Copying to AssetNAS and transfer speeds

Posted by: John Treble on 02 May 2014

The parts of my system relevant to this question are an AssetNAS, Buffalo router, two Home Plugs, and a laptop computer. Also on the network is a Naim NDX.

My system has been working reasonably well for several months with Devolo 200Mb/s Home Plugs and an old Toshiba laptop. In particular, with this setup I was able to copy files from the laptop to the NAS. A couple of weeks ago, the Toshiba died, and I bought a nominally much higher spec Acer laptop. The system will now not copy reliably, demanding frequent restarts. Furthermore, the transfer speeds are a LONG way from 200Mb/s. The most I have observed in the last couple of days has been a tad over 2Mb/s. Neither is the transfer rate constant. It dips down every so often to almost nothing.

I asked a local 'computer assistance' firm to have a look at it. He tried changing the home plugs, to another 200Mb/s model (different manufacturer). This made no difference, and he confessed himself stumped.

Anyone know any better?

Posted on: 02 May 2014 by Bananahead

Does the new laptop have decent internet speed? Does it stream HD movies ok?

Why are you copying from the laptop to the NAS? Ripping CD's to the internal drive and then copying?

Why does the laptop need restarting? What are the symptoms?

Posted on: 02 May 2014 by Aleg

What connection speed does the laptop show on the network adapter?

Posted on: 02 May 2014 by dayjay

Over a wired network I copy files from my desktop pc to my Assetnas at round 11mb/s. Its the same speed I copy to my backup nas. I could be wrong but I don't believe the 11mb/s speed is dictated by network speed, I can stream 3d hidef video over my network in real time with no problems at all, so I would imagine the limiting factor is read/write speed. Even to my internal hard drive I wouldn't be able to copy files at 200mb/s

Posted on: 02 May 2014 by Bananahead

Originally Posted by dayjay:

MB = Mega Bytes

Mb = Mega Bits

But I agree with the spirit of what you are saying

Posted on: 02 May 2014 by dayjay

Originally Posted by Bananahead:

Originally Posted by dayjay:

MB = Mega Bytes

Mb = Mega Bits

But I agree with the spirit of what you are saying

You learn something new everyday

Posted on: 03 May 2014 by John Treble

Originally Posted by Bananahead:

Does the new laptop have decent internet speed? Does it stream HD movies ok?

Why are you copying from the laptop to the NAS? Ripping CD's to the internal drive and then copying?

Why does the laptop need restarting? What are the symptoms?

I just checked movie streaming. It seems fine.

I don't rip directly to the NAS because that's the way the dealer suggested I do it when I bought my first streaming system three/four years ago. I suppose I could try it.

I don't restart the laptop. It is the transfer that stops and has to be restarted. Essentially that means that I have to sit and watch it all the time I'm doing the transfers.

Something I didn't mention in my original post is that the old laptop ran Vista. The new one is Windows 8.1. It's an Intel Core i5 processor.

Posted on: 03 May 2014 by John Treble

Originally Posted by Aleg:

What connection speed does the laptop show on the network adapter?

I don't know what this means. What's a network adapter, and where on it does it display the connection speed?

Posted on: 03 May 2014 by John Treble

Originally Posted by dayjay:

This is pretty much what the 'computer assistance' guy said. He wondered if the AssetNAS had a write speed limit, but since the NAS hasn't been changed, I can't see that that has anything to do with it. Are there limits on the write speeds of laptops? If so, can I change them? My new laptop has an Intel Core i5 processor, and is running Windows 8.1.

Posted on: 03 May 2014 by LeeTom

Is it possible that your new laptop is simultaneously on wired and wireless networks, and is set to prefer wireless over wired for its default route? Try turning wireless off and see if throughout improves.

Posted on: 03 May 2014 by LeeTom

*throughput

Posted on: 05 May 2014 by John Treble

After several days looking, I finally found a solution to this. My 'test' copy now moves at 1.5Mb/s, where previously it went at only half that. Even better: the transfers work without stopping, so I can leave one running to go away and do something else. Whether I can do any better on the speed front, I don't know, but double is certainly worth having, even though the rates seem tiny compared to the claimed capacities of the various system components

The fix is to disable the Large Segmentation Offload features. I had some difficulty finding these, but eventually tracked them down to a Realtek device, whose full name I can't remember. (I'm writing this on my iPad away from home.) The details of how and why are at http://www.peerwisdom.org/2013...network-performance/

for those who can stand to read computerese. It appears that there is some inconsistency between the size of the packets created for transfer by this device, and the size that can be handled by a switch. The system handles this by trying the transfer again, and eventually can become so congested, it grinds to a halt.

Thanks to all who offered suggestions.