Doubt about network speed

[sandro_rocha]

Good Morning. Is there any specific configuration to reach the maximum speed over the network? I have a computer with Windows 10 and Gigabit network card, my router also has Gigabit ports (Asus RT-AC59U) and I am using Cat5e network cables, both between the computer and the router and between the NAS and the router. However, copying files from the computer to the NAS and vice versa, the maximum I can get is 35 MB/s instead of the theoretical speed of 100 MB/s. I remember that in my first interaction with the NAS, before I needed to reset to factory settings and reset the HDDs, I reached higher speeds. But now I have limited speed. I tested the HDDs and the speed is around 115 MB/s.

[Nazar78]

With a gigabit link, you should get past 100 MB/s to something like 114 MB/s. A loose or defective cable could cause the negotiated network speed to drop and other affected links will match this dropped speed. You can check several endpoints for the link speed.

1. From the NAS, Settings -> Network -> Network interface.
2. From the client, i.e. Windows control panel: Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center -> Connections, click on the adapter status speed.
3. Finally the best is from your router, i.e. Asus, log into the admin web UI. On the right you can see System Status -> Status tab -> Ethernet Ports. Look at the LAN # both NAS and PC are connected (this provided there's no switch in between the two devices).

[sandro_rocha]

At the moment I can't check the router and Windows settings but I can check the NAS settings. As you can see, the NAS network card is ok. However I am finding the HDDs slow. A few months ago, before I reset the NAS and formatted HDDs, their speed was over 100MB/sec. Am I doing something wrong? Is there any NAS configuration that could be slowing down the HDDs?

[Nazar78]

To my knowledge there's no such NAS configurations that could slow down the HDDs till this low unless there's huge disks R/W activities that saturates the IO. From your screenshots the cached reads should be in gigabytes and buffered reads should be close to your HDD's advertised speeds i.e. 220-240 MB/s in modern 7200 RPM HDDs. Which apps are running at an unusually high usage if any? Run the "sudo top" command to find out. Also look at the disks activities, run "sudo iostat -h 1". How about the badblocks and SMART scans results? Lastly look at the syslog for any clues about your sda/sdb disks, "sudo dmesg|less". Do you have any other HDDs to test?

[sandro_rocha]

With a gigabit link, you should get past 100 MB/s to something like 114 MB/s. A loose or defective cable could cause the negotiated network speed to drop and other affected links will match this dropped speed. You can check several endpoints for the link speed.

1. From the NAS, Settings -> Network -> Network interface.
2. From the client, i.e. Windows control panel: Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center -> Connections, click on the adapter status speed.
3. Finally the best is from your router, i.e. Asus, log into the admin web UI. On the right you can see System Status -> Status tab -> Ethernet Ports. Look at the LAN # both NAS and PC are connected (this provided there's no switch in between the two devices).

I looked at the router status and both NAS and PC appear as gigabit.

To my knowledge there's no such NAS configurations that could slow down the HDDs till this low unless there's huge disks R/W activities that saturates the IO. From your screenshots the cached reads should be in gigabytes and buffered reads should be close to your HDD's advertised speeds i.e. 220-240 MB/s in modern 7200 RPM HDDs. Which apps are running at an unusually high usage if any? Run the "sudo top" command to find out. Also look at the disks activities, run "sudo iostat -h 1". How about the badblocks and SMART scans results? Lastly look at the syslog for any clues about your sda/sdb disks, "sudo dmesg|less". Do you have any other HDDs to test?

[Nazar78]

Your stats looks ok especially the iowait except for the hdparm. This could be firmware related issue as you mentioned it went back up to speed after a reset. Would advise you contact Asustor support for direct assistance.