Netgear R7000 and usb 3.0 Ext HD: Why do I get low speed?

[aldo]

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong section of the forum.
The R7000 is wireless but my access speed problem is via gigabit LAN, so I wasn't sure where to post.

I ran some tests transferring a folder with two videos, 2gb in total, back and forth.
My problem is that via LAN cable, I am getting transfer speeds of between 25 MB/s transfering to the router and 30 MB/s transfering to my laptop.

All reviews I could find seem to suggest that with my setup 50 MB/s would be achievable,
The hard disk is in NTFS, but I also created an ext4 partition to test, perhaps slightly faster but really no appreciable difference. Same with FTP, downloading through a browser

I have an R7000 and a Seagate STBV5000200 Expansion 5TB USB 3.0 external hard drive hooked to it. I understand it's a SATAIII and some reviewers mesured over 100MB/s when connected directly to a PC.
The R7000 OS is the stock one, I tried with the firmware 'out of the box' and then upgraded to the newest one with no improvements.
My network settings are the standard ones created automatically by the router via EasyShares, so I am accessing via samba with an oldish ubuntu laptop, gigabit LAN and SATAII 5400 rpm internal hardrive

.
I also tested with an old macbook and snow leopard, getting even less, around 10MB/s, but it's just SATA interface.

Not quite sure what to try next..
Shall I go for a different transfer protocol? Not even sure how easy it would be to setup.
My LAN cable is a 4 meters long 5e , not 6. Can that make a difference?

I am unable to test speed over AC wifi right now, I got some excellent advice on this forum about an internal AC card but I haven't got around buying it yet.

 

[NETNewb]

Try this

This might sound really weird, but, do you have QOS turned on? And if so, the upload or download one?

I found with that router that turning on QOS, especially in the upload setting killed my USB speeds.

If your QOS is turned off then I'm not sure. Is it connecting as USB 3.0 or is it connecting as 2.0? You can check within the router. If 2.0, then it might be your usb cable.

Just some thoughts. Hope this helps!

 

[thiggins]

Are you sure the laptop you are using for the test is fast enough?

Our testbed transfers from a RAMdisk so that the testbed drive isn't a bottlenect.

 

[stevech]

I think you should be pleased to get 25-30MBytes/sec reading and writing from a router.
This is pretty good for a router's file system interface.

50MB/s with big files - with a fast PC I can get that on my low cost NAS (DS212). But rarely do I have big contiguous files like videos to move. Of course, when moving many smaller files, the speeds are far less due to overhead in the file systems on each end.

NTFS writing is often 30% or more slower than reading, in Linux. It's gotten better last couple of years. I've found that NTFS drives under Linux are still a lot slower than under windows.

 

[aldo]

This might sound really weird, but, do you have QOS turned on? And if so, the upload or download one?

I found with that router that turning on QOS, especially in the upload setting killed my USB speeds.

If your QOS is turned off then I'm not sure. Is it connecting as USB 3.0 or is it connecting as 2.0? You can check within the router. If 2.0, then it might be your usb cable.

Just some thoughts. Hope this helps!

Thanks so much.
1) QOS is currently disabled, both upstream and downstream. , I could try and turn it on and see i it makes any difference (but i anything it might make it worst, based on your experience)
2) WMM , in the same section of QOS, it's on by default, could try and and change this, but of course it might do nothing, as it is for the wifi (just clutching at straws randomly here )
Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings (2.4GHz b/g/n)
Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings (5GHz a/n)
3) The port is clearly labelled as usb 3.0 and blue on the inside, still I gave it a go on the back port, which is usb 2.0. interestingly I found speed to be the same than connecting to the usb 3.0
4) the cable looks like usb 3.0 because of the connector shape HD side, it's the one which came with the hard disk. I don't have another usb 3.0 cable to test with.
5) I have checked the router interface but I cannot find any place where it specifies if the media connected is usb 3.0 or 2.0.
If you are familiar with the interface of the R7000, could you point me to the right section of the interface?

Thanks,
Aldo

 

[aldo]

Are you sure the laptop you are using for the test is fast enough?

Our testbed transfers from a RAMdisk so that the testbed drive isn't a bottlenect.

Hi Tim,
that's a very good question I don't have an answer for.
Between linux devices I would normally use a shell command, setting one device in listening and the other one in testing, which would show me best case scenario over lan ram to ram.
How do you go about testing external storage on a router?

Also, I just checked hard drive status, looks bad, all "old-age" and a few failures.
Perhaps I should either upgrade laptop or get a new hard drive this point.

Thanks,
Aldo

 

[aldo]

I think you should be pleased to get 25-30MBytes/sec reading and writing from a router.
This is pretty good for a router's file system interface.

50MB/s with big files - with a fast PC I can get that on my low cost NAS (DS212). But rarely do I have big contiguous files like videos to move. Of course, when moving many smaller files, the speeds are far less due to overhead in the file systems on each end.

NTFS writing is often 30% or more slower than reading, in Linux. It's gotten better last couple of years. I've found that NTFS drives under Linux are still a lot slower than under windows.

Hi Steve,

Thanks. Yes, I am aware that most router won't really give much more than that, but the R7000 was reviewed as a significantly better performer, which is the reason why I got it (can't afford a good NAS plus hard drives to fill it, plus a decent router which I didn't have anyway)

I see your point about small files, but I am testing with a few 1gb each files stored on a relatively uncluttered drive, so in theory it should be a best case scenario.
I have also created an ext4 partition on the hard drive, to check if it made any difference, but in this case it doesn't seem to make much difference, if it's faster we are talking about 5-10%.

Last firmware upgrade firmware improved ntfs drivers, or so they say, as ntfs is probably the most popular with users, so this should have closed the gap even further, but it's more speculation on my part than a fact.

Thanks,
Aldo