45400618_44fca3420f_m.jpgNate is finding that FreeNAS, actually, any NAS is really slow on his system and is looking for help. Nate write:

Hello!

I just found your website not too long ago, and have really enjoyed it! I’m in IT by hobby and trade, and I have found many many useful features on your site, and everything is well documented and easy to follow, not to mention interesting!

I just recently went through your FreeNAS guide and got the system up and running on an old Compaq system I had lying around. I had been having issues with a store-bought Western Digital NAS, and was hoping to try an alternative as well as learn something in the process.

What I did find however, is the same problem, so I am hoping you have some suggestions for me. I know that you are not offering tech support, and you surely get tons of needy email, but I thought I would at least throw it out there for ya, and with any luck you have some knowledge and free time that you toss some clues my way.

Both my FreeNAS system and my Western Digital drive are extraordinarily slow. Like, dog slow.

They ping back with less than 1ms response, so that looks good, and my router indicates that everything is wired in and running at 100M.

That said.. the web interface on both is very slow. Copying a 1.24GB file to the WD system, took 20 minutes exactly. Not exactly speedy. I have similar speed issues with FreeNAS.

Any ideas? Some protocols somewhere? or some authentication errors that may be causing lag? I don’t even know where to start looking.

Thanks for any advice you have. Either way, I look foward to all your future work, and am anticipating your 32MB FlashDrive articles!

-Nate

First, Nate, thanks for the compliments. I’m always glad to hear that people are getting something out of the website.

Now, as for your speed problem. There are several things that it could potentially be but the one that comes to mind is an issue that I had myself a number of years ago.

I had deployed a new network with a server and a number of workstations. Everything worked fine and the network connectivity was there but everything was painfully slow. All the network applications took forever to come up and file transfers were ridiculous. After about two weeks, I finally discovered the problem.

When I created the images for the workstations, I built the image with the network card set to a speed of 100 Mbits and full duplex. At the last minute, we switched from a managed switch to an unmanaged switch. Most unmanaged switches have their speed duplexing set to autonegotiation. It was at this point that I made a bad assumption.

I assumed that since the network cards on each workstations were hard coded to 100/full, the switch would automatically recognize this and set each port to 100/full as well. In reality, I had created a duplex mismatch. Essentially, the network cards were looking for a 100/full link on the other end of their patch cable while the switch was expecting an autonegotiation session. Neither got what they were looking for and trouble ensued!

The long and the short of it is that you have to be sure that what is on one end of a patch cable is the same on the other end of the patch cable. That also goes for autonegotiation. Both devices need to be set to autonegotiation. If only one is set that way, then you will experience all types of network slowdowns! So remember:

10 to 10
100 to 100
1000 to 1000
half to half
full to full
auto to auto
So, Nate, knowing what little I do about your network, this is the first thing that I would check. Make sure that all of your speed and duplex match on all of your devices. To change the speed and duplex in FreeNAS, click on the LAN item under the Interfaces (Assign) menu.

Menu
In this page, you will see a General configuration section near the bottom. Two of the options are Speed and Duplex.

Click to enlarge.

Set these two options to match that on your switch and then click the Save button. With any luck, this will resolve your speed issues!

The other option is to set the speed on the switch. But, this is sometimes not possible, especially if it is an unmanaged switch.

Now, this is only my opinion. So, let’s put this out there to the DCoT readers. What do you think is causing Nate’s speed issues? Let everyone know in the comments.

Good luck, Nate!

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Tim Fehlman