Maximum file transfer rate for NAS

baburaoapte

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Jan 16, 2014
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Hello Everyone,
I am simply trying to figure out why on the god's green earth I am not getting maximum file transfer rate. I will explain my exact set up so all of you genius people can get a clear image of the problem. Here is the connection of hardware in order:

1). A computer running nas4free on AMD 2.4GHz with 3 GB RAM includes two hard drives. SAMSUNG SP2504C and WD200EB-00BHF0. The samsung 250GB one is SATA II i believe and 7200 RPM. Let's not even focus on the older WD for this problem. I do not have any raid system. Just those drives for some minor file savings.

2) Linksys E2500 router connected to motorolla modem. Got Time Warner Cable at 16 Mbps (2 MBps). Computer running nas4free and router are connected via cat5e cable.
Based on my obvious research, E2500 is capable of 300 Mbps (37.5 MBps).

3) Custom built PC with intel i3-4130, Samsung 840 evo 120GB SSD, 8GB ram running on windows 8.1 pro. This PC is connected to the E2500 router wirelessly. The wireless card I am using is TP-LINK N600 which is also capable of 300 Mbps (37.5 MBps). WiFi Status shows 4 strong bars, connected to 5gbz band, and speed says 300 Mbps (37.5 MBps).

Awesome. Pretty simple right? Everything running pretty smooth. Alright, now i open up my nas folder on the PC, copy a folder of approximately 500 MB size FROM PC TO server, and the max transfer rate is about 5 MBps. That btw fluctuates though. Okey, no problem. May there is something wrong with the wireless setting. I try to go for wired connection. I connect a cat5 ethernet cable from PC to router, check the max speed of ethernet connection before transfer and it shows 100 Mbps (12 MBps), makes sense since cat5 can only handle 100 Mbps. I transfer a file to the samsung 250 GB on server, and max transfer rate i get is like 7ish MBps.

Thank you very much in advance!
 
Solution
Alright so I FINALLY got my arsenals yesterday haha. I set everything up and it all works like a charm! I am sorry there is no best answer from other people here since I worked around on my own to figure out the problem. I will list everything down here for anyone else who ever runs into a similar issue!

My problem was: File transfer speed was pretty slow even over LAN. WLAN was also slow but I didn't pay much attention to that since wireless magic can interfere with lots of other components here and there and that 2.4 GHz frequency from other techs in the house. Same goes for 5 GHz too btw. Anyway so yeah I linked my macbook pro which has a gigabit card of course but I was not getting the speed and I checked and I was only getting...
It's rare to get more than about a quarter to a third of the maximum rate over WiFi, because of a whole pile of overhead, interference, and other stuff.

Also, small files copy slower than large files, because the drives have to hunt around for the file. If you try with a single large file, you'll probably find it's faster.
 

baburaoapte

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Jan 16, 2014
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@someone somewhere,
Yes i have tried both sinlge large file and also multiple smll files but both yielded same result. One interesting thing i want to share here though. Yesterday, when i was transferring a 70gb folder with bunch of multiple files inside, i opened up nas4free webgui and checked under 'graph' tab which showed the speed was 11.5MBps which was only 1MB smaller than the max output the ethernet cable could handle which was 100Mbps (12.5MBps). Not only that but that speed remain very very consistent throughout the whole transfer. I am about to try the same thing via wireless from which i am expecting 300Mbps (37.5MBps). Crossing my finger. I will let you guys know how it went.
 

baburaoapte

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Jan 16, 2014
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Okey, so I tested via wireless but i still got the same speed; around 9 MBps. Something new I learned was that my router can only handle maximum 100 Mbps via LAN! So clearly, I will be better off using ethernet cable because when I tested by connecting ethernet to router directly, i easily got 11.5 MBps which is very close to max of 12.5MBps I should receive from router so I want to go ahead and add gigabit switch to my router so i can 'convert' my router to gigabit and it should be good right?. There are only two question I have now. In order to get the gigabit connection via ethernet cable, how should the set up be? This is what I will do tomorrow;

1)NAS to router (10/100) using cat 5e cable.
2)Router to gigabit switch.
3)Gigabit switch to PC/MAC via cat 5e or cat 6 cable.
Is this how it should be? Or...should it be as following?

1)Router to gigabit using cat 5e or cat 6 cable.
2)Gigabit to NAS using cat 5e or cat 6 cable.
3)Gigabit to PC/MAC using cat 5e or cat 6 cable.

To rephrase the question in simple sentence, should the NAS be connected to router or the gigabit switch?

Also, does the ethernet card in my NAS have anything to do with the speed? Thank you again for all the help.
 

baburaoapte

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Jan 16, 2014
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Hello,
So I bought a TP-Link 5 port gigabit switch and use all cat6 cables everywhere. I hooked the system up, my macbook was now happily getting 1000Mbps connection thanks to the gigabit switch. I try a file transfer and again, only 11.5 MBps. So i was down to my LAST bottleneck check; the great NAS itself. I looked up that computer which is HP Pavilion a1624n and found out that the ethernet card is only 10/100. So I immediately went on amazon and ordered a TP-Link TG-3269 10/100/1000 Gigabit PCI Network Adapter. Waiting for that beauty to come in. I will test it right away when it does, I will then give the update here, and hopefully close this problem.
 

baburaoapte

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Jan 16, 2014
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Haha yep! Cost it is. The E2500 I bought had cost me around $70 I believe. So rather than spending around the same for a new router, i just spent $25 for TP-Link gigabit switch.
 

baburaoapte

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Jan 16, 2014
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Alright so I FINALLY got my arsenals yesterday haha. I set everything up and it all works like a charm! I am sorry there is no best answer from other people here since I worked around on my own to figure out the problem. I will list everything down here for anyone else who ever runs into a similar issue!

My problem was: File transfer speed was pretty slow even over LAN. WLAN was also slow but I didn't pay much attention to that since wireless magic can interfere with lots of other components here and there and that 2.4 GHz frequency from other techs in the house. Same goes for 5 GHz too btw. Anyway so yeah I linked my macbook pro which has a gigabit card of course but I was not getting the speed and I checked and I was only getting close to 11.5 MBps which is what one would get if the connection is 100Mbps max.

My solution: I immediately started looking for bottlenecks! First thing was my macbook pro. It was good to go cause it already had gigabit card. Alright moving onto the next connection which is the router cause router was the middleman between the NAS and my laptop. (Connection was: NAS -> Router -> Laptop.) Saw that my router only supports 10/100 Mbps meaning 100Mbps is the max I can get. So I searched different forums for answers and people talked about the gigabit switches! Understanding how they work, I ordered one of those bad boys; TP-Link 5 port gigabit switch. Tested it (Connection was: NAS -> Router -> Switch -> Laptop). No luck!! So far, I got the following bottlenecks checked; My laptop and router. Router wasn't gigabit so ordered the switch. So far everything was good and I was down to only two more things to check for bottlenecks; the NAS itself and the cables. I bought cat 6 and hooked everything up with cat 6 and still no luck. So now I was down to my last check; the NAS itself! I looked up my NAS (PC)'s model number and found out that it's integrated ethernet card is only 10/100. BINGO! (Yes, I should have checked all of this in a single day but I had no prior knowledge about all these things such as ethernet cards that say 10/100 and all that so I played this game step by step). I ordered TP-Link 10/100/1000 PCI card for $9 off of amazon, bundled it up with 50ft cat 6 cable for $5 and hooked all that up just yesterday. Final tests showed max speed of ~77 MBps through LAN (ethernet cable) for both read and write! For those who want to know if my WLAN was improved as well; unfortunately, no. The WLAN was still spitting out only 10-12 MBps.
Oh and the last bottleneck I forgot to mention was the HDDs. But for HDDs, just know that as long as your HDDs have SATA connections, they are relatively new HDDs since SATA is the new thing and not the old ATA (wide strip of wires). Also, make sure the HDDs are 7200 RPM. I mean, I'm not sure how 5400 RPM would affect anything but as far as the proper connection goes to achieve the maximum read/write speed on whatever HDDs you have, you can refer to this guide. If there are any questions regarding this problem, you can private message me of write here. Anything you guys prefer.
Again, thank you for those who communicated with me here.
 
Solution

pm4

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Apr 28, 2014
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As I read you pretty much covered all bases :). As you noticed you have to have gigabit ethernet connection in every device on route. (nas, router, switch, pc)

One more small note You do not need CAT6 cables. CAT5E is perfectly capable to run gigabit without problems. CAT6 have meaning only if you go over 1 gigabit to 10 gigabit. Also cat6 should have I think stronger signal which should feature lower interference/noise over distance so better signal. But for any normal home usage CAT5E vs CAT6 no difference except that CAT6 is more expensive.
 

baburaoapte

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Jan 16, 2014
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Yes you are correct regarding CAT 5e being perfectly sufficient for my use. However, I just decided to get CAT6 cause 1. it was pretty cheap haha ($5 for the one 50ft one and $4/each for three 7ft). Just like you said CAT6 may have less interference, I wanted to get everything maximized just so that I can get the max transfer rate possible.