A NAS Noob Looking For A DS 209+ Mentor

[therock]

I am a NAS Noob with a new DS 209+ and have lots of setup questions I want to ask one at a time.

I am not a total computer noob I do build my own machines and run a wired network at home. Just this home server and remote access thing has me numb.

I'll start with my stats so far.

I have the latest firmware.
I am RAID1 on two WD RE3 750GB drives.
I have experimented with drag and dropping of 20GB blocks of music folders @ 4k jumbo frames to get my best transfer speed of 21.7 MB/sec from a slowish WD Green 750GB drive. One of those 5400 to 7200 RPM drives that never see 7200 RPM.

I am Comcast cable through a Trendnet TEW-633GR router @ gigabit.

Everything I want to setup is for remote access.
I want to setup remote streaming of my music and folder browsing for downloading them. Not sure if this is a feature or not. French to me so far.
I want to allow users to browse my music folders and download what they choose. All of them needing passwords and such.

Anything guidance wise on the above would be great!

Also I guess I will need a DNS thing? And maybe an SSL cert?

Thanks.

 

[claykin]

I would check to see if the Trendnet router supports Jumbo Frames. I don't think it does. You should be getting better write performance. About 2x better with JF enabled.

Try connecting the PC and DS209+ through a JF enabled gigabit switch such as the Netgear GS108. You should be able to achieve around 40MB/s writes of large files.

Also, if you have the WD RE3 disks, those are not the Greenpower drives. See here:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=504&language=en

 

[therock]

I would check to see if the Trendnet router supports Jumbo Frames. I don't think it does. You should be getting better write performance. About 2x better with JF enabled.

Try connecting the PC and DS209+ through a JF enabled gigabit switch such as the Netgear GS108. You should be able to achieve around 40MB/s writes of large files.

Also, if you have the WD RE3 disks, those are not the Greenpower drives. See here:

Thanks Friend,

(Edit)

On the router. The Trendnet is automatically compatable with Jumbo frames.

Funny, I went to bed with a large transfer going with an hour to go. I got up to see it was hung on a file it didn't like and needed a re-try click. It was down to 4.7 MB/sec. I canceled the xfr and restarted another and the same thing. Hmmm?

I sure would like some suggestions of dialing in my xfr speeds if I can get them.
My system is very fast and stable. A Vista x64 clean install Quadcore 8GB RAM on a Gigabyte P45 MOBO.

About the RE3 drives, I need to clarify, I know they are not green and they are pretty fast. I have the RE3's in the 209+. I meant the drive the music is coming off of is the green one, via SATA from my PC. It's a stand alone HDD I have there just for storage. I learned my lesson on the green thing and the 5400 to 7200 RPM thing. I associate them both with slowness.

 

[claykin]

Thanks Friend,

(Edit)

On the router. The Trendnet is automatically compatable with Jumbo frames.

Funny, I went to bed with a large transfer going with an hour to go. I got up to see it was hung on a file it didn't like and needed a re-try click. It was down to 4.7 MB/sec. I canceled the xfr and restarted another and the same thing. Hmmm?

I sure would like some suggestions of dialing in my xfr speeds if I can get them.
My system is very fast and stable. A Vista x64 clean install Quadcore 8GB RAM on a Gigabyte P45 MOBO.

About the RE3 drives, I need to clarify, I know they are not green and they are pretty fast. I have the RE3's in the 209+. I meant the drive the music is coming off of is the green one, via SATA from my PC. It's a stand alone HDD I have there just for storage. I learned my lesson on the green thing and the 5400 to 7200 RPM thing. I associate them both with slowness.

I didn't see on Trendnet's site where this router auto supported JF. SmallNetBuilder said it did in their review, so thats great.

I assume your Vista x64 install has SP1? Does your NIC have the latest drivers? Is JF enabled in the NIC driver options tab? Is JF enabled in the 209+?

Are you running Cat5e or better?

On the 209+ disable unused protocols and services.

How is the read speed from the 209+? You should get around 40MB/s with large files. This assumes nothing else is r/w to the 209+.

The stalled file transfer is a bit worrisome. Maybe the file is locked by another process? See if the filename contains any strange characters.

 

[therock]

OK,

Thanks Again, I Hope You Stick With Me.

Vista x64 SP1 is a yes.

My NIC is a Gigabyte P45 motherboard on-board by Realtek with latest drivers. Windows update is pretty good at having it in the list. I'll dig into the NIC to see if I can find a Jumbo frames setting this evening. (I'm at work now, eastern standard time.) I have a feeling I'll not be able to tweak it being an onboard.
If there is a NIC card you folks recommend over the onboard let me hear it. I have two PCI-e slots open. So far the Realtek has been trouble free and my motherboard has two of them. I'm only using one. It is running @ Gigabit speed.
The router has 4 ports, I have:
1 to my laptop via a loose cable across my living room when needed.
1 a XP PC running in the basement on a Gigabyte P35 Mobo and same kind of NIC. It's only running a Video surveillance program.
1 to the my PC NIC.
1 to the 209+.
All report a status of running at gigabit speed.
I have all CAT-5E cables.

Can you give me examples of the unused protocols' or where to look for them? Perhaps telling me to only ones I need are and I'll do the rest.

The file hang may have been when the unit hibernated? I have it set to sleep from midnight till 5:00 AM. Would a file transfer hold that up until it's done?

 

[therock]

Dead In The Water, Router Died ???????

Well............ Geesh!

For more than a week before I installed the 209+ I have been battling it out with Comcast because every night my connection dropped or slowed to a crawl.

Then I do the 209+ install lastnight and it never dropped but when I got home today I had no internet.

Could not get into the router url or the 209+ url.
Pulled the router out of the line and I have a connection.
Reset the router and tried again with no 209+ in the switch and no sign of a connection or the router.
Pulled the router out and have a connection.

I had a Comcast door tag when I got home and wonder if the guy could have metered my system and bricked my router? Or perhaps it's been going bad all along?

None the less I'm getting a new router.

claykin,

I guess you are the only one listening, yes my Realtek NIC has a setting to enable Jumbo (irt was disabled) but not an auto so I have to select the size to match the 209+. I hear 4k is the sweet spot. What do you know of it?

Anyway recommend me a Router! Any known wonders?

 

[claykin]

therock

9K is usually the most common size. 4K may work better in your situation. Not sure what the 209+ and Trendnet supports. Read more about JF here:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30201/54/

As far as your other situation is concerned, if you cannot see other LAN devices connected to the Trendnet's switch, that's a problem. Especially if it worked yesterday and not today (assuming you didn't change any settings). Try to disconnect the cable modem from the WAN port on the router and only connect your local appliances to the LAN ports. Power cycle your router and try to login again to the web manager

Is the router assigning IP's to your PC's (assuming you are on DHCP)?

Try doing a hard reset of the router (should be a reset hole on the rear panel). If you are able to login, check the firmware version and update if necessary. Go directly to Trendnet's site and download manually. The auto update feature in some routers is flaky.

make sure you have Wifi security enabled (WPA2 AES recommended) and don't allow management of the router form the WAN (LAN only).

If the router is truly dead I recommend the Trendnet's sister, the Dlink DIR-655. Its nearly the same thing as the Trendnet you currently have. Hopefully you can get the Trendnet working and save yourself $99.

If you don't get the Router's gig switch to provide satisfactory performance, try a Netgear GS108 (or similar) to handle your LAN switching. It definitely supports 9K JF and is a good quality switch on the cheap.

 

[therock]

Thanks claykin,

I have tried it all and she is dead. Poor Comcast. I have been raking them over the coals for a couple of weeks about erratic connection speeds.

Funny you should recommend the D-link DIR-655 as I plan to grab one locally Saturday.
I hooked the 209+ to my other on-board NIC (the cable modem is on the other) port and did some transfers and got 32MB/sec a few times and I think I have the 209+ set to 4k jumbo and know I have the NIC @ 4k.
I say I think because since the router failure I cannot get into the 209+'s configuration to confirm. Memory says 4k was the last setting.
I installed the Assistant but it searches for it and comes up not finding it. But....... I can see it in my network folder and look at the folders dragging and dropping to it.

So I figure when I get the new router up I'll see if it hashes out and if not I'll do a hard reset and start from scratch.

Any advise you have on the hard reset would be nice.

I'll post back after Saturday. Hope to hear from you then. Thanks

 

[therock]

Update

Update,

After a cold boot I can access Assistant again and have experimented with Jumbo frames. @ 9k it slows to the 20's. @6k seems to be the sweet spot with starting bursts on large XFR's at 45 MB/sec settling to 37.5 + or - a few or so I went to 7 & 8 but seen no significant increase so backed off.

Oh, these transfers were done coming off my very fast WD 640GB 32 MB Cache Black drives (RAID1) to the 209+. Not done with the green drive.
These 640GB 32MB Cache drives are fantastically fast. Model #: WD6401AALS. If you want fast drives just to run a system and don't need the huge space these baby's rock.

So I hope to be asking about remote access configurations when I return with the new router. I hope the stores have the Dlink DIR-655 in the R4 versions.

 

[claykin]

My Netgear Readynas units support 7936 byte Jumbo Frames. In this case using a switch that is limited to 4088 bytes would limit performance a bit. This would primarily be noticed with large file transfers.

According to the SNB review of the DIR-655 it supports 9K JF. Check your Synology documentation tos ee the recommended JF size. Set your NIC's to match that. You should be good.

 

[therock]

I'm Back,

Been through hell.

I have the D-Link 655 up and running with a beta firmware necessary to stop the connection dropping it's plagued with. If you don't believe me go to their forums. I tried to avoid the beta but I have a feeling it will not be a beta long.

On top of all that I must have did something bad with the DS 209+ to make it appear my Trendnet went bad. I have not confirmed it yet but the same thing happened when I got rolling with the D-link and then plugged in the 209+. Wammy! The same symptoms as with the Trendnet. The only thing I did not do during the trouble shooting of the Trendnet is unplug the 209+. Geeeesh! So now I may have a spare/backup router. This I can live with.

All I can say is I remember doing something with the 209+ to get a message saying it was connected to the internet. Or something to that effect. Heh!

Then all hell broke loose in the Network and Sharing Center. Multiple unidentified networks, going from private to public and never getting an internet connection again.
I did something to make it seen as another network instead as a part of the network. I think.

So what I have done is reverted the 209+ to factory, it's formatting now.

So I hope when I return I will be looking for prerequisites and scenarios for remote access to my 209+. I'm not touching a thing without help this time!