RT-AC68U Slow USB 3.0 speeds

[CubanJimbo]

USB 3 Enclosure Issue

Hello,

I just got the RT-AC68U to work with my AC66U. One reason for the purchase was to use the new USB 3 port. So, I got a drive enclosure from Vantec called NexStar NST-D300S3.

When I plug it into the USB 3 port, nothing happens and no drive is recognized. If I plug it into the USB 2 port, it is recognized. The same enclosure is recognized by my PC's USB 3 port.

Is this a bad router? Current FW is 3.0.0.4.374_205.

Thanks.

 

[luka_w]

Hello,

I just got the RT-AC68U to work with my AC66U. One reason for the purchase was to use the new USB 3 port. So, I got a drive enclosure from Vantec called NexStar NST-D300S3.

When I plug it into the USB 3 port, nothing happens and no drive is recognized. If I plug it into the USB 2 port, it is recognized. The same enclosure is recognized by my PC's USB 3 port.

Is this a bad router? Current FW is 3.0.0.4.374_205.

Thanks.

You should definitely update FW

 

[CubanJimbo]

You mean to the only other one on the Asus site 3.0.0.4.374.371?

You should definitely update FW

 

[Asusnet]

Hello,

I just got the RT-AC68U to work with my AC66U. One reason for the purchase was to use the new USB 3 port. So, I got a drive enclosure from Vantec called NexStar NST-D300S3.

When I plug it into the USB 3 port, nothing happens and no drive is recognized. If I plug it into the USB 2 port, it is recognized. The same enclosure is recognized by my PC's USB 3 port.

Is this a bad router? Current FW is 3.0.0.4.374_205.

Thanks.

Go to Wireless > Professional (2.4Ghz) and disable "Reducing USB 3.0 interference".

 

[CubanJimbo]

Go to Wireless > Professional (2.4Ghz) and disable "Reducing USB 3.0 interference".

Thanks. I had read about that USB interference setting and after the FW upgrade, I did disable it. The NexStar enclosure is now recognized on the USB 3 port!

Thanks for confirming my hunch. Glad I was able to change the right setting. Why is this enabled by default? Does it really change the port to only work at USB 2 speeds?

I wish it would allow files greater than 8 GB. My initial task for the drive was to store my HD movie files, but they are larger than 8 GB.

 

[QuarterZone]

RT-AC68U main with RT-AC66U repeater? LAN and NAS trouble!

I just got the RT-AC68U to work with my AC66U.

How?

I too had an RT-AC66U, and had several weak spots in the house. I thought to get a second AC66U, however went with RT-AC68U because of the USB 3.0, faster wireless, and I thought I could use the old AC66U as a repeater. What a nightmare this turned out to be! (Though I hope it can all be fixed, any help much appreciated!)

With AC66U I had a passive 2TB WD USB3 drive as a NAS w/ USB3 cable, and 4 wires routed through house on LAN, plus wireless. Have a 50MB/25MB wired connection. Mac OSX 10.6. All worked quite well.

I did a direct swap in of RT-AC68U and here is what happened, no change after 5+ hours and 5 manual resets:

1) 1 LAN port works perfectly well. Use of 2 or 3 LAN ports simultaneously reduces speeds across all ports so that the router is effectively inoperable (cannot load its own GUI page), though appears to still send and receive data. If I am already on GUI page, it recognizes devices plugged into the LAN ports throughout the house, but cannot navigate GUI page anymore. Use of 4 continuous LAN ports disables router to point where full reset is required. Simply unplugging LAN connections and restarting does not fix problem.

2) USB3 drive mentioned above is seen by RT-AC68U, however it doesn't appear on any of our computers as a network drive. When selected as Media Device, GUI says "scanning" forever with no result. The drive already had data on it compatible with AC66U, I don't know if a clean drive is required, but hesitant to erase it and start over. This is using USB2 or USB3 slot.

3) After AC68U "setup" I ran a wired LAN from AC68U to feed into the old AC66U to rebroadcast for AC68U as a repeater throughout the house (using same login seamlessly. But "repeater" didn't show up as an option. Only router, media bridge and access point. Is there a special way to set this repeater function up with AC68U as main router?

Thanks if anyone has any suggestions, I was hoping to just swap cables and be on my way, but I guess this wasn't possible...

 

[luka_w]

2) USB3 drive mentioned above is seen by RT-AC68U, however it doesn't appear on any of our computers as a network drive. When selected as Media Device, GUI says "scanning" forever with no result. The drive already had data on it compatible with AC66U, I don't know if a clean drive is required, but hesitant to erase it and start over. This is using USB2 or USB3 slot.

I have 1TB (70% full) and after connection it scans for 5/10 minutes before it's visible in network.
Also, before that to happen I have to connect it few times before router 'catches' HD, because it rarely happens on the first time when connecting.

 

[hggomes]

I'm using USB 2.0 and 3.0 devices mixed on a USB HUB 3.0 connected to USB 3.0 port and even with "Reducing USB 3.0 interference" ON or OFF i see the same result, USB 2.0 speeds. Shouldn't the USB 2.0 devices go on 2.0 speeds and the 3.0 devices on 3.0 speeds?

Thanks

 

[kman]

Shibby slow USB 3.0 speeds

A question regarding USB 3.0 speeds. I searched the forum and didn't really find anything regarding this. I have the AC68U and with Merlin (with wifi interference disabled) the write speed were ~50mb/s. With TomatoUSB Shibby 1.22, the max write speed I get is ~15MB/s. I can't find a similar option to disable any interference that affects the usb 3.0 speeds.

As per the log I notice:

tomatousb kern.info kernel: [xhci-hub] usb2mode:[0]

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[cien952]

Hello.
I have this router, (RT-AC68U) and I intend to work with it, using just a usb-3g Vodafone device(dongle).
I configured everything as seemed proper, as in the images together.
The 'thing' even works in relation to access the Internet.
The problem is that I need to configure a DDNS from DynDNS, and range of wan ip's to get ip's are considered private ,(10.65.44.135, 10.56.172.99, 10.35.189.250 etc).
With this range of wan ip's, can not access from outside, and opening ports will not work.
When i access the 'whatismyip', the wan ip is quite different.
Using the same 'sim' in a 3g modem, pcmcia, coupled in an old router 'Linksys', the public ip is correct.

How to solve this?

Links, configuration
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5tvqi5fetbvwa10/PrimaryWan.JPG?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9jkoe1op8yqvbm6/UsbDongle.JPG?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qwkevpfp3655wdt/WanPrivateIp.JPG?dl=0

Thank you in advance, for your help (cien952@gmail.com)


problem solved ... Thanks ... for nothing.

 

[czupet]

For the people worried about this, here you go.

Test setup:

- RT-AC68U (got mine last week, kindly provided by Asus)
- Laptop running Win7
- Gigabit Ethernet interface
- USB-AC53
- NexStar3 USB3.0 enclosure, with a 2.5" Toshiba 750 GB HDD, formatted as NTFS
- USB 3.0 Interference reduction was Disabled (to ensure the HDD ran at USB 3.0 speed)

I use 1TB WD MyPassport, connected via 2meter, double shielded cable. My firmware is: 3.0.0.4.376_1663.

'USB3.0 Interference reduction' = 'Enable' => max transfer ~19MB/s (the same HDD connected to USB3.0 port on my laptop gives transfer 68-80MB/s)

'USB3.0 Interference reduction' = 'Disable' => I can't see the drive in Samba. What is amazing here, I can't see it even when radio if fully disabled (button on the right side of the router).


Am I affected by the interference? - if yes, why disabling radio does't cure the issue?
Shall I buy another HDD or downgrade to an older firmware or buy Netgear R7000?

 

[czupet]

strange: I switched to thin and short usb cable, that came along with my disk. Now it works! Transfer is 30-40 MB/s.
I wonder, what is wrong with the thick and long cable (I bought and tested 2 pieces)?
It's called "Super High Speed USB Revision 3.0" - it even works with 2.0 socket...

 

[oversim]

My hd, same model as you, even with the cable came with the disk is not showed in samba and doesn't work if I set disable...

 

[intogamer]

Depends on what NAS you are looking at. Some NAS come with CPUs that are barely any faster than the RT-AC68U, others come with actual Intel i3 which should be able to easily push full USB3 performance. So, performance will vary. But in general, no, a router will always be lagging behind a dedicated NAS, which usually features not only a quite faster CPU, but also a more optimized USB controller.

The way I see it, router-based storage is only good for sharing small amount of data which aren't bandwidth intensive (like music or photos), or backups (where you don't always care if the backup takes 6 hours instead of 3 hours as it happens during the night). Any serious file sharing should go with a dedicated NAS (and preferably not a 150$ entry level one - HDD included - either, cause these are probably not really better than an RT-AC68U).

What if I use a Ubiqiti EdgeRouter Lite to offset the processing load for the RT-AC68U/RT-N66U in which it'll be utilized as an AP only? Can I achieve better external disk-transfer bandwidth-speeds via USB 3.0 ? - and if anything is there an inherent chipset limitation that goes with this?

 

[halilertan]

ooo yeee

I have many problems with rtac-68u
many times disconnect with mediaplayer
usb3.0 not working, I buy a new mybook duu 4tb and make already raid1 but nothing happend, just usb2.0 is working

I will crash this router,
helpp me pleaseeee

 

[Rares Oltean]

I have recently bought an RT-AC68U and my USB write speeds are absolutely terrible. I read everything about this I could find on the internet yet I cannot manage to increase them no matter what I try.

As you can see in the screenshot below, I'm trying to copy a large file from my Desktop computer to a Kingston USB3 stick connected to the USB 3.0 port on my router. It starts at about 20MBps but a few seconds later it drops at an average of 5MBps till the very end. That's much lower than USB 2.0 theoretical speed and much lower than any speed reported by any other user on the internet. Other users have reported average speeds of up to 50MBps which I would be totally cool with.

USB 3.0 port on this router is actually slower than its USB 2.0 port. I got speeds twice and even three times higher with the same device connected to the USB 2.0 port.

I tried doing a benchmark with 'dd' directly on the router and got the following results with this USB3 stick:
USB3
Total Size | Block Count | Block Size | Speed
500Mb | 100 | 5MB | 6.5MBps
500Mb | 50 | 10MB | 6.8MBps

USB2
Total Size | Block Count | Block Size | Speed
500Mb | 100 | 5MB | 11.6MBps
500Mb | 50 | 10MB | 12.2MBps
500Mb | 25 | 20MB | 13.9MBps
500Mb | 10 | 50MB | 14.7MBps

The USB stick performs way faster than this when connected to a PC so I don't think it's a problem related to the USB stick. I also tried connecting an external HDD to the router's USB 3.0 port and I get speeds equally terrible with that one too.

I have Disabled "Reducing USB 3.0 interference" with no improvement.
The USB Stick has one ext2 partition so it should be the ideal format for linux.
What else could you recommend? I really like this router but USB performance this terrible is a deal breaker for me.

Thank you!

 

[mattiL]

Is it perhaps a Kingston DTSE9 G2 USB3.0 (slim metal case)?
I have one and it is dead slow writing to, and I'm not talking about it being connected to a router but directly to a computer!

Have you tested more than one USB stick?

 

[Rares Oltean]

Is it perhaps a Kingston DTSE9 G2 USB3.0 (slim metal case)?
I have one and it is dead slow writing to, and I'm not talking about it being connected to a router but directly to a computer!

Have you tested more than one USB stick?

That's the one. But I remember it doing much higher speeds when connected to a PC. I haven't tried other sticks. I've tried a 2TB WD Elements external HDD and got slightly better results, about 15MBps write, whereas the same HDD connected to my PC sports a constant 100MBps.

I've just managed to obtain a slight boost (some users claim a +30%) on USB write speeds by turning

use sendfile = no

in /jffs/configs/smb.conf.add

Even with this boost I'm still very far from the advertised and desired 50MBps.

 

[Rares Oltean]

@mattiL, you were right. Write speeds on Kingston DTSE9 G2 USB3.0 are $hit.

I've just retested my WD Elements on USB 3.0 after turning sendfile off.

Copying from my computer sported a decent 40MBps.
Interestingly enough, benchmarking with "dd" directly on the router, I ended up with:

1048576000 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 11.7396 s, 89.3 MB/s

I must say I'm very pleased with this result. If I could find a USB stick capable of doing this speed on the router I'd be extremely happy.

Thanks for pointing out my type of Kingston being at fault for the terrible write speeds, I wouldn't have thought of that. Btw, the read speed for this Kingston stick is a decent 29MBps whereas my WD Elements sports a 57MBps on read.

That said, I'd really appreciate it if you could recommend a USB stick that will do at least the same speed as my WD Elements.

Cheers!

 

[mattiL]

You could look at this list for some ideas:

http://usbspeed.nirsoft.net/usb_drive_speed_summary.html?o=1