Why is the Samba performance so poor with Windows Vista?

[celldad]

No, Thinkpad t60p with Intel builtin 1G network

[celldad]

But now that I think of it, I started with an XP machine with a realtek 8168/8111 serving a Vista (thinkpad t70p) with offline files and I was getting corrupted JPEG files !!! (I lost many pictures forever...) That is why I bought my synology ds 107+. Unfortunetly Ican not get offline files with Vista to work :--)

[Svuppe]

But now that I think of it, I started with an XP machine with a realtek 8168/8111...

Ok. Then it isn't the issue I was thinking of. This Realtek network chipset, together with certain Vista driver versions, results in corrupted data when transferring it out of the Vista PC. Only every once in a while; ie 2 bytes (one 16-bit word) corrupted in several megabytes.
I had this problem for over half a year, and only recently found the cause of this. Most backups I had on my Synology was toast. Luckily I've haven't had the need for any backup yet, so I was able to make new backups of everything after updating the Realtek driver.

Here is a reference to this problem, in case anyone wants to know more:
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/547097-very-strange-vista-problem-corrupt-2.html#post4650240

[sapox]

I need some tips because I'm getting really poor performance between my new 107+ (128Mb and a new seagate 7200.11) and laptop with vista. I'm getting more or less
8 Mb/s download and 6 Mb/s upload via ftp
6 Mb/s download and 5 Mb/s upload via "samba"

(with the Remote Differential Compression disabled)
The plot of the task manager - networking is very jumpy when I use "samba" and even when I'm downloading a file it has deeps to 0 each certain period.
Any tip?
Thx.

[Svuppe]

I need some tips because I'm getting really poor performance between my new 107+ (128Mb and a new seagate 7200.11) and laptop with vista.

How are they connected? Wireless or cable? 100 Mbit or gigabit lan? Any router, hub, switch or otherwise?

[sapox]

NAS 1Gbit <--> 100Mbit d-link wireless N router <--> wireless N laptop

[Svuppe]

In that case I don't think you can expect much more than you're already getting. Your ftp numbers made me suspect a 100 Mbit link somewhere, and the wireless N connection may degrade that a little bit further.

[sapox]

In that case I don't think you can expect much more than you're already getting. Your ftp numbers made me suspect a 100 Mbit link somewhere, and the wireless N connection may degrade that a little bit further.

Sure, the router is only 100 Mbit. But one thing that I don't understand is why the networking plot in the task manager only shows 50~60% of the link used, between the laptop and the router (both working only in N mode), the plot show at the bottom a 130 Mbit wireless link. The point is that in the past I have connected 2 pc's directly via ethernet cross cable and I got like 95% of the link used.

Why now I'm getting this low %? (may be this is an offtopic question but I don't know where to find the answers). I know that the problem is not related with the syno box, is just a problem of windows and its configuration, but then, how other are getting 20 Mb/s? A direct ethernet cable from the pc to the syno box?

[Svuppe]

But one thing that I don't understand is why the networking plot in the task manager only shows 50~60% of the link used, between the laptop and the router (both working only in N mode), the plot show at the bottom a 130 Mbit wireless link. The point is that in the past I have connected 2 pc's directly via ethernet cross cable and I got like 95% of the link used.

Wired and wireless connections doesn't work in the same way. With a wired connection, you can communicate immediately when you want to, and usually in both directions simultaneously. Not so over the air. Here it is only one way at a time, and with more overhead on the link. Normally you shouldn't expect more than 50% effective use of the established link speed. Even less in noisy environments (like microwave ovens or other wireless users nearby).

but then, how other are getting 20 Mb/s? A direct ethernet cable from the pc to the syno box?

I have a gigabit switch in my router (with jumbo frame support). And gigabit wired network to both Syno and my PC. This gives me speeds of up to 33 MB/s (Syno DS107+). However, when accessing it from my laptop, which only has wireless G speed (54 Mbit), I never get above 2.3 MB/s.

[edvanleeuwen]

I have experienced the same problems (Vista SP1, wireless, DS-207+, Word 2007). It is not only the speed that troubles me, but the fact that files cannot be opened with Word and that the offline option in Vista gives errors.

Someone mentioned the jumbo frame option. I have jumbo frames turned off. Is there a pointer to advised or proven settings?

[edvanleeuwen]

Partial solution (from another post): I have deleted the usbprinter attached to the DS-207+. This seems to be the culprit for not opening the documents.

I will keep trying to get the offline files working.

[sparkypablo]

Hi guys i am running a 207+ (firmware 0717 )with a 750GB Samsung HDD on a gigabit network under vista 64 and I am puzzled to how you guys are getting high transfer rates , I generally get between 3mb up to 8mb if im lucky which when reading your posts looks dreadfully slow. I have updated to SP1 and every thing else that it as asked me updated can anyone answer my problem would love to get over the 10/12mb speed transfer.

[Taxman]

Slow copy speed was something that always bugged me with my DS-207+ and even though I've been running Vista SP1 for a while and have a gigabit network the copy speeds at best topped out at around 18MB/sec (Jumbo frames @ 9k on all nics + switches, flow control disabled on all nics + switches, Cat6 cable).

While looking around I came across this article which analyzes network copy speed on Vista and found that Vista SP1 to SP1 copy speeds are greatly affected (boosted) by use of the SMB v2 protocol but if copying from a system using the SMB v1 protocol speeds drop back down even if your on a Vista SP1 system.

Could that be the source of the slow copy speed with Synology NAS they don't support the SMB2 protocol so everything transfers over SMB1 ?

In the linked article above the author links to an application (Network Monitor v3.2) which can tell if the network data is using SMB2 as I was curious to see if Synology supported it but I could not figure out were you see that info.

All this probably applies to Windows 7 too as it uses SMB2 as well, if it does turn out that Synology NAS do not support SMB2 is there any chance we could see it implemented ???

Update: Found thread in features request forum for updated samba driver but its taken a long time thread was started in 08 and it still going into 09.

[johny]

Hi Friends.
I was always wondering about a software supported by Windows Vista OS but I failed to find a single software that works fine on the OS. Vista does not support Oracle, not perform well with Samba and FTP that makes it only end user operating system. It is not the case that all software are not supported by Vista but the major Server based works bad.

[Siniy]

I can share solution i find for my situation
Background:
NAS Synology DS411+ | DSM 3.0-1337 | RAID5 4x2Tb Seagate ST32000644NS
copy speed from NAS to Windows Vista PC over Gigabit network was very slow - around 8.5MB/s
At the same time copy speed from PC to NAS was quite good - 50-60MB/s
same speed with direct connection or with PC and NAS connected using TrendNet TEG-S80Dg Gigabit switch or using Linksys WRT-610N router.


What I finally found to solve this problem is change registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile\NetworkThrottlingIndex
to FFFFFFFF
This will disable network traffic limitation while multimedia capabilities are used
After changing of value you need to restart PC or stop/start Multimedia Class Scheduler service and all dependences.

Dafault value of this registry key is 10 (decimal). This means network will work on 10% of their speed when multimedia file is running.
It should be active only when multimedia file is running to prevent interruption and freezes of playback.
But it seems some drivers (for example Creative Sound cards drivers) always run PCs in "multimedia" mode. And network is slow everytime.

Value FFFFFFFF is switching off network limitation completely. Good for fast PCs.
Owners of slow PCs shoould try values of 40-70 for this key (to prevent multimedia files interruptions)

Below you can find copy speed (from NAS to PC / from PC to NAS) for different registry values
10 (decimal) - 8.5MB/s / 58MB/s
40 (decimal) - 40MB/s / 75MB/s
70 (decimal) - 66MB/s / 78MB/s
FFFFFFFF (hexadecimal) - 90MB/s / 80MB/s

This test is done with Jumbo Frames off.
With jumbo frames speed is even higher.
My final result with Jumbo Frames on and FFFFFFFF values for registtry key is
copy speed from NAS to PC - 120MB/s
copy speed from PC to NAS - 95MB/s