N4100+ speed vs. Firewire?

[paintbrush]

I've just installed a 4100+ with 4 X 750GB Seagate drives. The highest rate I've gotten transferring (writing) files to it is about 20GB per hour. Note however, that this is over Cat5e cables (though with a gig switch). However, this speed is when the files are relatively large, such as 100MB each. When transferring numerous smaller files, the speed decreases drastically, for example 3GB per hour or even slower. Ridiculously slower - I could burn DVD back ups faster! Also, it sometimes produces an error message that a file is an unreadable format and it then stops transferring all of the files in that batch.

We got the 4100+ to act as a networked backup device, but the slow speed in typical use (most files are small) makes it dysfunctional for this purpose.

Questions for board members:

Would simply upgrading to Cat6 cables provide a significant boost in speed?

Would this carry over to the typical backup of many small files which the 4100+ currently chokes on?

Would we be better off with a networked firewire device for our primary purpose of backing up numerous small files? This is for 3 separate computers (1 - Mac G5; 1 - Intel IMac; 1 - PC) with about 250GB of data total, mostly in small files?

The setup I originally intended was to run the 4100+ as RAID 1. Once a week there would be a complete backup onto this RAID. During the week there would also be numerous "snapshots" with Time Machine of changed files backed up onto the RAID. Every week we would swap out 1 drive for offsite storage, replace it and let it auto rebuild. With 4 drives, there will always be the 2 drives in the RAID and 2 copies offsite.

4100+ RAID 1 with spare
4 x 750GB Seagate HDDs
2.0 dual Mac G5 with 8GB RAM and 2 x 250GB HDDs RAID 1

[Thecus - Yvon]

Dear Sir,

The Cat6 just provide more stable environment for data transmitting, due to the single large file take continuous disk location, thus would would fater than small size files from access & reaidng time from structur difference, following suggestion for your reference if went to increase the speed:
1. Pause the virus protection and via FTP to transmiting the file.
2. Try on JumboFrame function, but it is need all network device as like netwrok card, switch & HUB both support this functoion.
3. Chooes higher performance NAS as like N5200 PRO or 1U4500.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.ph...2&redirect=yes
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6181

Yvon.

[paintbrush]

Yvon:
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.
So, upgrading the cables to Cat 6 will NOT improve performance for either speed or the small file problem?

I just ran some tests and get the fastest results with FTP on and Jumbo Frames off, which is not surprising since (I believe) the Mac G5 and our Itel Imac do not support Jumbo Frames.

With FTP on, an Asante 7000 switch, and cat 5e cables, writing to the 4100+ is at the rate of about 18 GB per hour for larger files. The smaller files are still ridiculously slow at about 1.9 GB per hour.

If I go to Cat 6 cables, how are these rates/speeds likely to change, especially for the small files?

I we changed to the 5200 series, how would these rates change?

Also, I cannot get the Thecus Backup Utility to install. It asks:
DB file (thecus_backup.db) not found!
Do you want to create a new one?

When I click OK, I get this message:
DB fil (thecus_backup.db) cannot be created!
Error: unable to open database file

[macguy]

paintbrush,

I originally purchased the 4100+ for use in an all Mac GFX environment (gigabit, cat6). I had a similar experience as yours, 13-18MB/sec on large files, and a miserable <1MB/sec on multiple small files. I tried this direct to NAS with no switch, ftp, smb, afp, etc with similar results. The problem is not the network.

The problem is the horsepower of the 4100. If you check via web interface while doing a copy of small files, you'll note the CPU is at 100%. No matter what you do with the network or other settings, it will have little effect when you are copying tons of small files.

I was able to talk the retailer into taking the 4100 back and sending me the n5200PRO for the difference in price. I used the same drives and it is so much better. I'm getting 25-35 MB/sec transfers on everything, plus iSCSI (for Time Machine).

If you are stuck with the 4100, you can either compress the files you wish to archive or make a disk image on the client side. Then copy that zip or dmg file to the NAS at decent rates.

Best Wishes.

[paintbrush]

MacGuy:
Thanks for the experience.
I guess I'll probably see about peddling the 4100+ (it was an open box so I can't send it back) and either upgrading to the 5200 or going the firewire route. Any thoughts on this (firewire or ethernet network for backups)?

[macguy]

It depends on what you want to accomplish. Firewire is great from a speed standpoint, but unless you buy a mirrored firewire drive, you loose the protection that raid offers. The whole reason I went the NAS route was for a unified, protected source. Before this I had multiple firewire drives. I had drives fail all the time. Also, it was a pain keeping track of what was on which drive. It would certainly be affordable to dedicate 2 firewire drives to each workstation. Backup once a week and rotate the drives offsite.

[paintbrush]

Or I could get a firewire two drive RAID and use a hub. Then use a separate extermal for the off site backups. Its mainly a speed question.

[macguy]

Firewire 800 will be faster than gigabit connected to any NAS, however firewire 400 will be comparable to something like the n5200pro. When you mention hub, you are talking about a firewire hub? You are wanting to connect multiple workstations through a hub connected via firewire, and share a drive? I'm not sure this is possible . . . without SAN software. You can use a hub to connect multiple firewire devices to ONE computer. Not multiple computers to one device. Perhaps, I misunderstood your idea.

You can buy a firewire 2-drive (make sure it supports raid-1 mirror, most only support raid-0 striping) and walk it to each station (sneaker-net) to back up.

[paintbrush]

Thanks for the feedback. I've looked around and indeed, there doesn't seem to be such a thing as an auto switching firewire switch. I suppose I could also daisy chain a firewire RAID to one computer and connect that computer via firewire to the other computer.
Lots to think about.
Thanks.