NAS switching on drags network down?

Posted by: ChrisH on 25 August 2013

I'm not sure if I'm barking up the wrong tree here, hopefully someone may have some experience on this topic.
Ive had my QNAP NAS for a couple of years now, and I have always had an issue whereby whenever it is on, it seems to be dragging the network speed down.
I have a Unitiserve streaming to Uniti, with additional music files on the NAS.

It slows everything down, not only on the WLAN, bu also on the wired devices such as my PC.
This is also when the NAS is simply 'on', not even when I am streaming anything from it.
My network is wired as follows:-
Phone line in => router (wi fi disabled) (PC, NAS ans Sonos plugged in) => Airport Extreme => Netgear gigabit switch (Airport Extreme and Unitiserve plugged in)

Has anyone encountered this before, or can you see anything wrong with the way I've wired up my network?

Or maybe I'm just imagining that the sluggish network behaviour is down to the NAS being switched on?

Posted on: 25 August 2013 by rjstaines

So you've got an Airport Extreme between the router and the Netgear switch?

 

I would be plugging the NAS into the switch alongside the Unitiserv if at all possible....

 

HOWEVER I had problems with one of the Netfear switches (GS605) - my NDX wouldn't play 192/24 files from a U-serve - kept pausing for a second or two. I replaced the Netgear switch with a different one (TP Link as it happens) and everything was swinging again ! 

 

You don't say which switch model you have, but if it's one of the white gigabit ones with the rounded corners, I would try changing that first - the TP link ones are not expensive (less than £20 for a 5-port gigabit model - see Amazon).

 

Having said all that, I'm assuming that you don't use any 'fixed IP addresses' and that everything on the network is given its IP address by the router (DHCP server).  Conflicting fixed IPs will give you performance problems - usually the network 'dies'.

 

Hope this is some help  

Posted on: 26 August 2013 by ChrisH

Thanks rjs.

Indeed, my switch is the GS608.

I will try plugging the NAS and US next to each other into the switch, and I will also try a TP Link switch instead.

The NAS did seem to conflict with the router (BT HH3) when assigned a static IP address, so it is now on DHCP, but with a reserved IP address.

Im not ruling out other IP address conflicts as the cause of my slowdown issues but I'll probably need to take some IT advice to check this out.

Ill try these things and see if it helps.

Thanks again

 

 

Posted on: 26 August 2013 by ChrisH

And you questioned if I had the Airport Extreme between the router and the switch.

Yes I do.

in the set up instructions, the cable from the router needed to go into the Internet connection port on the Extreme.

Does this not seem logical?