Why is my external nas drive so slow when connected to my router?

[Alex]

Hello,

I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I connect it
to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes ages to read/
write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS router.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Alex

 

[Alex]

Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
on a LAN .connection

Oh so that explains it. I don't have a Gigabit port on my router. How
can I test my transfer speed from pc to router and attached storage
and how can I test the speed with my storage attached directly to my
pc?
WHat do you mean with "more data overhead".
Thanks a lot for your help

 

[Alex]

Oh so that explains it. I don't have a Gigabit port on my router. How
can I test my transfer speed from pc to router and attached storage
and how can I test the speed with my storage attached directly to my
pc?
WHat do you mean with "more data overhead".
Thanks a lot for your help

I was reading this pc magazine that said there are only advantages to
network attached storage for your backups but I can't see the
advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds. It
even takes ages just to browse folders and sometimes explorer even
hangs. How do other people do this with their network drives to backup
data? Do they have super-conductive optical cables from cryptonite or
do they leave their pc running the entire night to copy a folder? I am
using syncback for backups. My external drive is attached to a USB
port on my 'topcom skyr@cer wbr 7121gmr nas' router and my pc is
connected with a Cat5e cable to the router's LAN port (it says LAN
10/100M).

 

[Alex]

Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
on a LAN .connection

another question:
Until I found a way of dealing with the slowliness of my network
drive, I now unplug my network drive and put the usb cable into my pc
for faster data transmission and I backup my data with syncback which
works great, but when I unplug the drive again and attach it back to
my router, I noticed that all the files' change dates have been
advanced by one hour! So a file that was last edited on
01/06/2009-19:30 will now read last edited (not created) on
01/06/2009-20:30. Why is this?? If the dates and times are not correct
I fear things could go wrong in the backup process where older files
will overwrite newer files instead of the other way around!
I appreciate your help

 

[Rod Speed]

I was reading this pc magazine that said there are only advantages
to network attached storage for your backups but I can't see the
advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds.

It shouldnt take that long.

It even takes ages just to browse folders and sometimes explorer even hangs.

There's a problem with that system.

How do other people do this with their network drives to backup data?

They use a network drive that doesnt have a problem and
have backup scheduled so you dont care how long it takes.

Do they have super-conductive optical cables from cryptonite

Nope, they're a tad thin on the ground.

or do they leave their pc running the entire night to copy a folder?

It doesnt take that long when its working properly. 8GB
should only take 30 mins or so with a 100Mb network.

I am using syncback for backups. My external drive is attached
to a USB port on my 'topcom skyr@cer wbr 7121gmr nas' router

That last is likely the problem.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I was reading this pc magazine that said there are only advantages to
network attached storage for your backups

You should not belive all the press writes. They are certainly
wrong on this one.

but I can't see the
advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds.

How large?

It
even takes ages just to browse folders and sometimes explorer even
hangs. How do other people do this with their network drives to backup
data? Do they have super-conductive optical cables from cryptonite or
do they leave their pc running the entire night to copy a folder?

Well, I have a Linux box with NFS that gives me 5-10MB/s real speed,
which is on the low side, probably due to it using 2.5" drives and
a slow CPU. It uses Gigabit Ethernet though. Listing folders is as
fast as if it was local. For 8GB, I would have to wait somethin like
15 Minutes.

I am using syncback for backups.

Hmm. Not familiar with that.

My external drive is attached to a USB
port on my 'topcom skyr@cer wbr 7121gmr nas' router and my pc is
connected with a Cat5e cable to the router's LAN port (it says LAN
10/100M).

This may be your bottleneck. If this runns at 10 Mbit (check the
status LEDs on your network card, they should indicate speed),
all will become painfully slow. Even at 100Mbit, you can expect
a maximum of 10MB/sec, but only with fast hard/software.
The translation to USB will take additional ressources.

The box you are using is strictly speaking not a NAS. It is better
described as a very slow minimal computer, likely ruinning Linux
or some embedded OS with minimal RAM for buffer/cache, that just
happens to have an USB port. When looking at the backside in the
brochure, this layout reminds me very much of an Embedded-Linux
Router from Edimax that I experimented with. If it is the same
hardware, then it just has USB 1.0. which tops out at 11Mbis,
giving you a theoretical maximum access speed of about 1MB/s
and much less in practice. Add the slow CPU, missing RAM for
buffer/cache, non-current/minimal software (as this thing only
has 4MB FLASH) and the observed slowness is not a surprise at all.
Given that the brochure does not list ISB speed, it very likely
is the slow variant.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

another question:
Until I found a way of dealing with the slowliness of my network
drive, I now unplug my network drive and put the usb cable into my pc
for faster data transmission and I backup my data with syncback which
works great, but when I unplug the drive again and attach it back to
my router, I noticed that all the files' change dates have been
advanced by one hour! So a file that was last edited on
01/06/2009-19:30 will now read last edited (not created) on
01/06/2009-20:30. Why is this?? If the dates and times are not correct
I fear things could go wrong in the backup process where older files
will overwrite newer files instead of the other way around!
I appreciate your help

Simple: The timestamps are in UTC. For dieplay they get converted
to your local time. The setting for that on your router and your
PC are different, possibly because of dailight saving time or a
wrongly configured timezone.

Arno

 

[Alex]

Simple: The timestamps are in UTC. For dieplay they get converted
to your local time. The setting for that on your router and your
PC are different, possibly because of dailight saving time or a
wrongly configured timezone.

That's what I thought too but my router, my laptop and my pc are
configured to the same time zone which is Brussels UTC+1. The only
difference is my router is not configured to enable daylight saving
while my computers are. But since DST has not started yet, it
shouldn't make a difference I think? On the router's page there is a
checkbox near DST that says "enable function" and then it says "times
from 'month' 'day' to 'month' 'day' " where I have to select the month
and day from a dropdown list. I have no idea what to fill in there (if
that's causing the issue).

 

[Alex]

but I can't see the

How large?

34,7MB xls file takes 40sec to copy from the network drive to a local
drive while the same file copies in 1sec from one local folder to
another.
Opening a folder on the network drive takes 2-30 seconds and sometimes
explorer even hangs. I just had to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL maybe 10 times to
open task manager and end the process but the folder simply wouldn't
close.

This may be your bottleneck. If this runns at 10 Mbit (check the
status LEDs on your network card, they should indicate speed),
all will become painfully slow.

When I look at the LAN port on the back of my pc there are 2 LEDs but
nothing is written besides them. While copying from the network drive,
the red one burns steady while the yellow one flashes.

The box you are using is strictly speaking not a NAS. It is better
described as a very slow minimal computer, likely ruinning Linux
or some embedded OS with minimal RAM for buffer/cache, that just
happens to have an USB port. When looking at the backside in the
brochure, this layout reminds me very much of an Embedded-Linux
Router from Edimax that I experimented with. If it is the same
hardware, then it just has USB 1.0. which tops out at 11Mbis,
giving you a theoretical maximum access speed of about 1MB/s
and much less in practice. Add the slow CPU, missing RAM for
buffer/cache, non-current/minimal software (as this thing only
has 4MB FLASH) and the observed slowness is not a surprise at all.
Given that the brochure does not list ISB speed, it very likely
is the slow variant.

I'm not sure what you mean with the above. I have win xp home and the
network drive is a Maxtor portable 160GB drive with a USB cable that
goes to the router. Maybe it's a cheap drive or maybe I should buy a
drive that has a network port for a LAN cable instead of USB to
improve the speed?

 

[Arno Wagner]

34,7MB xls file takes 40sec to copy from the network drive to a local
drive while the same file copies in 1sec from one local folder to
another.

That would be consistent with an USB 1.0 port on the router.

Opening a folder on the network drive takes 2-30 seconds and sometimes
explorer even hangs. I just had to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL maybe 10 times to
open task manager and end the process but the folder simply wouldn't
close.

When I look at the LAN port on the back of my pc there are 2 LEDs but
nothing is written besides them. While copying from the network drive,
the red one burns steady while the yellow one flashes.

I'm not sure what you mean with the above. I have win xp home and the
network drive is a Maxtor portable 160GB drive with a USB cable that
goes to the router. Maybe it's a cheap drive or maybe I should buy a
drive that has a network port for a LAN cable instead of USB to
improve the speed?

Your router has a very slow USB interface. The only fix is to get
a real NAS or at least a rputer with an USB 2.0 interface.

Arno

 

[Alex]

That would be consistent with an USB 1.0 port on the router.

Really?? That would explain it of course. I can't find any info on the
usb ports of my router, not in the manuals and I haven't found any
info on the net either. That router is starting to look like crap to
me. But some salesmen are so good they could sell their own mother if
you know what I mean.

Your router has a very slow USB interface. The only fix is to get
a real NAS or at least a rputer with an USB 2.0 interface.

I think that would be an easier solution.

The issue about the dates being changed on the network drive (my post
nr 11) is still open though. When I copy files to the drive, the date
(last edited on...) is advanced by one hour. Timezones are all set to
the same, except for daylight saving time which is disabled on the
router and enabled on my pc and laptop.

 

[Alex]

That would be consistent with an USB 1.0 port on the router.

Really?? That would explain it of course. I can't find any info on the
usb ports of my router, not in the manuals and I haven't found any
info on the net either. That router is starting to look like crap to
me. But some salesmen are so good they could sell their own mother if
you know what I mean.

Your router has a very slow USB interface. The only fix is to get
a real NAS or at least a rputer with an USB 2.0 interface.

I think that would be an easier solution.

The issue about the dates being changed on the network drive is still
open though. When I copy files to the drive, the date
(last edited on...) is advanced by one hour. Timezones are all set to
the same, except for daylight saving time which is disabled on the
router and enabled on my pc and laptop.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Really?? That would explain it of course. I can't find any info on the
usb ports of my router, not in the manuals and I haven't found any
info on the net either. That router is starting to look like crap to
me. But some salesmen are so good they could sell their own mother if
you know what I mean.

I think that would be an easier solution.

The issue about the dates being changed on the network drive is still
open though. When I copy files to the drive, the date
(last edited on...) is advanced by one hour. Timezones are all set to
the same, except for daylight saving time which is disabled on the
router and enabled on my pc and laptop.

May just be an implementation bug on the router. In that case, nothing
can be done.

Arno

 

[Alex]

May just be an implementation bug on the router. In that case, nothing

can be done.

Sorry to bother you again but in my router's webpage there is a field
where I can enter a time server and it is set to 0.0.0.0 by default.
Do you know where I can find an IP address of a time server for
timezone Brussels (UTC+1)? The ones I found were all for US. Maybe if
I enter a correct IP address, the router will update it's time
correctly. I noticed the date of my router is 1/1/2000 and I don't
know why that is and how to change it.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Sorry to bother you again but in my router's webpage there is a field
where I can enter a time server and it is set to 0.0.0.0 by default.
Do you know where I can find an IP address of a time server for
timezone Brussels (UTC+1)? The ones I found were all for US. Maybe if
I enter a correct IP address, the router will update it's time
correctly. I noticed the date of my router is 1/1/2000 and I don't
know why that is and how to change it.

You can use any NTP server, they all hand out UTC. The timezone
is a local setting that only influences time display.

Arno

 

[Alex]

You can use any NTP server, they all hand out UTC. The timezone

is a local setting that only influences time display.

Can you give an example please of such a time server. I completely
ignorant about this. I tried the IP address found on
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/TimeOmaBe but it doesn't seem
to work since the router still shows "Current time 1/1/200" when I
click the status link. And when I enter the IP address in the browser
I get a "connection interrupted" message. When I ping the IP address
from the dos prompt I get a timeout.

 

[Alex]

You can use any NTP server, they all hand out UTC. The timezone

is a local setting that only influences time display.

Can you give an example please of such a time server. I completely
ignorant about this. I tried the IP address found on
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/TimeOmaBe but it doesn't seem
to work since the router still shows "Current time 1/1/2000" when I
click the status link. And when I enter the IP address in the browser
I get a "connection interrupted" message. When I ping the IP address
from the dos prompt I get a timeout.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Can you give an example please of such a time server. I completely
ignorant about this. I tried the IP address found on
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/TimeOmaBe but

That is the right source.

it doesn't seem
to work since the router still shows "Current time 1/1/2000" when I
click the status link. And when I enter the IP address in the browser
I get a "connection interrupted" message. When I ping the IP address
from the dos prompt I get a timeout.

That is as it shoudl be. NTP servers do not suport HTTP and generally
block ICMP. Here is the one I use: 129.132.2.21. That is
swisstime.ee.ethz.ch.

If that does not work, it is a problem with your router...

Arno

 

[Alex]

Here is the one I use: 129.132.2.21. That is

swisstime.ee.ethz.ch.

Awesome, the router's security log now seems to display both time and
date correctly! However (there I go again, but I can't help it that
they can't make these things user friendly) when I copy a file to the
external drive attached to the router, the file's dates are changed to
current date and a time 1hour in advance of the time when I started
the paste action. So a file made on Jan 4 and last edited on Jan 5
after copy/paste to the network drive will change all dates to Jan 8
(today) and current time+1hour. What is the logic of these things??
Why I bother? Because when creating differential backups ALL files
will ALWAYS be copied to the network drive which takes maybe 1hour,
instead of only the changed files which takes for instance 1min.

 

[Alex]

I cheered too soon, the date and time WERE correct but now it displays
1/1/2000 and an incorrect time. I can't think of anything I did wrong
to upset the router except poking my nose! And the make it all even
worse, I now can't access MSHOME group anymore in the network
connections window where I used to find my external network drive. I
tried again with firewalls disabled and did the network config wizard
a few times but I keep getting the message "mshome is not accessible
you might not have permission to use this network resource". It used
to work most of the time and sometimes not.

I hate to say this since I'm against the dump-culture mentality of our
modern society but I'm thinking of throwing this f*****g router away
and buy a new one. What is the best wireless router you recommend in
terms of high speed,reliability, easy to setup, fast NAS and
preferably a print server?