Transfer speeds

Kesio · March 2012

I just downloaded the trial version of drivepool. Really miss the functionality from WHSv1.

When i transfer files to my normal shares i get transferspeeds of 70-95 mb/s, but when transfering to my drivepool it hoovers around 30-40 mb/s.

Is this what i should expect, or is there something wrong? It really bugs me, and will be a big factor if I buy it or not.

EDIT: So i tested to transfer the same files to new shares on the same disks as the pool is, just outside the pool. I get the same slow transferspeeds. Yesterday, before i installed drivepool, the transferspeeds where good. So changing the question; is this a drivepool issue or is there something else going on?

EDIT 2: Tried copy the same files to a share on the

disk, outside the pool. Transfer speeds started at around 90 mb/s. After about 40% of the transfer, an "Indexing" icon started to blink above the pool condition bar in the whs dashboard. now the transfer speed dropped to around 50 mb/s. Redid the transfer 5 times, and with the same result every time. I'm guessing this "Indexing" icon is related to drivepool, because my WHS is in swedish and I have no other addin installed.

So what is actually going on here? And is this what i should expect?

muaddib · March 2012

How are your drives in your pool connected? Are they connected via external USB, esata? Internal ide, sata?

My external highpoint rocketraid 2314 4x pcie card is fast and when I copy to my pool of about 6tb, my speeds are between 96mb/s and 116mb/s. I was a little bit nervous about throughput but needless to say that I was pleasantly surprised that my performance wasn't degraded after I installed DP.

Paaland · March 2012

Remember that DP does file duplication in real-time (by default). So when you copy to a disk the slowest of the disks that DP uses will regulate the speed.

Any other operations taking place on any of the involved disks (indexing, defrag etc) will significantly slow down the speed.

So to properly compare speeds with DP and without you must make sure the environement is the same (no defrag, no indexing, no antivirus run etc) which is kind of hard.

But DP does probably give a bit poorer performance over native direct access. But that's the penalty of the extra securitry.

Kesio · March 2012

muaddib: They're connected via onboard sata. It's exactly the same setup which I've used with WHSv1 and Linux, and the performance there was excellent (70-90 mb/s, same as on this WHS 2011 setup before adding drivepool).

Paaland: The duplicate feature is disabled on the individual shares, but now I also changed to "Duplicate later" in the general settings. Tried another copy and now it's around 55 mb/s. An improvement but still not there.

I have alot of data ready to be moved to the pool. But going to do some more testing before I decide to use it or not. I move alot of big files daily to and from the server, so i really want the speed to be the highest possible.

Going to uninstall drivepool and do some transfer tests again and see how it goes.

Thanks for the help so far

muaddib · March 2012

Great point Paaland. My throughput numbers are without file duplication turned on.

Kesio · March 2012

Forum ate my huge post

Here goes short version: Without drivepool installed the top speeds were high, but with huge dips. Installed drivepool again and first copy was with 35-ish mb/s, second at around 65 mb/s. Very stable transfer though, no dips.

Probably isn't anything drivepool related. I'm only running 2GB RAM and starting to think WHS 2011 maybe needs abit more. Going to upgrade as it's cheap anyway.

Again, thanks for the help

Klode · March 2012

I finished copying all the data back to WHS 2011. I had good speed at 40-60 Mb/s. I then turned on duplication on few folders. Trying to copy a file at speed 3-5 Mbps which is not that good, even today after all is balanced and duplicate. Pool's health is 100%. Any other toughts on how to improve the transfer speed? For a start of investigation, I'll try the duplicate later option.

Edit: Here are some tests I made before and after enabling duplicate later option, both download and upload.

Download before: 3-5 Mb/s

After first test: 6,5-8,5 Mb/s After 2nd test: 10-18 Mb/s

Upload before: 3-5 Mb/s

After first test: 65-85 Mb/s After 2nd test: 70-90 Mb/s

As you can see, uploading a file to the pool is as fast as before installing DrivePool, which is pretty good. Just the download speeds are not that good after installing DP.

Shane · March 2012

Kesio: you mention performance dropped when the "Indexing" notice appeared. Indexing is done by WHS, as far as I know DrivePool just reports that it's happening. Indexing is supposed to be a background task, but you may wish to try pausing it to see if it makes a difference: remote in, Start button, type "indexing options", Pause.

I seem to recall with the original WHSv1 that some people were using a script to schedule when Indexing could run (e.g. in the early hours of the morning) for this very reason.

Kesio · March 2012

Found out that the WHS was set up to backup my whole client computer by default. Turned this off and the transfer speeds are back to normal.

Still new to WHS 2011, but this problem is solved. Now buying Drivepool!

muaddib · March 2012

Awesome Kesio, welcome to the fold!

robandcathy · March 2012

My question before I try is, will my connection speeds throught out my network stay the same as if I never installed DP? I have many computers pulling info from server will the computers still get same transfer rate.

Klode · March 2012

It all depends on your setup. I have my server (H341) with 4 HDD and another enclosure with 2 HDD plugged into e-sata port of the server. I have tried to include all the drives into the pool. The result was not good at all. Streaming stutter and suddenly stops. I suspect the enclosure slowing down the network. A workaround I have found is not to include what need to be streamed to other clients in the pool, like recorded TV, videos, etc. With these folders outside of pool, streaming is very good. I also have a copy of these files in the pool, so all data is protected without duplication on these folders.

So, what I suggests is start with all HDD and folders in the pool. Then if you notice any issue, then you can make the needed changes. All is very easy to setup and modify. Keep in mind that if something works for me, it may not work for you. All systems have different configurations and users, different needs as well.

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