AFP vs SMB with DSM 4.0 and OSX Snow Leopard

[flexibug]

I am using A DS412+ with a RAID 1 config currently with 2 disks only. It has DSM 4.0-2198 installed. On my iMac Snow Leopard with V 10.6.8 is installed (not even Lion yet!).

When copying files from an USB stick connected to the iMac onto a Shared folder on the DS412+ some files cannot be copied when the connection is done using the “devices” pane in OSX finder (error -36 and copy aborted). I assume this connection is AFP (per default). When I connect using “Go To Server” and explicitly prefix the server address with “smb://…” the very same files can be copied without any problem. I have exactly the same problem when copying the files from the stick to the iMac locally first and then trying to copy the files from the iMac’s local harddisk to the DS412+ (so its not the stick or the USB connection).

Now for the fun part: after having copied the files successfully using smb (cifs) I can see them “completetly normal” using the smb finder connection to the share. When I additionally open a connection using afp (clicking on the “shared” device in the finder pane) pointing to the same share, I only get aliases (not the files) listed for the recently copied files. I can’t copy these aliases back to the iMac (Error -50 in finder). I can, however, copy them back using the (still open) smb connection.

Does DSM 4.0 have a problem with AFP in general? Again: this is not Lion, it is not about time machine, just plain copying of files from an OSX SL iMac to an “AFP folder” on the DS412+… Thanks for any help.

[rjc]

I have a DS412+ and I only have Macs. I copied around 2Tb of data to it (its running Raid5) in one hit and haven't had an issue using it. I have a couple of share with an iTunes share which is both AFP and CIFS, as my Sonos system needs to see it as CIFS. So far I haven't had any problems from either an iMac and MacBook Pro haven't caused any problems.

What I have seen is the file system over AFP reports as case sensitive, which can be a real pain as by default the Mac file system isn't. This creates errors when using various bits of software, no way to turn it off from what I can see.

I do have the LAN teamed, as I have various devices talking at once to the DS. I do not have Jumbo frames enabled but Flow Control is, which seems to be supported by the DS looking at the switch stats.

I also have a USB3 to eSATA adapter to plug bare drives into the rear ports, which so far has also enabled me to take backups very quickly with no issues. So far my Synology experience is an great improvement over my previous ReadyNAS one...

[flexibug]

I do have the LAN teamed, as I have various devices talking at once to the DS. I do not have Jumbo frames enabled but Flow Control is, which seems to be supported by the DS looking at the switch stats.

...So far my Synology experience is an great improvement over my previous ReadyNAS one...

I also have 802.3ad (trunking towards my Zyxel GS2200-24) enabled. I do have Jumbos (9k) frames enabled on all Macs (only Macs that is, too), w/flow control as well. I might have forgotten to mention, that the very same copy job failed from my MacBook Pro as well (WiFi only). That was the original reason to move on to the iMac (Ethernet 1G/Jumbo only) - where it failed, too.

This copy job was just intended as an FCP-X backup (done with finder, not directly from FCP-X) for events and projects of about 155 GB, nothing really huge. The files in question are just .mov files, each of them between 8 and 1GB max (in the folder "original media" of the FCPX structure). A "working copy" of the same files (in another folder) are copied without any trouble. The odd thing is that the files in question (just within the folder "original media", all other files in all other folders are fine) can be copied onto the DS and copied back from the DS using smb:// without a problem, with afp:// they don't. As I happen to have some qnap devices as well, I'll go ahead an try to do the very same copy procedure just to learn where I'd have to dive deeper...

Thanks for your input, good to know that my problem is nothing common. I too like the synology experience, although I have been a bit disappointed to learn, that my APC UPS 1500 with built-in snmp monitoring card is not supported directly (as opposed to with the qnap devices). But thanks to ipkg and apcupsd that one seems to work now, too...

[rjc]

...although I have been a bit disappointed to learn, that my APC UPS 1500 with built-in snmp monitoring card is not supported directly (as opposed to with the qnap devices). But thanks to ipkg and apcupsd that one seems to work now, too...

Now this is getting spooky, I have an APC Smart1500i UPS with network card too. I cheated, as despite what APC tell you, all my Macs use APC's PCNS to talk to the network card direct, the Synology is hooked up via the USB port and works fine. Not experimented with the ipkg side of things yet, should do being an IT bod.

I may try a few things out with upload on CIFS, download on AFP etc. as I'm now a little interested in seeing if I can provoke any odd behaviour. It seems to point to the Synology, it may be worth trying a direct connection Mac - DS just to eliminate the transport, I have had odd things with switches before (my background is network/system design, installation, analysis and fault resolution).

[humbfig]

I am using A DS412+ with a RAID 1 config currently with 2 disks only. It has DSM 4.0-2198 installed. On my iMac Snow Leopard with V 10.6.8 is installed (not even Lion yet!).

When copying files from an USB stick connected to the iMac onto a Shared folder on the DS412+ some files cannot be copied when the connection is done using the “devices” pane in OSX finder (error -36 and copy aborted). I assume this connection is AFP (per default). When I connect using “Go To Server” and explicitly prefix the server address with “smb://…” the very same files can be copied without any problem. I have exactly the same problem when copying the files from the stick to the iMac locally first and then trying to copy the files from the iMac’s local harddisk to the DS412+ (so its not the stick or the USB connection).

Now for the fun part: after having copied the files successfully using smb (cifs) I can see them “completetly normal” using the smb finder connection to the share. When I additionally open a connection using afp (clicking on the “shared” device in the finder pane) pointing to the same share, I only get aliases (not the files) listed for the recently copied files. I can’t copy these aliases back to the iMac (Error -50 in finder). I can, however, copy them back using the (still open) smb connection.

Does DSM 4.0 have a problem with AFP in general? Again: this is not Lion, it is not about time machine, just plain copying of files from an OSX SL iMac to an “AFP folder” on the DS412+… Thanks for any help.

I can't help you with details because I can't remember, it's been too long. But I started using "afp://" when connecting my macbook to my DS411. The amount of problems were such that I gave up entirely. Since then I use only "smb://".

[flexibug]

Now this is getting spooky, I have an APC Smart1500i UPS with network card too. I cheated, as despite what APC tell you, all my Macs use APC's PCNS to talk to the network card direct, the Synology is hooked up via the USB port and works fine. Not experimented with the ipkg side of things yet, should do being an IT bod.

I have the APC connected to my Mac OSX Server using USB. This is the only USB connection to the APC. All other "storing" devices connect through the snmp monitoring card. Some devices are not "UPS aware" at all, i.e. they are only connected to the (battery backed) power outlets of the UPS, like switch, router, etc. ipkg and apcupsd is pretty good documented for DSM on the web, however, some knowledge of working with linux shells sure helps.

I may try a few things out with upload on CIFS, download on AFP etc. as I'm now a little interested in seeing if I can provoke any odd behaviour. It seems to point to the Synology, it may be worth trying a direct connection Mac - DS just to eliminate the transport, I have had odd things with switches before (my background is network/system design, installation, analysis and fault resolution).

I am pretty sure now it's not the synology, it might as well go much deeper (AFP implementation of the underlying linux?) as my qnap devices deny these files as well. A propos "spooky": my Mac OSX server (connetced through the same network routes, some additional routes, though) does take these files without a blink. It is also not the teaming (802.3ad), because I switched everything "special" off (on the switch as well), jumbo frames off, too, second cable unplugged, single cable left plugged into different port of switch.

To me it now looks like a little nasty speciality of the "apple world" (maybe introduced with snow leopard or even FCP-X?), that the AFP implementations of the NAS boxes (synology, qnap) simply haven't been tested against. I will have to investigate a little more about the files in question. They have been created as a "save duplicate as..." function of FCP-X (10.0.4) events and projects directly.

[flexibug]

I can't help you with details because I can't remember, it's been too long. But I started using "afp://" when connecting my macbook to my DS411. The amount of problems were such that I gave up entirely. Since then I use only "smb://".

Thanks a lot for your input. I had similar problems long time ago with my qnaps and my Macbook Pro when I was using the WiFi route over a Zyxel WiFi router. It continued even after the WiFi route went over a time capsule. However, only larger transfers were concerned, i.e. copy jobs with more than a few hundred MiBs or so (smaller transfers, single files never were a problem). Very strange. Like you I just had switch to smb:// and everything was fine. Or use the network cable instead, then afp:// was fine as well. With the synology I never had this type of (specific) problem.

The very same notebook was upgraded to OSX Lion a few months ago. Since then, afp:// over any of the WiFi routes is just fine. Because the place where I normally use the notebook I only have a 100MB/s cable link, the 5GHz WiFi between time capsule and notebook is often faster. And because afp:// is not a problem any more (afp:// is normally faster than smb:// on my network) this is what I always wanted to have... I still have enough devices that need cifs/smb (like my samsung tv for DLNA, etc.), so it's good to have some reliable smb sources on the LAN...