Checking Local Network Speed

Nick · July 05, 2017, 01:58:12 PM

Hi,

I recently purchased a Seagate Network Attached Storage device - a 4Tb "Personal Cloud" hard drive.

It is cabled into my router, and the my PC is also cabled to the router. The PC (Windows 10) is reporting a 1Gb/s Ethernet2 connection to the router.

Writing large volumes of files to the NAS (for backup purposes) seems painfully slow compared to my existing USB3.0 external HDD. I appreciate that USB3.0 can transfer data at up to 5Gb/s, but I seem to be experiencing a larger differential than that. Even deleting files is taking an age. (I got myself in a tangle setting up a backup routine and I need to start again.)

I have no experience of testing a network for proper functioning. Can anybody suggest how I can check what speed I am actually achieving in the transfers, and, if it is lower than it should be, how to go about isolating the problem to the NAS, cables, card, router, etc.?

Thanks

Malc · July 05, 2017, 02:27:10 PM

Network speed and throughput are different. Because of the overheads on data coding with Ethernet connections, you probably only get 125 Mbytes per second from 1g bits per second network connection. USB 3 can transfer some where about 640 Mbytes/sec.
If you are using a router, log onto the router and check the statistics. Cheap network cables can be a problem. Look at the errors, clear them, do a transfer and look again.

Nick · July 05, 2017, 02:51:45 PM

Many thanks - but I still should be back to a 5:1 differential in throughput and it feels worse than that. That may be my impatience, I suppose.

Any idea where in the router pages I'd find these statistics? I don't recall seeing that sort of thing, but I've never had cause to look, I admit. It's a Virgin SuperHub, I believe.

Malc · July 05, 2017, 03:43:26 PM

If you open CMD and type in ipconfig and return, it will show your network card configuration. The parameter labelled Default Gateway is the address of your router.
Open up the browser of your choice and enter that address into the browser. It should open the router configure page. The default name and password are written on the bottom/back of the router.

Malc · July 05, 2017, 03:56:24 PM

Just checked, the Virgin Super hub doesn't give stats for wired connections, only wireless. You could try http://www.totusoft.com/lanspeed1

Mike Hamilton · July 05, 2017, 04:41:44 PM

NAS drives are unfortunately remarkably slow at writing files. I've had Buffalo ones in the past, but now use QNAP and they're still slow as compared with an external USB 3 or even USB 2. However, as far as I'm concerned, speed isn't the issue, its the reliability of the drives. Are you using WD Red drives? if not, get some as they are designed for NAS's as there powered on 24/7/365.

Nick · July 05, 2017, 05:08:14 PM

Quote from: Malc on July 05, 2017, 03:56:24 PM
Just checked, the Virgin Super hub doesn't give stats for wired connections, only wireless. You could try http://www.totusoft.com/lanspeed1

Thanks, I will try that.

I can't get into the router admin page at the moment anyway, for whatever reason. It's not responding to either Edge or Firefox. That doesn't bode well.

I suppose I'll have to reset the router, but I'd promised my wife that we were going to watch the first Test tomorrow, which we stream over NowTV, so I'm blowed if I'm resetting anything till we've done that! I've been caught that way before...

Nick · July 05, 2017, 05:11:08 PM

Quote from: hillside on July 05, 2017, 04:41:44 PM
NAS drives are unfortunately remarkably slow at writing files. I've had Buffalo ones in the past, but now use QNAP and they're still slow as compared with an external USB 3 or even USB 2. However, as far as I'm concerned, speed isn't the issue, its the reliability of the drives. Are you using WD Red drives? if not, get some as they are designed for NAS's as there powered on 24/7/365.

I didn't buy an empty box - this one is a prepopulated single-bay NAS box from Seagate. I was trying my toe in the water of using NAS drive, partly for backups and partly to stream media to our TV.

I can't remember what's in it, but I do seem to remember reading a review which confirmed it had a drive that was suitable for constant use.

ntpntpntp · July 05, 2017, 05:45:33 PM

I've had a 2TB Seagate Goflex Home as our centralised NAS and DLNA media server for quite a few years now. I've found that over 1Gb ethernet I get around 30-35MB/s write speed and 60MB/s read speed. The GoFlex is the limiting factor.

About once a month I back up the changed content to another 2TB drive via a wired laptop and USB3 and store the drive off-site.

Best thing I did recently was to acquire a couple of Linksys WiFi 802.11ac bridges - they've really made a big difference to streaming around the house and for my laptop's WiFi. One of them only cost me £9 on ebay and half of that was postage! My lappie will comfortably copy large files over WiFi to the GoFlex at around 15-16MB/s which is sooo much faster than it used to over 802n.

Kaian · July 05, 2017, 10:10:17 PM

In general, a NAS is configured for Capacity and not speed.

As mentioned the NAS is a single 4 TB drive, if it was a higher end NAS you would have multiple bays and be able to set the RAID configuration on the disk to allow mirroring. This doubles the potential disk speed but keeps the available disk size the same, this can become as expensive as you make it. But a general rule is a single drive with high capacity won't give the same read/write speed as a single drive with lower capacity unless it is an SSD but that is a different ball game.

Other factors which will affect it is the network speed and the CPU of the NAS and how quickly it can process the data when received over the network.

broadsword · July 05, 2017, 11:05:19 PM

Regarding Seagate I bought one 3 years ago to store movies from
Youtube and old TOTP, stlll works. well a couple of months
ago I got another from a well known shop packed in and
useless after a few days, still to get recompensed.

Ian Bowden · July 06, 2017, 09:00:13 AM

I have had one for a couple of years. I recently bought a second factory refurbished one, which I have yet to install. The best thing is remote connecting from my phone while out and about. Speed over WiFi can be slow if using an extender as it uses half the speed available to communicate with the hub and half to pass the data to the device.

Nick · July 06, 2017, 01:19:53 PM

Thanks, folks. It rather looks as though I am getting the correct speed or thereabouts, although I'll certainly check it out in more detail.

The router-NAS cable is new, having been bundled with the NAS, and looks fine, but the PC-router cable goes way back.

Resetting the router is now on the to-do list. Judging by England's performance this morning :'( , I might as well have done it yesterday!

ntpntpntp's mention of backups raises an interesting question, but I'll start another thread rather than muddy this one.

Yet_Another · July 06, 2017, 02:45:01 PM

Just a quickie: if you've got old cables, but your devices are gigabit ethernet capable, it's a good idea to check that the cables are cat6. Older cat5E might be ok, but best use the latest tech.

Malc · July 06, 2017, 03:22:44 PM

Cat 5e is OK for 1Gb/s connections, but if you are going for 10Gb/s, then Cat6 is needed. Having said that, I have run 50m of good quality 5e instead of Cat6 when the drum of cable didn't turn up. The kit still worked OK, but we did replace it when the right stuff appeared.