Why is my external nas drive so slow when connected to my router?
Alex
I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I connect it
to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes ages to read/
write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS router.
Thanks in advance for the help!
Alex
Ian D
"Alex" <ad1...@telenet.be> wrote in message
news:07d36ebb-5bd6-4676...@s9g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
on a LAN .connection
Alex
Oh so that explains it. I don't have a Gigabit port on my router. How
can I test my transfer speed from pc to router and attached storage
and how can I test the speed with my storage attached directly to my
pc?
WHat do you mean with "more data overhead".
Thanks a lot for your help
Alex
I was reading this pc magazine that said there are only advantages to
network attached storage for your backups but I can't see the
advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds. It
even takes ages just to browse folders and sometimes explorer even
hangs. How do other people do this with their network drives to backup
data? Do they have super-conductive optical cables from cryptonite or
do they leave their pc running the entire night to copy a folder? I am
using syncback for backups. My external drive is attached to a USB
port on my 'topcom skyr@cer wbr 7121gmr nas' router and my pc is
connected with a Cat5e cable to the router's LAN port (it says LAN
10/100M).
Alex
another question:
Until I found a way of dealing with the slowliness of my network
drive, I now unplug my network drive and put the usb cable into my pc
for faster data transmission and I backup my data with syncback which
works great, but when I unplug the drive again and attach it back to
my router, I noticed that all the files' change dates have been
advanced by one hour! So a file that was last edited on
01/06/2009-19:30 will now read last edited (not created) on
01/06/2009-20:30. Why is this?? If the dates and times are not correct
I fear things could go wrong in the backup process where older files
will overwrite newer files instead of the other way around!
I appreciate your help
Rod Speed
> On Jan 2, 5:57 pm, Alex <ad1...@telenet.be> wrote:
>> On Jan 1, 9:52 pm, "Ian D" <tau...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> "Alex" <ad1...@telenet.be> wrote in message
>>
>>> news:07d36ebb-5bd6-4676...@s9g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>>> Hello,
>>
>>>> I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
>>>> connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
>>>> the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I
>>>> connect it to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes
>>>> ages to read/ write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS
>>>> router.
>>> Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
>>> LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
>>> date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
>>> can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
>>> on a LAN .connection
>>
>> Oh so that explains it. I don't have a Gigabit port on my router. How
>> can I test my transfer speed from pc to router and attached storage
>> and how can I test the speed with my storage attached directly to my
>> pc?
>> WHat do you mean with "more data overhead".
>> Thanks a lot for your help
> I was reading this pc magazine that said there are only advantages
> to network attached storage for your backups but I can't see the
> advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
> takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds.
It shouldnt take that long.
> It even takes ages just to browse folders and sometimes explorer even hangs.
There's a problem with that system.
> How do other people do this with their network drives to backup data?
They use a network drive that doesnt have a problem and
have backup scheduled so you dont care how long it takes.
> Do they have super-conductive optical cables from cryptonite
Nope, they're a tad thin on the ground.
> or do they leave their pc running the entire night to copy a folder?
It doesnt take that long when its working properly. 8GB
should only take 30 mins or so with a 100Mb network.
> I am using syncback for backups. My external drive is attached
> to a USB port on my 'topcom skyr@cer wbr 7121gmr nas' router
That last is likely the problem.
Arno Wagner
> I was reading this pc magazine that said there are only advantages to
> network attached storage for your backups
You should not belive all the press writes. They are certainly
wrong on this one.
> but I can't see the
> advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
> takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds.
How large?
> It
> even takes ages just to browse folders and sometimes explorer even
> hangs. How do other people do this with their network drives to backup
> data? Do they have super-conductive optical cables from cryptonite or
> do they leave their pc running the entire night to copy a folder?
Well, I have a Linux box with NFS that gives me 5-10MB/s real speed,
which is on the low side, probably due to it using 2.5" drives and
a slow CPU. It uses Gigabit Ethernet though. Listing folders is as
fast as if it was local. For 8GB, I would have to wait somethin like
15 Minutes.
> I am using syncback for backups.
Hmm. Not familiar with that.
> My external drive is attached to a USB
> port on my 'topcom skyr@cer wbr 7121gmr nas' router and my pc is
> connected with a Cat5e cable to the router's LAN port (it says LAN
> 10/100M).
This may be your bottleneck. If this runns at 10 Mbit (check the
status LEDs on your network card, they should indicate speed),
all will become painfully slow. Even at 100Mbit, you can expect
a maximum of 10MB/sec, but only with fast hard/software.
The translation to USB will take additional ressources.
The box you are using is strictly speaking not a NAS. It is better
described as a very slow minimal computer, likely ruinning Linux
or some embedded OS with minimal RAM for buffer/cache, that just
happens to have an USB port. When looking at the backside in the
brochure, this layout reminds me very much of an Embedded-Linux
Router from Edimax that I experimented with. If it is the same
hardware, then it just has USB 1.0. which tops out at 11Mbis,
giving you a theoretical maximum access speed of about 1MB/s
and much less in practice. Add the slow CPU, missing RAM for
buffer/cache, non-current/minimal software (as this thing only
has 4MB FLASH) and the observed slowness is not a surprise at all.
Given that the brochure does not list ISB speed, it very likely
is the slow variant.
Arno
Arno Wagner
Simple: The timestamps are in UTC. For dieplay they get converted
to your local time. The setting for that on your router and your
PC are different, possibly because of dailight saving time or a
wrongly configured timezone.
Arno
Alex
> Simple: The timestamps are in UTC. For dieplay they get converted
> to your local time. The setting for that on your router and your
> PC are different, possibly because of dailight saving time or a
> wrongly configured timezone.
That's what I thought too but my router, my laptop and my pc are
configured to the same time zone which is Brussels UTC+1. The only
difference is my router is not configured to enable daylight saving
while my computers are. But since DST has not started yet, it
shouldn't make a difference I think? On the router's page there is a
checkbox near DST that says "enable function" and then it says "times
from 'month' 'day' to 'month' 'day' " where I have to select the month
and day from a dropdown list. I have no idea what to fill in there (if
that's causing the issue).
Alex
> > advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
> > takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds.
>
> How large?
34,7MB xls file takes 40sec to copy from the network drive to a local
drive while the same file copies in 1sec from one local folder to
another.
Opening a folder on the network drive takes 2-30 seconds and sometimes
explorer even hangs. I just had to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL maybe 10 times to
open task manager and end the process but the folder simply wouldn't
close.
> This may be your bottleneck. If this runns at 10 Mbit (check the
> status LEDs on your network card, they should indicate speed),
> all will become painfully slow.
When I look at the LAN port on the back of my pc there are 2 LEDs but
nothing is written besides them. While copying from the network drive,
the red one burns steady while the yellow one flashes.
> The box you are using is strictly speaking not a NAS. It is better
> described as a very slow minimal computer, likely ruinning Linux
> or some embedded OS with minimal RAM for buffer/cache, that just
> happens to have an USB port. When looking at the backside in the
> brochure, this layout reminds me very much of an Embedded-Linux
> Router from Edimax that I experimented with. If it is the same
> hardware, then it just has USB 1.0. which tops out at 11Mbis,
> giving you a theoretical maximum access speed of about 1MB/s
> and much less in practice. Add the slow CPU, missing RAM for
> buffer/cache, non-current/minimal software (as this thing only
> has 4MB FLASH) and the observed slowness is not a surprise at all.
> Given that the brochure does not list ISB speed, it very likely
> is the slow variant.
I'm not sure what you mean with the above. I have win xp home and the
network drive is a Maxtor portable 160GB drive with a USB cable that
goes to the router. Maybe it's a cheap drive or maybe I should buy a
drive that has a network port for a LAN cable instead of USB to
improve the speed?
Arno Wagner
>> > but I can't see the
>> > advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
>> > takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds.
>>
>> How large?
> 34,7MB xls file takes 40sec to copy from the network drive to a local
> drive while the same file copies in 1sec from one local folder to
> another.
That would be consistent with an USB 1.0 port on the router.
Your router has a very slow USB interface. The only fix is to get
a real NAS or at least a rputer with an USB 2.0 interface.
Arno
Alex
Really?? That would explain it of course. I can't find any info on the
usb ports of my router, not in the manuals and I haven't found any
info on the net either. That router is starting to look like crap to
me. But some salesmen are so good they could sell their own mother if
you know what I mean.
> Your router has a very slow USB interface. The only fix is to get
> a real NAS or at least a rputer with an USB 2.0 interface.
I think that would be an easier solution.
The issue about the dates being changed on the network drive is still
open though. When I copy files to the drive, the date
(last edited on...) is advanced by one hour. Timezones are all set to
the same, except for daylight saving time which is disabled on the
router and enabled on my pc and laptop.
Arno Wagner
May just be an implementation bug on the router. In that case, nothing
can be done.
Arno
Alex
> can be done.
Sorry to bother you again but in my router's webpage there is a field
where I can enter a time server and it is set to 0.0.0.0 by default.
Do you know where I can find an IP address of a time server for
timezone Brussels (UTC+1)? The ones I found were all for US. Maybe if
I enter a correct IP address, the router will update it's time
correctly. I noticed the date of my router is 1/1/2000 and I don't
know why that is and how to change it.
Arno Wagner
You can use any NTP server, they all hand out UTC. The timezone
is a local setting that only influences time display.
Arno
Alex
> is a local setting that only influences time display.
Can you give an example please of such a time server. I completely
ignorant about this. I tried the IP address found on
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/TimeOmaBe but it doesn't seem
to work since the router still shows "Current time 1/1/2000" when I
click the status link. And when I enter the IP address in the browser
I get a "connection interrupted" message. When I ping the IP address
from the dos prompt I get a timeout.
Arno Wagner
>> You can use any NTP server, they all hand out UTC. The timezone
>> is a local setting that only influences time display.
> Can you give an example please of such a time server. I completely
> ignorant about this. I tried the IP address found on
> http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/TimeOmaBe but
That is the right source.
> it doesn't seem
> to work since the router still shows "Current time 1/1/2000" when I
> click the status link. And when I enter the IP address in the browser
> I get a "connection interrupted" message. When I ping the IP address
> from the dos prompt I get a timeout.
That is as it shoudl be. NTP servers do not suport HTTP and generally
block ICMP. Here is the one I use: 129.132.2.21. That is
swisstime.ee.ethz.ch.
If that does not work, it is a problem with your router...
Arno
Alex
> swisstime.ee.ethz.ch.
Awesome, the router's security log now seems to display both time and
date correctly! However (there I go again, but I can't help it that
they can't make these things user friendly) when I copy a file to the
external drive attached to the router, the file's dates are changed to
current date and a time 1hour in advance of the time when I started
the paste action. So a file made on Jan 4 and last edited on Jan 5
after copy/paste to the network drive will change all dates to Jan 8
(today) and current time+1hour. What is the logic of these things??
Why I bother? Because when creating differential backups ALL files
will ALWAYS be copied to the network drive which takes maybe 1hour,
instead of only the changed files which takes for instance 1min.
Alex
1/1/2000 and an incorrect time. I can't think of anything I did wrong
to upset the router except poking my nose! And the make it all even
worse, I now can't access MSHOME group anymore in the network
connections window where I used to find my external network drive. I
tried again with firewalls disabled and did the network config wizard
a few times but I keep getting the message "mshome is not accessible
you might not have permission to use this network resource". It used
to work most of the time and sometimes not.
I hate to say this since I'm against the dump-culture mentality of our
modern society but I'm thinking of throwing this f*****g router away
and buy a new one. What is the best wireless router you recommend in
terms of high speed,reliability, easy to setup, fast NAS and
preferably a print server?
Arno Wagner
> Here is the one I use: 129.132.2.21. That is
>> swisstime.ee.ethz.ch.
> Awesome, the router's security log now seems to display both time and
> date correctly! However (there I go again, but I can't help it that
> they can't make these things user friendly) when I copy a file to the
> external drive attached to the router, the file's dates are changed to
> current date and a time 1hour in advance of the time when I started
> the paste action. So a file made on Jan 4 and last edited on Jan 5
> after copy/paste to the network drive will change all dates to Jan 8
> (today) and current time+1hour. What is the logic of these things??
I have no idea. Might still be either a misconfiguration or somebody
messed up the calculation. Maybe, just maybe, setting a different
timezone, that is one hour shifted in the righjt direction, could
fix this.
> Why I bother? Because when creating differential backups ALL files
> will ALWAYS be copied to the network drive which takes maybe 1hour,
> instead of only the changed files which takes for instance 1min.
Understandable.
Arno
Arno Wagner
> I cheered too soon, the date and time WERE correct but now it displays
> 1/1/2000 and an incorrect time. I can't think of anything I did wrong
> to upset the router except poking my nose! And the make it all even
> worse, I now can't access MSHOME group anymore in the network
> connections window where I used to find my external network drive. I
> tried again with firewalls disabled and did the network config wizard
> a few times but I keep getting the message "mshome is not accessible
> you might not have permission to use this network resource". It used
> to work most of the time and sometimes not.
> I hate to say this since I'm against the dump-culture mentality of our
> modern society but I'm thinking of throwing this f*****g router away
> and buy a new one.
Hmmm. By now this sounds like an acceptable solution.
> What is the best wireless router you recommend in
> terms of high speed,reliability, easy to setup, fast NAS and
> preferably a print server?
I would not know, I do not use wireless. Cables are so much
more reliable and easy to use....
Arno
Rod Speed
> I cheered too soon, the date and time WERE correct but now it displays
> 1/1/2000 and an incorrect time. I can't think of anything I did wrong
> to upset the router except poking my nose! And the make it all even
> worse, I now can't access MSHOME group anymore in the network
> connections window where I used to find my external network drive.
> I tried again with firewalls disabled and did the network config wizard
> a few times but I keep getting the message "mshome is not accessible
> you might not have permission to use this network resource".
Thats not necessarily the router, Win can get into that situation regardless of the router used.
> It used to work most of the time and sometimes not.
> I hate to say this since I'm against the dump-culture mentality of our modern
> society but I'm thinking of throwing this f*****g router away and buy a new one.
You'll likely find that it wont make any difference ot that particular problem.
> What is the best wireless router you recommend in terms of high speed,
> reliability, easy to setup, fast NAS and preferably a print server?
I do that with a real PC, not a router.
Alex
> > worse, I now can't access MSHOME group anymore in the network
> > connections window where I used to find my external network drive.
> > I tried again with firewalls disabled and did the network config wizard
> > a few times but I keep getting the message "mshome is not accessible
> > you might not have permission to use this network resource".
>
> Thats not necessarily the router, Win can get into that situation regardless of the router used.
You'll never believe how I solved this, it gave me a headache too. I
disabled windows firewall, disabled AVG internet security firewall but
left the router's firewall on, then I ran the "setup a home network
wizard" and didn't change anything except "DISABLE file and printer
sharing" instead of enable and then suddenly the name of my external
drive appeared under the mshome group in "my network locations". Then
as a test I re-enabled windows firewall as well as the AVG internet
security firewall and I could still access the network drive. Then I
ran the "setup home network wizard" again but this time selected the
option "ENABLE file and printer sharing" and I can still access the
network drive. This was with Windows xp home SP3. Windows has a life
of it's own maybe??
However, my router's date and time problem is not yet solved and I'm
not giving up. The router's webpage says "current time 1/1/2000
00:20:52". The date is incorrect and always the same and the time is
the time the router has been online instead of the current local time.
Also the router's security log shows this incorrect time. I also tried
other time zone settings, even if these are incorrect. I am more and
more considering to buy a new router.
Rod Speed
>>> And to make it all even
>>> worse, I now can't access MSHOME group anymore in the network
>>> connections window where I used to find my external network drive.
>>> I tried again with firewalls disabled and did the network config
>>> wizard a few times but I keep getting the message "mshome is not
>>> accessible you might not have permission to use this network
>>> resource".
>>
>> Thats not necessarily the router, Win can get into that situation
>> regardless of the router used.
>
> You'll never believe how I solved this, it gave me a headache too. I
> disabled windows firewall, disabled AVG internet security firewall but
> left the router's firewall on, then I ran the "setup a home network
> wizard" and didn't change anything except "DISABLE file and printer
> sharing" instead of enable and then suddenly the name of my external
> drive appeared under the mshome group in "my network locations". Then
> as a test I re-enabled windows firewall as well as the AVG internet
> security firewall and I could still access the network drive. Then I
> ran the "setup home network wizard" again but this time selected the
> option "ENABLE file and printer sharing" and I can still access the
> network drive. This was with Windows xp home SP3. Windows has a life
> of it's own maybe??
Not that so much as you can end up with various firewalls
preventing some devices on the lan being visible.
You want to try it with Norton's steaming turd.
> However, my router's date and time problem is not yet solved
Yeah, thats not a Win problem.
> and I'm not giving up. The router's webpage says "current time 1/1/2000
> 00:20:52". The date is incorrect and always the same and the time is
> the time the router has been online instead of the current local time.
> Also the router's security log shows this incorrect time.
> I also tried other time zone settings, even if these are
> incorrect. I am more and more considering to buy a new router.
Yeah, I would. I just meant that that problem at the top is unlikely the router.
Alex
other problems I had in another thread and the date and time are
correct too. It was also very easy to setup. I noticed that copying
files to the external drive attached to the router's USB port is
faster than with the previous router. Instead of 40sec for a 34,7MB
file as earlier mentioned it now takes 10sec for the same file, which
is much better but still not the USB2.0 standard if I'm not mistaking.
But when I copied a file to the NAS, the date and time gets changed to
the actual time during copy. I'm not sure if this will work with an
incremental backup that normally should overwrite files only when they
are recently changed and skip the unchanged files. I still have to
test this but I'm guessing it will overwrite all files and take ages
doing this.
Thanks all for the help, I've learned some interesting stuff here that
I didn't know.
Rod Speed
> I bought a new router (Linksys WRT610N) and this solved one of the
> other problems I had in another thread and the date and time are
> correct too. It was also very easy to setup. I noticed that copying
> files to the external drive attached to the router's USB port is
> faster than with the previous router. Instead of 40sec for a 34,7MB
> file as earlier mentioned it now takes 10sec for the same file, which
> is much better but still not the USB2.0 standard if I'm not mistaking.
You'll never get the maximum, because thats just the
physical speed and doesnt allow for the protocol overhead.
> But when I copied a file to the NAS, the date and
> time gets changed to the actual time during copy.
Thats very undesirable as you say.
> I'm not sure if this will work with an incremental backup
> that normally should overwrite files only when they are
> recently changed and skip the unchanged files.
Depends on what you do the incremental backup with.
Most real backup apps have their own file that contains
the backed up files, so that wont be a problem.
It will be a problem with those like xxcopy and xxclone that
dont have their own file that contains the backed up files tho.
> I still have to test this but I'm guessing it will overwrite all files and take ages doing this.
Like I said, that depends on what you are using to do the backups.
> Thanks all for the help, I've learned some interesting stuff here that I didn't know.
Thanks for the washup, too rare IMO.