• Ubuntu Home Server - Slow Internal Transfer Speed
    14 replies, posted
To start this off I'm fairly new to home servers / networking. I've recently built a simple home server running Ubuntu Server using parts from previous builds. The server is plugged into a TP-LINK TL-WR940N V3 Wireless N450 Home Router which is bridged wirelessly to the modem on the floor below. As of right now I'm only achieving an average 1.50 MBps data transfer rate, with any of the videos being streamed from the drive requiring annoyingly frequent buffering, and pictures taking a few seconds to display. What can I do to improve my transfer speed? Please let me know what data / specs I can provide. Modem speedtest results: 9ms, 80.21mbps download, 91mbps upload Server speedtest results: 17ms, 75.40mbps download, 65.91mbps upload.
My first though is bad/dying hard-drive. Have you checked the local read speeds on the server? You could also check 'dmesg' to see if there are any obvious errors.
Nothing stands out, but I've had this simple 500gb hdd for a while now.
Could be the filesystem you're using for storage. I doubt it, since I think by default ubuntu uses ext4
[QUOTE=Binladen34;50418771]Could be the filesystem you're using for storage. I doubt it, since I think by default ubuntu uses ext4[/QUOTE] Yep, the drive is formatted to ext4.
Can you get an Ethernet cable to the router, from your test workstation? Wireless bridging and such can be a bit weird. Your Speedtest results are already showing a significant loss, under a very basic workload.
[QUOTE=birkett;50428601]Can you get an Ethernet cable to the router, from your test workstation? Wireless bridging and such can be a bit weird. Your Speedtest results are already showing a significant loss, under a very basic workload.[/QUOTE] Ran three tests between the modem and the router: (Speed in mbps) [B]Modem[/B] 1. 32ms, 74d, 82u 2. 41ms, 64d, 71u 3. 63ms, 34d, 47u [B]Router[/B] 1. 11ms, 79d, 66u 2. 12ms, 79d, 65u 3. 10ms, 73d, 59u I didn't expect it to run that much slower when plugged into the modem...
How are you viewing the videos on the server? Is it over the LAN or remotely over the internet? If it's over the LAN, your internet speed has nothing to do with this. So that can be ruled out. Some sort of network diagram would help too so we can understand exactly how this is laid out. As your modem being slower is a bit peculiar. Note the location of the client PC streaming the videos and the server. Off the cuff though, wireless streaming over the LAN can be tricky. You have to account for signal loss and the transfer speed will be cut in half if the client is also wireless.
I'm viewing the files over LAN. [img]http://i.imgur.com/hHu3w1m.png[/img] Attempting to play any videos when the server was plugged into the modem yielded the same results unfortunately, and attempting to pass any files to the server also resulted in an average 1.55 MBps transfer rate. Could it be this poor old hard drive?
Try transferring to/from a RAM disk, or a known-good external HDD or flash drive.
If you wanna test the drive grab DiskMark, and DiskInfo [url]http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html[/url] I'm actually testing all my drives now out of curiosity.
[QUOTE=Binladen34;50441523]If you wanna test the drive grab DiskMark, and DiskInfo [url]http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html[/url] I'm actually testing all my drives now out of curiosity.[/QUOTE] OP's server is on a Linux box. hdparm -Tt /dev/sdX should do the job nicely though.
[QUOTE=DrTaxi;50437999]Try transferring to/from a RAM disk, or a known-good external HDD or flash drive.[/QUOTE] Transferring a 10gb file between the drives on my PC results in speeds of 70-80 MB/s. [editline]2nd June 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Demache;50441639]OP's server is on a Linux box. hdparm -Tt /dev/sdX should do the job nicely though.[/QUOTE] Thanks for the info! Results are below: /dev/sda: Timing cached reads: 9320 MB in 2.00 seconds = 4662.91 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 390 MB in 3.01 seconds = 129.74 MB/sec Doesn't look too bad... not the drive, then.
Decided to just go ahead and snake a Cat6 to the router downstairs and replace the router up here with a nice gigabit switch. Currently getting upwards of 30MB/s transfer speed... don't know what I was thinking going for a bridged connection.
Wireless is the bee's knees if you have proper equipment but if you don't its awful.
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