just got a NAS from scan.. are they meant to be this slow?!

[lanceuppercut]

i got a QNAP and 3x 1tb samsung drives from you guys this week.

using them as a RAID5 array over a 100mb network. have let the drives have sync so as far as im aware, they're ready to go, however transferring a 1gb file from my computer, it takes 5 minutes, surely that cant be as im sure it takes less to transfer from computer to computer.

this link: http://www.t1shopper.com/tools/calcu...calculator.php says a 1gb file over a 100mb network should take a minute and a half plus overheads, but 5 mins?!

as far as i can tell the QNAP has been set up correctly, do i have a case for returning the NAS as surely it should be this slow to copy files to it?! copying files from the NAS seems marginally quicker but its still awful compared to computer to computer transfers..

[Blackbadger]

Which model did you get ?

Cheaper NAS devices suffer from terrible transfer rates due to a stupidly underpowered cpu in the device. Many claim to have a gigabit connection (which the do) but can only transfer data way below 100Mbps speeds.

Typical 100Mbps Lan will achieve 10-15MBps. Resulting in a 1gig file conservatively taking 1.5 mins. to transfer.

If your sure the raid is set up properly, and your still getting these speeds, I can only guess they are like many other NAS devices.

Return the item under the DSR (NOT RMA, which they will push for), be sure to-do this in writing asap if you take that route.

[GaryRW]

I think Smallnetbuilder.com has quite a lot of reviews and speedtests of various NAS's. You could have a look there and compare speeds.

Blackbadger is right though. Speeds are not always what you'd think. A raid 5 array will put more strain on a poor processor. The slow speeds of purpose built NAS's are what's pushing me towards a self-build, but hard to match the low power (watts) of the purpose built jobs.

[Nelsaidi]

It should take about 2 minutes imo.

[lanceuppercut]

i got this: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/Qnap-...ng-SATA-II-HDD

even though i've obviously had to open it to get this far to realise it seems slow as hell, will i be able to DSR it?

i know its the weekend, but do scan people frequent this forum much?

[GaryRW]

this page: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/conte.../30324/75/1/5/ suggests a read speed of 22.4 MB/s and a write speed of 13.0MB/s. So either way, it should be capable of maxing out a 100mb network connection

disclaimer: I'm about an inch away from the bottle of the bottle of red in front of me, so apologies if I've read the above link entirely wrong, or got my megabits and megabytes all screwy again.

[Nelsaidi]

Dont know much about Nas's, but are you sure something/someone else is not draining your internet connection? - That would surely affect it.

[Blackbadger]

It does look like the NAS is a reasonably good one for a 100mbs devic, it certainly has lots of features.

There is a detailed review here..
Which shows in there tests a 4 gig rar file write takes approx 4 mins.

Do you have another pc to try copying the files too for a test ? It could be your pc is the reason its slow.

Either way, if your not happy with it, you have 7 days to decide if it's suitable for you, I cant imagine scan will be around until tuesday.

[Saracen]

I.....

Either way, if your not happy with it, you have 7 days to decide if it's suitable for you, I cant imagine scan will be around until tuesday.

Remember, 7 working days, i.e. excluding bank holidays and weekends .... and starting the day after delivery.

....

even though i've obviously had to open it to get this far to realise it seems slow as hell, will i be able to DSR it? ....

If the DSR applies to you and your purchase, yes. That you've opened the goods doesn't change the position.

This bit is a somewhat awkward to explain.

The DSRs apply to consumer contracts, so of you're a business buyer, then no.

The DSRs apply to most distance purchases, so if you bought in person on Scan's premises, then no.

There are some contracts that are "excepted" from the DSR, and some types of products that it doesn't apply to, but neither of those would apply to your NAS.

So where the DSR gives a right to cancel, i.e. if those previous criteria don't apply, then that right is unconditional. You are then entitled to a full refund of what you paid, including standard delivery charges, subject only to a deduction of the direct cost of the seller collecting the goods from you if you don't return them at your expense.

If you opted for "extras", such as gift-wrapping, or special delivery methods (like express or Saturday delivery), under a separate contract, then that wouldn't be recoverable either. I doubt the NAS was gift-wrapped, though. But other than that, yes you can cancel.

However ..... you have a duty to take "reasonable care" of goods, and if you don't, then you might be liable for any losses incurred by the seller as a result. The question is .... what is "reasonable care"?

The Office of Fair Trading and DTI have issued written guidance that they consider opening goods to NOT breach the reasonable care requirement. They point out that you're entitled to open and inspect goods and that neither goods being opened, nor them not being able to be resold as new gives a retailer an entitlement to refuse a DSR cancellation. It is, in their opinion, a cost of doing business by distance methods that sellers have to bear.

But ultimately, neither the OFT nor DTI decide on whether you've taken "reasonable care" or not, A court would. So, given that unconditional right to cancel and be refunded if you have a contract to which a DSR right to cancel applies (and it looks like you do), then the law requires that the seller would have to respond to that by refunding you, and then if they believe you breached that duty of reasonable care, they'd have to pursue you for it afterwards, and convince a court that they are right, and that you've not taken "reasonable care" of the goods.

[lanceuppercut]

thanks for the advice, i will try and lug the kit around to a mate's house today (he has a gigabit network) to test it to see if its my 100mb network thats the problem or not, but as mentioned, windows to windows transfers seem alright on the same port as one of the windows machine, its just going to the NAS which seems painfully slow.

(brought it over the net, not a business user and no gift wrapping)

from one of the linked reviews and even though i have the TS409 and not the TS409Pro, it should still be roughly the same:

RAID 5:

In RAID 5 all four of the enclosures show as one network drive (however its size was only equal to that of 3 of the hard drives original size). When one of the hard drives was removed all data was still secure. The only noticeable difference was that the HDD4 Failure light went on. By reinserting the second drive the enclosure immediately started to rebuild its array and do not check to see if the reinsert hard drive data was intact. Rebuild time took nearly 5 hours to complete. If at any time during this rebuild process had another hard drive failed the array’s data would have been lost. This is very decent performance considering the amount of processor intensive work involved in creating parity, and should be considered a PASS on all 3 sections.

it might not be same thing but when i created a new raid5 array, the unit had to sync the drives, with no other activity on the unit this took, the best part of 24 hours, i have 3x SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1tb drives, which are on the unit's compatibility list, so how does mine takes nigh on a day to do a simple sync on empty drives! :/

[BobF64]

Are you using Vista by any chance?

Vista seems to have "issues" transfering files to anything non-Windows based due to changes in the SMB protocol.

I noticed this on my Synology NAS box after changing from XP to Vista, it was somewhat slower copying files via SMB compared to FTP.

[lanceuppercut]

my mate did mention about vista being slow on his NAS (thecus 5400) and XP was miles faster but no, im using XP.

transferring the same 1gb file on the gigabit network, i gave up hope after 2 minutes at which point it only got to around 30%, when i realised there was an active download going, after i stopped it, it took around 2 minutes to finish the entire copy process from the same machine to the NAS without any extra configuring on the NAS.

which sort of leads me ask why downloading off the internet will slow down a file copy over a local network? transferring from pc to pc with an active download never exhibited this sort of behaviour.

[Blackbadger]

If you were downloading a torrent, the 100's of connections hammer your router to death, making it slow.
If you were downloading a standard file and it slows, it shouldn't.

[lanceuppercut]

it was a download from a newsgroup, using 4 connections and iirc, the download was going at 500-600kb/sec, however his line can max a download at 1.2mb/sec.

but why when copying a file locally, should what internet traffic count that much..

[pauleden]

If the internet traffic you mention is torrent and you're using a router, then yes, it can slow down your LAN. Why? Because each peer and seed takes up one connection on your router and if you use them all up then the router begins to run slowly as it tries to prioritise traffic and swap connection around.
My Linksys router can only handle 100 connections. I was finding that having active torrents on one machine was causing terrible lag when gaming on another machine on the LAN and clanmates couldn't connect to my teamspeak which was on the same machine as the torrent client. Alarm bells began to ring as I throttled back the torrent trying to reduce bandwidth, but not seeing any improvement in the above symptoms. It wasn't bandwidth I was short of, but connections on the router.

[arthurleung]

Both NAS I have perform very poorly with 100Mbps network. Using 1000Mbps will get them up to 100Mbps speed but not any higher.

Perhaps you should invest in a 1000Mbps switch to place between you and the router.