my case it must be my Netgear Gigabit Switch that's causing the problem. It obviously doesnt like the MBP network connection, even though the MBP says its connected at 1Gbps.
 
Hmm thanks for the ideas. I'm on holiday but will check Sunday when I get back. Whole point of network attached storage is to not connect it directly yo the comp...
 
nightfly13 said:
Hmm thanks for the ideas. I'm on holiday but will check Sunday when I get back. Whole point of network attached storage is to not connect it directly yo the comp...
Click to expand...

Mine isn't directly connected to the computer....It's connected to my 1GB ethernet home network controlled by an Airport Extreme

EDIT: There's also a Trendnet 5 port GB switch between the AE and the Synology
 
Last edited:
I'm certain that my problem is caused by my Netgear Gig Switch. With only my MBP and NAS connected I get dire speed results, but a direct cable between them is fine. I will hopefully try a different gig switch soon...
 
Direct connection (and better cable) works well for me..

I'm not at home, still, so time will tell how my AE works as a gigE router for connection speed, but the connection speed between my Synology and new iMac is fast-enough, when they're connected directly.
 
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