Slow network transfer on N36L running WHS2011

[finlay666]

My HP N36L microserver seems to be running very sluggish transfers currently. Streaming video over sustained period causes stutters in the stream (happens on both low and high quality MP4, cpu/ram levels arent too high and it's running on 4gb ecc)

Transfers to the server on a network drive copy about 6mb/s, from either a remote desktop connection or from the network drive it goes much slower, about 1.5mb/s

Considering over homeplugs I can saturate my 30mbit internet connection (near 4mb/s) so the homeplugs aren't an issue.

I know the N36L has an iffy NIC (the N40L supports jumbo frames etc) but is it worth getting a pci-e GBE NIC purely for improving the speeds or is there some way I can improve the performance through the configuration settings? Some places say to disable the checksum calculations and offloading but
1. I saw no positive increase (in fact it dropped from 2mb/s to the 1.5mb/s I'm on now
2. I appear to have made a change causing the reduction and can't get it back up to speed again

If I was to get a ne wNIC, what would people suggest? Needs to be half height and PCI-e (1x I assume would suffice)

[dave87]

I've got the N36L with WHS 2011 on it and can quite happily get 80+mb/sec up and down.

Standalone NIC can't hurt (go for one of the Intel ones), or alternatively the HP management card has a GbE NIC on it aswell afaik?


Have you copied new content over to it recently?

[finlay666]

I've got the N36L with WHS 2011 on it and can quite happily get 80+mb/sec up and down.

Standalone NIC can't hurt (go for one of the Intel ones), or alternatively the HP management card has a GbE NIC on it aswell afaik?


Have you copied new content over to it recently?

I copied over new content just before I posted

The management card... what would I get over a standard NIC? 3x the price really should give me something useful for the extra, info seems a bit scant on it too, if it supports jumbo frames, the sort of performance etc

It might be that the switch it's hooked up to is painfully slow but will try that tomorrow, not had an issue with it before at lans with people hitting my pc for files before I started taking the microserver

[vrykyl]

Have you tried turning off remote differential compression on your client machine? Mines turned off as it seemed to slow my transfers right down...
Also install and use the HP supplied nic drivers rather than the default windows ones on the server, the management tool is much better!

Currently transferring a large file across at around 130+mbs (over gigabit ethernet to a hardware raid 5 array).

What speed are your homeplugs btw?

[finlay666]

Homeplugs are rated at 200mbps but even to a machine on the same loop the speed is slow, will look at the other driver first though

[dave87]

I copied over new content just before I posted

The management card... what would I get over a standard NIC? 3x the price really should give me something useful for the extra, info seems a bit scant on it too, if it supports jumbo frames, the sort of performance etc

It might be that the switch it's hooked up to is painfully slow but will try that tomorrow, not had an issue with it before at lans with people hitting my pc for files before I started taking the microserver

If it is still indexing new content (built in media server for 360 etc) then it does seem to suffer performance wise, but not far enough to stutter on video I wouldn't have thought.

The management card uses the same position as the x1 PCI-E slot, but not the same actual PCI-E Slot. It uses the x4 slot that is not in the normal position - so if you were going to add the management card in at somepoint you'd be shooting yourself in the foot (and hence the question!).

[BobF64]

The management card... what would I get over a standard NIC? 3x the price really should give me something useful for the extra, info seems a bit scant on it too, if it supports jumbo frames, the sort of performance etc

The IPMI management card gives you remote http based management of the server, including the useful java KVM/media tools.

It does come at a cost, the inbuilt graphics adapter is disabled and all vga output is via the IPMI card itself, and the network adapter connects only to the IPMI card so isnt visible or available from the main OS, you also lose the PCI-e 1x slot.

Its pretty much an expensive on/off switch with additional emergency/bare-metal access.

[watercooled]

Currently transferring a large file across at around 130+mbs (over gigabit ethernet to a hardware raid 5 array).

Windows reported speeds aren't reliable; the max possible raw throughput rate for GbE is about 119MiB/s or 125MB/s (1,000,000,000 bits/s), then you have to take various overheads off that.

To try to narrow down what's happening, check things like disk/CPU utilisation while idle and during a transfer, and see if you can achieve decent throughput with something like iperf.

[vrykyl]

Windows reported speeds aren't reliable; the max possible raw throughput rate for GbE is about 119MB/s (1,000,000,000 bits/s), then you have to take various overheads off that.

Well I never knew that, though I guess it comes as no surprise when windows also clearly makes up "time remaining" too

Finlay, forgot to ask - the stuttering video streams: how are you serving the media, and to what? Aka eg samba share to wdtv live etc. ??

[finlay666]

Via a folder share (as it's just mp4) to:
1. Windows 7 running media centre (connected to the same switch)
2. Windows 7 running WMP (via 802.11n)
3. Xbox 360 (via homplug + another switch)
4. Windows 7 running VLC (via homeplug as 360 + same switch)

[Apex]

Got to ask have you replaced the drivers recently for the NIC.....