Slow home network for file transfers

ShaunIOW

I have very slow file transfers between my desktop PC and HP Microserver and other NAS drives.  Occassionally it will climb to 80-90 MB/s but normally it's only 11 MB/s.

My network is all hard wired with Cat 5e cabling and gigabyte switches, and everything is in the same Workgroup (PC is Windows 10), I also cannot stream 4k video files (constant bufferring) from the Microserver (running FreeNAS with Plex) to the TV (running Plex) which is also hardwired, but 1080p streams fine.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Bryn1

it would appear (to me) that something in your network path is limiting the connection speed to 100MB/s reason I suspect that is because you say you are mostly only seeing a throughput speed of 11MB/s which is where a 100MB/s tends to max out at (I have a laptop with a 100MB Nic in it that maxes out at 11MB/s during a file transfer on my 1GB network and every other client I have easily sustains 80-90MB/S)

I would take a look at the nIc setting in your desktop PC and also the HP micro server just to confirm they have the speed selection set correctly mine are set to 'full duplex 1GB'

mickevh

It could also be an effect of the caching and performance of the disc and/or bus systems in the end stations.

Ethernet works a fixed speeds, they don't vary once the link if up and running. It's 10/100/1000 mbps or nothing. (Incidentally, be sure to know your bits from your bytes: Data networking rates are usually expressed in "mbps" small "b" mega bits per second, whereas application level operations such as Windows Explorer report in "MB/s" capital "B" mega Bytes per second - the two are not the same.)

If you have a couple of PC available, (laptops are ideal for this purpose) you could attach one each end of the network pathway (ie temporarily replace the NAS and client) and run something like NetIO or iPerf to test/prove the performance of the network infrastructure.

If that shows network transfers of the order of 80-100 mbps you can suspect a 100mbps ethernet link somewhere in the pathway, conversely if that shows 800-1000 mbps you know the pathway it gigabit all the way, (giga"bit" - Giga"byte" is a hardware manufacturer) and you can look for issues in the end station (NAS, PC, etc.)

ShaunIOW

Cheers for the replies.

I used MB/s as thats how the transfer speed was expressed in Windows, what is strange is that sometimes I do get 80-90 MB/s and it'll stay like that for a day or two then drop back to 11 MB/s.

I also cannot stream 4k without buffering (I've tried both wired and wireless) although 1080p is fine.

My Setup is:

Asus RT-AC3200 router which has a cat5e network cable into the lounge where it is connected to a Netgear unmanaged 8-port gigabyte switch, this then has the desktop PC, Sky HD box, Panasonic 4K Bluray player, Xbox One X and HiSense 50UA7 TV connected to it (when I try streaming 4K the 4K Bluray and xbox are off), In the hall where the router is I then have a 2nd Netgear Gigabyte switch which has a HP Microserver Gen8 running FreeNAS and 3x 4Tb and 1x 6Tb H/Ds, a Buffalo LS520D194 6Tb NAS Drive, Hive Hub and Panasonic IP camera.  There is also a Western Digital 6Tb Elements drive attached to the routers USB3 port, and the router is also connected to a BT Home Hub 5 which is used soley for fibre broadband with everything else turned off. All the cabling is at least cat5e. Connected wirelessly are 2 Amazon Echos, 2 Amazon Echo Shows, and 2 other IP cameras.

Edit:  Strangely I can stream 4k films from the FreeNas to the TV if I go via the media player in the Panasonic 4k Bluray player and select the film from a folder, but I can't stream them if I use the Plex in the TV.

next010

Have you tried streaming 4K content to Plex client on Xbox to see what happens if it does not stutter than that narrows it down to the Hisense TV.

ShaunIOW

Good idea, I just tried that and the same problem with buffering, also tried Plex on the PC and that buffers as well, so I think it must be a Plex issue as the film plays fine through a different media player.

Also, an update on my slow network, today for some reason I was getting transfer speeds of 86MB/s to 115MB/s.

next010

You might have to ask over on the Plex forums whats going on with the Plex server if DLNA works fine.

if you still cannot resolve the Plex server issues Emby is an alternative to Plex, if the TV has an Emby client maybe that could work as a replacement.

ShaunIOW

Yes I did, same problem.  As suggested I tried over on the Plex forums, the problem is my NAS server CPU isn't up to 4k streaming

chrisgeary

I agree with Mick, this sounds like a disk IO bottleneck. How are those hard drives arranged... any sort of RAID in play here?

I have a single disk for my media and any sort of multi access IO kills throughput.

ShaunIOW

No RAID, all individual disks to increase storage space, but like I said, its the CPU in the NAS running PLEX is just not up to it, as the 4k files play fine if I go through the media player in the 4k Bluray player as that obvisouly has the hardware for 4k decoding.