NAS file access slow?

Hi guys, know there are some real techy types among you so thought I would ask here!

I have a NAS, and I spend a lot of time copying files to/from it, from 6 machines. It just seems that every time I try to access files, it just sits there and does nothing for about 30 secs or so before actually doing anything!

As an example, if I have a lot of files in one folder and move them to another folder, on a local drive this appears to be almost instant, as I know that the files are not actually moving, just a 'location tag' so that Windows knows where they are. If I use one machine to access another machine and do the same process this is just as quick, but whenever I try to do a similar task on the NAS, it just sits there for about 30 secs, then takes a lot longer to do the job than a slow laptop drive.

Just cannot figure out why, any ideas greatly appreciated as this can really slow my day down!

my nas drives spin down and go into a sleep mode, when not being accessed.
so the computer, basically needs to say hello to the drive, wake up the drive, wait for the drive to spin up to speed, then read or write to the drive. Doesn't take thirty seconds, more like five or ten.
my nas drives are used for storrage, and back up files, not working files for that reason....

I suppose if you had a dedicated server and a fast network, you could speed things up.....

Are you on mac or windows?

I am no techy but I have done some reading on this when I set up my NAS so don't take my word for it.

Does it always take 30 seconds or is it only the first copy that takes 30 seconds and subsequent copy commands are executed in a timely fashion? Subsequent as in after 5 or so minutes. It could be slow because the drive has gone to sleep and is waking up i.e. spinning the drives before it starts to copy. I use a mac but I also know there are issues with windows networking where it searches the entire network for the actual computer before it starts a copy. Try using network switches between the computers and the NAS. This reduces the latency I believe.

Could understand that if it was the first use of the day, but when it's spun up to speed, it should be fine after that, but it isn't!

Just as an example, just copied a 15mb file from another laptop (which has a slower drive) the whole process took about 2 secs, copied a 15mb file from the NAS, counted to roughly 27 secs before the copy started, then it took 2 secs to copy, it's very frustrating I can tell ya!

fortunately for you there are people here much smarter than me...best I can offer is "Get a Mac"... my usual advice whenever "Buy Pentax" doesn't solve the problem.... once you use up those two answers we're down to "Got some scotch?"

Is the NAS drive running a RAID set? Have you checked for a failed HDD? If it's RAID 5 for example it will keep running but will run slowly.

It's also possible that this NAS drive is fragmented - but I would have no idea how to defrag it as Windows can only do this to local drives.

Also check out this link - it's not exactly NAS related - just slow network access in general.

Has this just started happening or getting worse over time?

Bought Pentax, got a MAC, got ice!

Got a Mac? Then it isn't a Windows issue.

What brand NAS drive it is?

How are you connecting that to the network? Are all six machines and the NAS on the same hub, switch, router? i.e. Is it all plugged into your internet service provider's router(probably not built for lots of network throughput)? Or connected to a separate GigaBit switch for example.

It may be a routing or DHCP issue, but I would suspect accessing shared drives on other machines would also give the same behavior.
Is the NAS perhaps going to sleep and the router being forced to dole out a new or renew the DHCP address? That should not happen, and I really do not know how you would tell unless the router logs show that sort of thing or if the NAS IP address changes regularly.

also check for compatible devices in your nas drive manufacturer's website... some routers don't play well with some drives....

Sorry, wasn't being 100% specific with my reply to Don, was tongue in cheek as I know the answer to most windows problems is not to use windows!

The problems are all happening at work (PC's) not at home (MAC). The NAS drive is quite new, about 4 months old, is not on a RAID, single 1TB drive with 700MB free, plugged into a Netgear wireless router by cable, and if memory serves me right, I didn't have the problem at first. It does seem to have slowed down a lot and I am actually taking notice of it more now as I am actually trying to do some work for once!

No network switches.

2x Hubs, both Netgear, one wireless with ADSL, other just a hub plugged into the other. All rated for 100Mbps which is fine for my usage.

5x PC Laptops, 2x PC desktops have all been running on this setup fine for at least 2-3 years. Used to use one drive in one laptop as main storage with no issues, but needed more storage hence the NAS (Western Digital Mybook 1TB?)

Copying from any drive (all laptops have 2x HD's) from any machine is no problem.

Browsing and navigating through the drive folders is no problem, actually copying is fine with no problems, just the lag to get started.

Had it set up to map a network drive straight to the public folder on the NAS.

Thats everything I can think of from home, and to be honest, Woodworm's link seems to probably have an answer (cheers buddy), just hate the having to spend hours just trying to get something to work as it should!

Just thought of something that may have an issue, recently one of the laptops changed location so we turned the WIFI back on a few weeks ago, may be an issue, but only the NAS is affected so far, will try in the morning!

Well, similar setup to mine.
Try this to remove all possibilities...
Connect the drive directly to your computer's ethernet port.
If you do not have a Gigabit card, you may need to put a switch/hub in between (gigabit allows for direct connect using standard cable, some 100BaseT may require a crossover cable or adapter if a switch is not in between.)

If the problem is solved, then reconnect items until the problem re-occurs.
If the problem persists, well, then, er, um, you're SOL.

Sounds like a combination of drive spin-up time and TCP/IP throttling.
I have a Freecom NAS which has an option of putting the drive to sleep when not in use. Waking up from this takes an age (30s or so). However, because it's an option I could elect for never putting the drive to sleep.

At work we have a couple of Quantum Snap servers running RAID5. These keep the drives spinning all the time, and they're always available - no delays.

If you are getting a slow transfer after spin-up, then it sounds like the TCP/IP stacks in Windows is surmising that there is some big bottle-neck between the PC and NAS and is slowing down the network transfer to avoid filling up that imaginary "slow-pipe". (There are settings somewhere in the registry that describe how to deal with these situations... I'll have to look into it...)

If the NAS is being used all the time at work - see if you can disable the drive sleep mode. That should sort it (But possibly shorten the life of the drive)

Hope that helps!
Matt

This sounds very improbable to me and may be your problem.

I am not aware of any 1Tb PC style hard disks on the market. The largest I have seen are 750Gb and pricy, and would expect you have a pair of matched 500Gb drives in your NAS.

As such if you are seeing a single drive letter when you try to write to the NAS there is a probably a file allocation/management black box sitting somewhere and causing the slowdown. Unravel the mysteries of that or unbundle the drives and you should get the sort of speed you are expecting.

Shaky, it's 2008 mate! 1TB drives have been around for well over a year, probably 2 now!

I've got 4 of these link in my Mac Pro!

1TB HD = only £88!

This is the NAS I have btw
link

I've had a 1Tb WD Mybook (non-NAS box) for best part of a year. I'm about to add a Netgear ReadyNAS system to my network. It has 4 x 1Tb drives in X-RAID configuration (Smart RAID 5 if you like) giving about 3Tb of usable storage.