Poor Performance to Samba share with Windows Server 2016 Essentials

[Trilex]

Hello 

 

key points 

-the shared folder being acessed via samba is 2 external usb drives in RAID 1, 1x2TB, 1x1TB

- local read and write speeds are over 100MB/S

- samba write speed are very poor/unstable, fluctuating between 10-40MB/S 

-samba read speeds are ok @ 50MB/S but nowhere near gigabit speeds 

-cpu utilisation is about 30% of all 4 cores(SERVER and CLIENT) while transfering files 

 

 

so i made the switch from running samba on ubuntu to windows cuz i like a more gui interface and i want to run other programs but I've noticed speeds have increased but the fluctuating of the read or writing makes the transfer times slower or the same. Is there any advanced options i can try to increase speed. 

 

Troubleshooting steps 

-disable smb signing, this made results quite worse sometimes 

-nic teaming, W 2x1Gbp/s NIC, didnt help 

-what else can i try?

 

 

Thanks any help appreciated 

[leadeater]

Have you installed/enabled the Active Directory role on this server?

[Trilex]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Have you installed/enabled the Active Directory role on this server?

No what does it do

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, Trilex said:

No what does it do

Doesn't matter, just checking because it enables forced network security signing which kills performance for network shares etc.

[Trilex]

Just now, leadeater said:

Doesn't matter, just checking because it enables forced network security signing which kills performance for network shares etc.

Anything else you can suggest to help me, if not thanks I will check when I get home.

[leadeater]

Download StarWind RAM disk and create a share off a ram disk and see what you get that way, ram disk to ram disk tests can be quite helpful in ruling out disk performance of the client and server side.

[Trilex]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Download StarWind RAM disk and create a share off a ram disk and see what you get that way, ram disk to ram disk tests can be quite helpful in ruling out disk performance of the client and server side.

Will do

[KarathKasun]

Fluctuating speeds across multiple OS setups points to a network issue, perhaps dropped packets.

[Trilex]

1 minute ago, KarathKasun said:

Fluctuating speeds across multiple OS setups points to a network issue, perhaps dropped packets.

I don't think so, cuz when I ping via CMD it says I have 0 packet loss. 

[KarathKasun]

3 minutes ago, Trilex said:

I don't think so, cuz when I ping via CMD it says I have 0 packet loss. 

Ping will not show dropped packets under load by itself.

 

Run "ping <address> -t" while transferring.

[Trilex]

3 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Ping will not show dropped packets under load.

 

Run "ping <address> -t" while transferring.

Ok will do when I get home. Thanks for your response and sorry for my misunderstanding 

[KarathKasun]

Just now, Trilex said:

Ok will do when I get home. Thanks for your response and sorry for my misunderstanding 

Its fine, common misunderstanding.  The load that ping puts on the connection is different than a flat out data transfer.

 

Had similar issues at a clients office once, another tech had installed an internet gateway appliance between the network and the server.  Ping results were fine, transfers were fine, SQL queries were overloading the cheap device with tiny packets and causing it to drop packets.  What was previously a 15s query was taking 45m.

[Trilex]

17 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Its fine, common misunderstanding.  The load that ping puts on the connection is different than a flat out data transfer.

 

Had similar issues at a clients office once, another tech had installed an internet gateway appliance between the network and the server.  Ping results were fine, transfers were fine, SQL queries were overloading the cheap device with tiny packets and causing it to drop packets.  What was previously a 15s query was taking 45m.

How did you fix this problem?

[KarathKasun]

6 minutes ago, Trilex said:

How did you fix this problem?

Had to remove the internet security appliance from the connection between the server and clients.  Its little ARM CPU was not up to the task of deep packet inspection on SQL.

 

Raw throughput issues can be equipment quality or software problems of one kind or another.  Have you tried without NIC teaming to rule out configuration problems from that angle?  A single GbE link is good for ~80-90MB/s.

[Trilex]

10 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Had to remove the internet security appliance from the connection between the server and clients.  Its little ARM CPU was not up to the task of deep packet inspection on SQL.

 

Raw throughput issues can be equipment quality or software problems of one kind or another.  Have you tried without NIC teaming to rule out configuration problems from that angle?  A single GbE link is good for ~80-90MB/s.

Yea, I have tried without nic teaming and it's still 50 MBs

[Mikensan]

Connect the server directly to the client you're using to test, bypassing the switch. Run your test again. If it is slow, swap out the patch cable with another one. Do this, to rule out hardware.

 

If you're using 2 external USB drivers and a USB NIC you may be pushing the limits of your USB controller - since all 3 would simultaneously send/receive data because you striped the disks. Have you considered shucking the disks and just mounting them in the case? What are the specs of your server?

[Trilex]

Just now, Mikensan said:

Connect the server directly to the client you're using to test, bypassing the switch. Run your test again. If it is slow, swap out the patch cable with another one. Do this, to rule out hardware.

 

If you're using 2 external USB drivers and a USB NIC you may be pushing the limits of your USB controller - since all 3 would simultaneously send/receive data because you striped the disks. Have you considered shucking the disks and just mounting them in the case? What are the specs of your server?

I am using ONLY 2 USB drive which r in raid 1 and are being shared by samba im using my in built gigabit port in the pc 

[Trilex]

Just now, Trilex said:

I am using ONLY 2 USB drive which r in raid 1 and are being shared by samba im using my in built gigabit port in the pc 

I'll tell you the result when I get home 

[Mikensan]

Previous post mentioned you were using a USB NIC - good you've taken that out of the equation. You're mirroring two unmatched disks? What software are you using to mirror them? Also, server specs?

[Trilex]

9 hours ago, Mikensan said:

Previous post mentioned you were using a USB NIC - good you've taken that out of the equation. You're mirroring two unmatched disks? What software are you using to mirror them? Also, server specs?

I'm using windows storage spaces and yes I'm losing 1tb of storage but I want redundancy, and specs r below 

[Trilex]

10 hours ago, Trilex said:

Ok will do when I get home. Thanks for your response and sorry for my misunderstanding 

This is what i get when write to the samba share no fluctuating 

[Trilex]

OK, so i have solved the problem, 

-  WI-FI | 50-55MB/S read and write, 

-  Ethernet to router | 90 MB/S 

- directly into PC | 110MB/s

 

It happened to be a router limitation as its max bandwidth is 867Mb/s (WIFI) tho though Ethernet i can get full gigabit if overhead wasn't a thing   Also i disabled my wifi card as it was transferring through that

 

Thank you all for all the help. On a side note is there a way to make my Huawei B525 Router send more packets to my client via wifi as it has a 867Mb/s bandwidth limit and when im writing at 55MB/s im using only 480-510Mb/s. My home internet connection only goes up to 50Mb/s MAX so doesn't that mean i could have 800Mb/s for my client transfers. Could this be spoofed via NIC teaming? 

 

Thanks!

 

Results are below. Btw random reads and writes are TERRIBLE as they r 2x USB 3.0 HDD in RAID 1 

[KarathKasun]

Wait wait wait...

 

50mb/s over WiFi?

90mb/s over GbE?

That is normal.

 

1Gb/s = ~90 MB/s

867 Mb/s over WiFi = ~430Mb/s without having extensive WiFi tuning and only a single WiFi client connected. Which results in 45-55MB/s with packet bursts.  This is because of WiFi being half duplex in practice (867mbit = 433Mbit upload 433mbit download).

 

That ping tho, that is horrid.  Should be ~1ms on LAN.

[Trilex]

8 hours ago, KarathKasun said:

Wait wait wait...

 

50mb/s over WiFi?

90mb/s over GbE?

That is normal.

 

1Gb/s = ~90 MB/s

867 Mb/s over WiFi = ~430Mb/s without having extensive WiFi tuning and only a single WiFi client connected. Which results in 45-55MB/s with packet bursts.  This is because of WiFi being half duplex in practice (867mbit = 433Mbit upload 433mbit download).

 

That ping tho, that is horrid.  Should be ~1ms on LAN.

I’m confused what do you mean. And that was over wifi when I was transferring and pinging btw. 

[Mikensan]

Honestly 55mbyte/s over wifi is pretty decent, I think on my 5g network on a 80hz width I'm getting about that as well. Sadly some of my devices do not support 80hz so I end up reverting back to 40hz. Another limiting factor is wifi by default is half-duplex unless the client/router both support using multiple antennas to overcome it. You will get 867mbit/s for a UDP connection (video streaming) but because TCP has a lot of back and forth chatter (send/receive at the same time) you're only going to get half. This is because it has to stop the download, upload packets, and resume the download.