Bypass 10/100 ADSL Router to send to NAS at Gigabit speed

[rtzouves]

Ok, for the networking guru's out there.

My problem is as follows:

I have multiple systems and network sorage devices (all gigabit capable with cat 6 cables) all centrally connected to an 8 port gigabit switch which is then connected to an 10/100 ADSL router. Whenever sending anything over the network the speed seems to hit that 10MB (100mbit) cap due to everything going through the router. Is there any way of making a direct connection to the NAS and transfering at higher speeds without connecting the cable directly to the NAS causing the pc to lose internet connectivity or fiddleing with cables.

I realise what I ideally need is a gigabit capable router, but to find one for anything below 2k that has ADSL built in is almost impossible, so I have put a hold on the upgrade.

All i want to do is utilise the greater bandwidth that gigabit provides whilst still maintaining my internet connection. Would think this would be possible with some sort of setting to stop data from being routed through the router.

Any ideas?

 

[Bronzed_Skarab]

Your setup sounds like it is correct. The switch should route packets directly between gigabit capable devices at full speed. This is provided the switch can select port speed for each port individually and doesn't default to 100mbps if any device on the switch is 100mbps.

Don't be surprised if your throughput isn't as fast as you expect though. My NAS can't saturate gigabit ethernet and gives throughput much slower than theoretical. File transfers between servers is damn fast though as the server hardware can jam the bits down the lines fast enough.

Also, and I've got to say this because so many people get it wrong (so don't shout at me if you're already aware of this) gigabit is not the same as gigabyte. Don't expect to get 1GBps!

 

[ponder]

Your setup sounds like it is correct. The switch should route packets directly between gigabit capable devices at full speed. This is provided the switch can select port speed for each port individually and doesn't default to 100mbps if any device on the switch is 100mbps.

Don't be surprised if your throughput isn't as fast as you expect though. My NAS can't saturate gigabit ethernet and gives throughput much slower than theoretical. File transfers between servers is damn fast though as the server hardware can jam the bits down the lines fast enough.

Also, and I've got to say this because so many people get it wrong (so don't shout at me if you're already aware of this) gigabit is not the same as gigabyte. Don't expect to get 1GBps!

+1

Oh, a switch does not route seeing these cheaper devices only operate at Layer 2.

To achieve Gigabit Ethernet speeds one needs to starts looking at decent NIC's.

 

[Asha'man X]

Our school just recently bought a NAS, a D-Link DNS-313. Wow, what a rubbish piece of equipment. As a USB hard drive, it works fine, but as a NAS it is painfully slow. Even on a gigabit ProCurve managed switch, file copy times were slower than watching paint dry.

Basically, unless you have a very good NAS device, you are unlikely to feel the benefit of gigabit. Of course, if you are using a pc for a NAS with something like FreeNAS, then I think it would work better.

 

[Drake2007]

Basically, unless you have a very good NAS device, you are unlikely to feel the benefit of gigabit. Of course, if you are using a pc for a NAS with something like FreeNAS, then I think it would work better.

Good point there, check out the Seagate blackarmor family

 

[AnomalyNexus]

provided the switch can select port speed for each port individually and doesn't default to 100mbps

That is the OP's problem. Only way to fix this is to buy new equipment. Either a gigabit adsl router or a more intelligent switch that can select port speeds individually as Bronzed said.

due to everything going through the router.

It's not going through the router.

To achieve Gigabit Ethernet speeds one needs to starts looking at decent NIC's.

Even with a cheap NIC he should be breaking the 10-12MB/s limit of 100mbps easily.

 

[rtzouves]

I really don't think that is the problem as the switch has auto negotiation on each port. This is the switch i am using http://www.dlink.co.za/dgs-1008d.php

The hard drive is more than capable of faster speeds and the NIC is the onboard NIC on an ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 mobo so that is definately not the problem.

Edit:
After a bit of research I discovered the cause to be the NAS itself, I was so sure when researching it before the purchase that throughput was double that, but it seems I was in error.

The reason i had terrible speed to the other system i was transfering to was also an oversight... upon closer inspection the cable connecting the other system to the router was an old cat 5 cable; don't ask me how it got there

Thanks guys for the help, seems like it is the NAS that needs to be replaced with something a little more powerful

 

[Conradl]

The CAT5 cable should not cause any problems, especially not if its only connecting the router to the switch. Just to check, your PC is plugged into the switch?

The problem is most likely not your NAS device, but rather the physical disk. For example, I am working on a SAN that has a RAID10 SAS connection over iSCSI to a file server. The 1GB NIC is running at 50%. If four SAS drives can only achieve 50% utilisation, then a single SATA drive would be even worse.

Also remember that the type of IO, i.e. random read/write, small files, multiple simultaneous read/writes, all have an impact on the performance of disk IO.

Basically, assuming your setup is correct, the only way to achieve significant gains in throughput is to increase the number of disks....

 

[hilton]

Our school just recently bought a NAS, a D-Link DNS-313. Wow, what a rubbish piece of equipment.

This is the problem with these 'moms and pops' devices. They're designed for a incy wincy network at home but of course everyone gets excited, wets their pants and rushes out to buy the incorrect hardware without any thought process whatsoever.

I use FreeNAS on a x86 system and whilst it's not 'plug 'n pray', it's way better than this cr@ppy consumer stuff. A school is a business anyway you look at it so they really need to purchase business designed equipment.

To the OP, glad you came right.

 

[rtzouves]

The CAT5 cable should not cause any problems, especially not if its only connecting the router to the switch. Just to check, your PC is plugged into the switch?

The problem is most likely not your NAS device, but rather the physical disk. For example, I am working on a SAN that has a RAID10 SAS connection over iSCSI to a file server. The 1GB NIC is running at 50%. If four SAS drives can only achieve 50% utilisation, then a single SATA drive would be even worse.

Also remember that the type of IO, i.e. random read/write, small files, multiple simultaneous read/writes, all have an impact on the performance of disk IO.

Basically, assuming your setup is correct, the only way to achieve significant gains in throughput is to increase the number of disks....

Thanks man, but it is definately the NAS itself... very few hard drives are limited to the 10 MB mark and in fact the lowest speed with large file transfers that i have seen on a hard drive is roughly 20-30 MB and that was a terrible little old 5400rpm drive. I did remember that the type of IO (random read/write, small files, multiple simultaneous read/writes) has an impact on the performance and that is why I attempted larger single files ranging files ranging from 8-20GB to check performance.

The cabling may not have made a difference if it were CAT5e, but it was just good old CAT5 cabling and after replacing it with CAT 6 cabling my speed to the other system has increased to roughly 30-50 MB which is what i would expect from the hard drive.

For interest sake the NAS I am using is the NS2300 from Promise which as can be seen in the following review is not very good on the performance front: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/qnap-promise-co-world,2217-6.html

My setup is most definately correct as I am not entirely new to computer hardware. So in summary the only way to increase speeds would be to replace the NAS as that is currently the limiting factor.

 

[rtzouves]

This is the problem with these 'moms and pops' devices. They're designed for a incy wincy network at home but of course everyone gets excited, wets their pants and rushes out to buy the incorrect hardware without any thought process whatsoever.

I use FreeNAS on a x86 system and whilst it's not 'plug 'n pray', it's way better than this cr@ppy consumer stuff. A school is a business anyway you look at it so they really need to purchase business designed equipment.

To the OP, glad you came right.

Thanks man... believe it or not I actually did research this darn device before, but obviously whatever website I found the review at was not so "clued up." /me reminds people to stick to websites with reviews and benchmarks you can trust... IE tomshardware

 

[Asha'man X]

This is the problem with these 'moms and pops' devices. They're designed for a incy wincy network at home but of course everyone gets excited, wets their pants and rushes out to buy the incorrect hardware without any thought process whatsoever.

I use FreeNAS on a x86 system and whilst it's not 'plug 'n pray', it's way better than this cr@ppy consumer stuff. A school is a business anyway you look at it so they really need to purchase business designed equipment.

To the OP, glad you came right.

Believe me, neither I nor my colleague wanted this thing, we felt from the start that it would be a waste. However, our head of IT had some last reserves of cash in the budget, and needed to spend it. For some reason, he went to buy this thing with a 1.5TB hard drive, to be used for backup purposes.

Honestly, with the money spent on that, we could have bought a server rack mount conversion kit or something useful. Sometimes though, your hands are tied

To the OP, glad you got a speed increase of some sort

 

[MidnightWizard]

Cisco rulz

All i want to do is utilise the greater bandwidth that gigabit provides whilst still maintaining my internet connection. Would think this would be possible with some sort of setting to stop data from being routed through the router.
Any ideas?

Cisco 12 port Gigabit switch with IOS


MW

 

[rtzouves]

Cisco 12 port Gigabit switch with IOS


MW

Come on man, seriously... did you even read the rest of the thread. Ordinarily I would say thank you, but thanking you for being a iD10T would just be too harsh.

Come on dude, read the rest of the thread if you are going to respond; at least do me that courtesy.

 

[MidnightWizard]

R2D2

Come on man, seriously... did you even read the rest of the thread. Ordinarily I would say thank you, but thanking you for being a iD10T would just be too harsh.
Come on dude, read the rest of the thread if you are going to respond; at least do me that courtesy.

Weelll seeing as I am so much of an idiot I obviously do not have the brain power to see where I went wrong.

Perhaps you could explain it too me -- assuming of course you have a Cisco Gigabit switch and know how to configure IOS. ????

( and why I might have been so much of an idiot as to think about suggesting it. )


MW

 

[rtzouves]

Weelll seeing as I am so much of an idiot I obviously do not have the brain power to see where I went wrong.

Perhaps you could explain it too me -- assuming of course you have a Cisco Gigabit switch and know how to configure IOS. ????

( and why I might have been so much of an idiot as to think about suggesting it. )


MW

Ok perhaps I was a bit harsh, I appologise, but why on earth would you recommend a switch when I have already discovered the problem and pretty much got it licked. If you read the rest of the thread you would also discover that someone has already explained that the router is not routing the traffic and as such why would i need a switch capable routing traffic when that is not the problem. The slow transmission speed is directly linked to the NAS itself as the NAS is of poor quality. Perhaps it has nothing to do with your brain power and is simply a case of you being to lazy to read before you post.

 

[MidnightWizard]

ISO

someone has already explained that the router is not routing the traffic and as such why would i need a switch capable routing traffic when that is not the problem.
The slow transmission speed is directly linked to the NAS itself as the NAS is of poor quality.

Weeellll normal switches do NOT route traffic -- a switch is a layer two device -- unless it is of course a layer three switch.
and
It looks to me as if you actually have a layer two (LAN) rather than a layer three (WAN) problem
BUT
A layer two CISCO switch with IOS would allow you to do a LOT of things at a layer two level on an INDIVIDUAL port basis.

Like segmenting the network so as to allow the NAS to work at it's full potential ( look at your TITLE BYPASS

But anyway -- I am an idiot so WTF do I know.


MW

 

[rtzouves]

Weeellll normal switches do NOT route traffic -- a switch is a layer two device -- unless it is of course a layer three switch.
and
It looks to me as if you actually have a layer two (LAN) rather than a layer three (WAN) problem
BUT
A layer two CISCO switch with IOS would allow you to do a LOT of things at a layer two level on an INDIVIDUAL port basis.

Like segmenting the network so as to allow the NAS to work at it's full potential ( look at your TITLE BYPASS

But anyway -- I am an idiot so WTF do I know.


MW

But once again, we have already ascertained the problem was not the data being routed through the router, but rather the NAS not being capable of faster speeds, yes sure the title was a little missleading (if you continued reading you would have discovered this) as i was missinformed and the router was not routing the traffic. So once again i say why would you make the suggestion knowing full well that the problem was not routing related but rather the NAS itself unless you actually didn't read through the rest of the thread.

You are 100% correct and that would be the solution if it were in fact a problem with the switch, but I say ONCE AGAIN if you read the rest of the thread you would have noticed that the switch i am using has auto negotiation for each connection/port and as such your recommendation is redundant.

If you are not going to accept my appology for going off on the deep end and calling you an idiot then that is your perogitive, but next time you may want to read through the rest of a thread before making a redundant and pointless post. It not only makes you LOOK like an idiot, but is insulting to the OP. If you can't take the time to read through the problem then don't bother contibuting.

Anyway, i am not going to sit arguing with you. Thanks to all the rest of the guys who actually put in some effort and helped me to find the problem, your help was much appreciated.

 

[MidnightWizard]

Strokes

Unless you actually didn't read through the rest of the thread.
you would have noticed that the switch i am using has auto negotiation for each connection/port and as such your recommendation is redundant.
pointless post. It not only makes you LOOK like an idiot, but is insulting to the OP. If you can't take the time to read through the problem then don't bother contibuting.

WOW -- hold on to those tea cups -- electron storm on the way.

Weellll if you think that a Cisco switch is ONLY about "auto-negotiation" then I am obvously wasting my time -- and perhaps you would be better employed -- reading your tea leaves.

The rest I leave up to my peers to decide.

/ends input


MW

 

[rtzouves]

WOW -- hold on to those tea cups -- electron storm on the way.

Weellll if you think that a Cisco switch is ONLY about "auto-negotiation" then I am obvously wasting my time -- and perhaps you would be better employed -- reading your tea leaves.

The rest I leave up to my peers to decide.

/ends input


MW

I have no doubt it is capable of a great deal more... but those features are not likely to solve my problem now are they. Unless of course your clearly superior intellect is able to magically make my NAS faster by just plugging it into a new switch. Let me try and explain it a little louder THE NAS IS **** AND IF YOU READ THE POSTS ABOVE YOU WOULD SEE THIS AND UNDERSTAND WHY RECOMMENDING THE NEW SWITCH DOESN'T HELP ME. YOU WOULD PERHAPS ALSO THEN UNDERSTAND WHY READING A THREAD BEFORE POSTING IS A GOOD IDEA. Of course I highly doubt screaming at the top of my voice is going to get any resluts, but heck... appologising and explaining my irritation only seems to get "go read your tea leaves" comments so I guess I will try anything at this point.

... bet you are still not going to go back and read the rest of the thread, perhaps a little tea leaf reading of your own may enlighten you