Write performance for Zyxel NAS540

beuford
beuford Posts: 10  Freshman Member
edited March 2018 in Personal Cloud Storage
I just purchased a new NAS540. I loaded it with a single HGST 4TB NAS drive (7200RPM, 128MB cache and a  SATA 3 interface) for testing. It came with version 5.20 firmware, but I've upgraded it to version 5.21 firmware. I purchased this to replace a WD MY Cloud 4TB. All Internet apps were disabled for testing (media server, iTunes server, etc).

Testing was done over a direct 1Gb Ethernet connection between devices. Test computer is an Apple Macbook Pro 15" (quad-core i7,16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) using a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter.

When transferring from the NAS to the Mac (read) I get ~ 115MB/sec, but when transferring from the Mac to the NAS (write) I get only ~45MB/sec. For the My Cloud I get 115MB/sec read and 63MB/sec write.

I kind of expected better performance from the NAS540 relative to the My Cloud; what gives? Any ideas where I can improve performance?

Thanks,

Beuford

#NAS_March
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Comments

  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,858  Guru Member
    250 Answers 2500 Comments Friend Collector Seventh Anniversary
    I kind of expected better performance from the NAS540 relative to the My Cloud; what gives?
    As far a I know the My Cloud has the same processor as the '540; a Mindspeed Concerto 2000. So I'd expect equal performance. (And at least of a '540 I know it can do better than 63MB/sec)
    Any ideas where I can improve performance?

    Have a look in the webinterface which process is eating most of the CPU cycles, when writing.

  • beuford
    beuford Posts: 10  Freshman Member
    It's usually the web interface.... ;)

    Funny, though, how Python is always consuming 12 - 20% of the CPU. Memory is nowhere near maxed out, but processor ^ 100% frequently during writes. It's the file system and python competing for CPU resources.

    I don't have the NAS540 connected to the internet (security); could this be causing problems? Is there a process trying to "phone home" that might be the cause of the high python utilization?

    You'd think it would give up when it realized that it didn't have a default gateway route...

    beuford
  • beuford
    beuford Posts: 10  Freshman Member
    OK - So here is something interesting. It seems that the processor in my NAS540 is a bit slower than anticipated. From the /proc/cpuinfo files of my NAS540, MyCloud Gen 2 and a MyCloud Gen 1:

    NAS540:
    *****
    Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
    processor : 0
    BogoMIPS : 1196.85

    processor : 1
    BogoMIPS : 1196.85

    Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls 
    CPU implementer : 0x41
    CPU architecture: 7
    CPU variant : 0x2
    CPU part : 0xc09
    CPU revision : 1

    Hardware : Comcerto 2000 EVM
    Revision : 0001
    Serial : 0000000000000000
    *****

    MyCloud Gen1:
    *****
    Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
    processor : 0
    BogoMIPS : 1299.25

    processor : 1
    BogoMIPS : 1292.69

    Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls 
    CPU implementer : 0x41
    CPU architecture: 7
    CPU variant : 0x2
    CPU part : 0xc09
    CPU revision : 1

    Hardware : Comcerto 2000 EVM
    Revision : 0001
    Serial : 0000000000000000
    *****

    MyCloud Gen2:
    *****
    processor : 0
    model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
    BogoMIPS : 1594.16
    Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls 
    CPU implementer : 0x41
    CPU architecture: 7
    CPU variant : 0x4
    CPU part : 0xc09
    CPU revision : 1

    processor : 1
    model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
    BogoMIPS : 1594.16
    Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls 
    CPU implementer : 0x41
    CPU architecture: 7
    CPU variant : 0x4
    CPU part : 0xc09
    CPU revision : 1

    Hardware : Marvell Armada 375 (Device Tree)
    Revision : 0000
    Serial : 0000000000000000
    *****

    Can someone PLEASE explain why my NAS540 has a slower processor than a Gen1 MyCloud?!?

    Beuford
  • beuford
    beuford Posts: 10  Freshman Member
    Sorry for the repeated posts - I didn't see the note at the bottom stating that the post had to be approved. I assumed something had gone wrong and tried to repost (again and again...).

    Sorry!

    Beuford
  • beuford
    beuford Posts: 10  Freshman Member
    edited March 2018
    Short version: /proc/cpuinfo shows a 2-core processor running at ~1200 BogoMIPS per core on the NAS540, but ~1595 BogoMIPS per core on a My Cloud Gen 2 and ~1300 BogoMIPS per core on a MyCloud Gen 1.

    Seems a little strange that the NAS540 would report a slower speed than an old My Cloud... That explains a lot, though, since the performance is more on par with my old Gen1 My Cloud.

    Beuford
  • beuford
    beuford Posts: 10  Freshman Member
    From a web site that records specific information from NAS systems, we have this /proc/cpuinfo output for the same model (NAS540):
    **********
    Processor       : ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
    processor       : 0
    BogoMIPS        : 2387.14

    processor       : 1
    BogoMIPS        : 2393.70

    Features        : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls 
    CPU implementer : 0x41
    CPU architecture: 7
    CPU variant     : 0x2
    CPU part        : 0xc09
    CPU revision    : 1

    Hardware        : Comcerto 2000 EVM
    Revision        : 0001
    Serial          : 0000000000000000
    **********

    My system reports almost exactly HALF of the BogoMIPS reported here, even though everything else in the output matches and the machines are the same.

    Any ideas?

    Beuford
  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,858  Guru Member
    250 Answers 2500 Comments Friend Collector Seventh Anniversary
    That's fishy. I guess your data comes from zyxel.nas-central.org. That NAS540 is mine. In that time it was running firmware 5.00. Meanwhile it's upgraded to version 5.11. And guess what? The output of /proc/cpuinfo is changed. It now runs 1196.85 bogomips.

    Don't know how I must interpret that. On a 1.2GHz Armv7 CPU I'd expect something like 1200 bogomips. I'm pretty sure the '540 has a 1.2GHz processor. Some Googling around gives no conclusion about the MyCloud. I can find both 1.2GHz and 650MHz.

    The bootlog  of firmware 5.00 shows 
    [    0.190282] xor: measuring software checksum speed
[    0.240157]    arm4regs  :   140.800 MB/sec
[    0.290111]    8regs     :   147.200 MB/sec
[    0.339960]    32regs    :    89.600 MB/sec
[    0.390023]    neon      :   147.200 MB/sec
[    0.390031] xor: using function: neon (147.200 MB/sec)
    while the current bootlog shows
    [&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0.192035] xor: measuring software checksum speed<br>[&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0.240014]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; arm4regs&nbsp; :&nbsp; 2130.000 MB/sec<br>[&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0.289997]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 8regs&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; :&nbsp; 1398.000 MB/sec<br>[&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0.339981]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 32regs&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; :&nbsp; 1186.400 MB/sec<br>[&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0.389974]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; neon&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; :&nbsp; 1384.400 MB/sec<br>[&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0.389982] xor: using function: arm4regs (2130.000 MB/sec)<br>
    which is not even comparable. So my guess is that there were some timing issues in the 5.00 kernel. Which has impact on bogomips measurement.


  • beuford
    beuford Posts: 10  Freshman Member
    edited March 2018
    Thank you for the revised info.

    However, I am still at a loss with respect to the poor write performance of the NAS540.

    I'm only getting 44MB/s writes (copy from computer to NAS, direct 1Gb link, 10GB file). The My Cloud gen 1 does about the same, and the gen 2 beats it by 50% (~64 to 66 MB/s. Reads are at 115MB/s.

    Note that I am now running 2 1TB drives in a RAID 0 configuration.

    Any ideas??

    Beuford
  • beuford
    beuford Posts: 10  Freshman Member
    edited March 2018
    UPDATE

    OK, so something I left out - I'm using a Mac. 

    I pulled out my wife's laptop running Windows and ran the same tests - and got 90-100MB/s for both reads and writes. What the ... ??

    So what is different about AFP that causes a 50% performance hit? I tried all three of my Macs and all had similar results. I also tried to use an SMB connection from the Mac, but got ridiculously slow  throughput (12MB/s).

    Since the WD My Cloud gen 2 does better own writes from the Mac (64MB/s vs 45MB/s) but is otherwise a similar system to the NAS540, I have to believe it's either an AFP version or configuration issue. Any suggestions for improving AFP performance with the NAS540?

    Thanks in advance!

    Beuford
  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,858  Guru Member
    250 Answers 2500 Comments Friend Collector Seventh Anniversary
    I never looked at AFP before, and don't know much about it's quirks.

    As Samba is fast, it makes no sense to look at disk&network performance. (Although that is other hardware. You could measure network throughput using iperf, which is included in the RandomTools package , provided iperf is also available on your Mac)

    My first action would be to compare the configuration. For the '540 you can find it in /etc/netatalk/afp.conf. Do you have shell access to the MyCloud as well? I'd expect an afp.conf somewhere in /etc/. If not, you can run 
    ps | grep netatalk

    to see which file it got specified. Reading the man page I don't see many options which I would expect to have big impact on transferring a single file. Maybe tcprcvbuf.


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