Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

summary:

I can only get about 3 Mbps.

Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

JeremyZ 1199153029|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I have this thing connected at 100 mbps, but I've never seen a transfer exceed 3-4Mbps. I know others have the same problem an I figured this thing had a lame cpu that was causing the bottleneck, but I ran top while running a file transfer and it's only at about 10% utilization..

So if the network isn't the bottleneck, and the cpu isn't the bottleneck, what is? The hard drive? Surely not… Is there anything that can be done to speed this thing up??

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

Bobbias 1199173243|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I had heard that the CPU was bottlenecked, so I dunno, I'm interested in finding a way to speed things up too, as the max I've gotten is something like 60% of my 100 mbit network connection. Then again, my router could be crap and contribute to slowing things down on my side… My router is a hunk of junk, and I had to update the firmware just to get the DHCP server to recognize the My Book.

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

sforget 1199228270|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

3-4 mbps or 3-4 MBps - there is a vast difference.

3-4 mbps (megabits per second) is 3,000,000 - 4,000,000 bits per second
3-4 MBps (megabytes per second) is: 25,165,824 to 33,554,432 bits per second - which is easily 1/4 - 1/3 the max capacity of a 100mbps link.

Technically the max capacity of a 100mbps link is 11.9 MBps (megabytes per second)

The Max speed of the mybooks 1Gbps network connection should be: 119 MBps. I've only ever hit 8 or 9 MBps on my Giga-Lan through Samba (which might be part of the bottleneck)

last edited on 1199228802|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by sforget + show more

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

koola 1199200243|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

See Here for the reason why.

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

JeremyZ 1199230381|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Big M. 3-4 MegatBYTES/sec. ;-)

I know max on 100 mb would be about 12 MB/sec, but that's still 4 times faster than what it's going now. I'd upgrade it to gigabit but right now and kind of thinking what's the point if I can't even max out the 100mb.

Reading around everyone else seems to be in the same boat. You're the first I've heard of getting 9-10 MB. Maybe I will upgrade to gigabit just so I can get 8% of it's capacity instead of 25% of the 100mb. (sadly I'm serious)

koola, I don't think that "it's not a computer, deal with it" post really helps at all. It is in fact a mini linux pc and I'm sure it is correctable, especially if it's been hacked.

I really suspected SAMBA was the source of the problem so after spending several hours trying to tweek samba last night with no success I decided to test the transfer rate of the FTP service across the local network. It also was right around 4MB, so I think we can rule out samba.

So what's been rules out as sources of the bottleneck are:
network (should allow around 11-12 MB)
cpu (utilization is below 20%)
samba (same result through ftp)
drive speed? (that would be a sad, sad world)

What's left?

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

Rickie 1200057598|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

My transfer rates are :
through Samba - 3-4MB write, 5-6MB read
through VSFTP - 5-6MB read/write

I plan some improvements like … disable samba, lighthttp (increase free memory) and set up ramdisk (minimize disk usage by system)

Rickie

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

JeremyZ 1199232172|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

The problem seems to be memory usage. The thing has 30 megs of ram and when I first boot it up 29 megs are in use. Doesn't leave much room for file transfer buffers is what I'm guessing the problem is.

I killed mionet and the web admin which freed up about 10 megs. That allowed me to get a record 5.9 MB/sec transfer via SAMBA, but that memory was quickly sucked up and appears to still be the cap. I can't seem to find what's using the other 20 megs of ram. Guess it might be the OS itself. Maybe if I can free up a few more megs I can get 7-8 MB/sec.

Has anyone cracked one of these things open to see if there's any way to add more ram?

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

pam196 1199389989|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I'm curious as to how your managing anything over 3.5MB/s sustained. I've installed bftpd and I am mostly transferring over FTP. When doing so, running top shows that bftpd is maxing out the CPU (80-90%), plus other processes running in the background (such as SSH and top). So, I guess what I'm asking is are you using a different FTP server, and if so what? Also copying over Samba which is about the same speed, causes smbd to max the CPU…so I'm a little confused…

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

koola 1199235791|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

koola, I don't think that "it's not a computer, deal with it" post really helps at all. It is in fact a mini linux pc and I'm sure it is correctable, especially if it's been hacked.

It's helps a lot as it's not a PC as such… it's an embedded device that is no where near capable of reaching normal "PC" speeds on a LAN.

The problem is a hardware limitation within the device its self. If you want to offload memory and try boost performance a little, make a RamDisk.

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

pinussen 1199874289|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I get about 4-5 MB/s when transfering a testfile from my server to the MBWE. I have mounted the MBWE as a NFS share on the server and tweaked the mount settings to optimize the read and write cache. I have also killed of as much unneeded stuff as possible on the MBWE.

CPU usage almost never top 50% with these settings, memory however is always only around 1000 Kb free when checking with top. Not sure if top show memory usage correctly though. Only using a crappy 100 Mb/s router to connect through though, should get a real 1Gb/s switch to try with.

last edited on 1199876537|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by pinussen + show more

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

WishCow 1200430591|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Can I utilize this NFS server through Windows in any way? Using an external program or something like that?

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

Harmen 1204302719|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Maybe a weird thing…. but could a fast mounted usb stick with the swapfile mounted on it give some more speed?

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

Calathia 1204313459|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

HAH, I was thinkin exactly the same this other day! Indeed, usin usb-stick as RAM drive instead of WD's memory would give us another 1M for free memory.

Another thingy I noticed: if you use Sugate personal firewall, it slows transfer speed. Ehn I tranfer stuff with SPF on, I get 23% on network utilization, SPF on it increases to 39% ! And 39% is about ~5 MB/s

What do others think of this usb-stick as RAM drive idea? Or freeing as much memory as possible to increase tranfer speed idea?

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

Harmen 1204368008|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I gave it a try yesterday, but no luck. I've attached a 2 GB memorystick (Datatraveler), unmounted it from the /shares/external/kingston mount point, made a partition whith fdisk (fdisk /dev/sda1) from 1GB and configured it as swap. After that done I've runned the command mkswap /dev/sda1 altered the /etc/fstab, put a # in front of the default swap file and made an extra entry for my /dev/sda1 and after save it i've ran swapon -a
So i've got a working swapfile on my usb stick from 1GB, but the speed doesn't increase at all. The swapfile is only used (after tranferring a couple of gig's of ISO files) for about 8000k max. So it seams that the CPU is the real bottle neck here. I didn't try a gigabit connection yet becouse i havent a gigabit switch. I'm getting this tranfer speeds on my 100 mbit network: read 6080 kbytes per second, write 3400 kbytes per second. I've also made a couple changes in the samba config file, but no real difference.

anyone, suggestions?

last edited on 1204394436|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by Harmen + show more

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

jounhi 1218616395|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Just a tought… How about SSD drives?
Replace hard drive with a SSD. Put the whole system on it and/or make a swap on it. Might be possible with MBWE II ??

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

wwarren 1204756959|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

It dawned on me awhile back that I had data on my WEII that wasn't located anywhere else and thus needed to be backed up. While trying to determine the fastest way to do that I ran some tests and consistently got 7.5MBps read speeds to a WinXP PC. Whether it was connected via 100Mbps ethernet or gigabit didn't alter those speeds. I got just under 8MBps speeds through the USB expansion port copying files via SSH from /shares/internal to an ext3 formatted hard drive in a USB enclosure mounted at /shares/external. Its running Martin Hinner's firmware, Mionet is disabled, and there are two instances of Firefly Media Server running (not streaming during testing).

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

jounhi 1218567127|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Has someone really tried to do something about the speed? I mean is there knowledge of what is the problem?

I downloaded the WD sources and took a quick look what is in there.
In directory /WD-GPL-v1.18/vendor/u-boot/board/oxnas there is a file platform.S.
In this file there is: #ifdef OXNAS_OVERCLOCK
There is a comment saying: /* Set m,p and s for PLL at 400MHz */

So has anyone ever tried to smoke their MyBook by overclocking it? Or is MyBook by default overclocked and is still this crappy?

On the memory issue. The chip seems to be on the back side of the PCB. http://martin.hinner.info/mybook/bot.jpg
It's Hynix HY5DU561622E 256Mb DDR SDRAM
I'm no electronics expert so I don't know how to increase the memory. Can those chips be stacked up or changed to larger. Hynix has chips like HY5DU121622C 512Mb DDR SDRAM but I doubt that one can just rip of the old one and solder in the new.
If changing the chip would help and if I had instructions on what to do I would be happy to do it.

At the current speeds MyBook is useless as a data storage for large amount of data. I haven't measured but I have a feeling my old NetCenter beats the crap out of MyBook in transfer rates. It's just one more toy to mess with.

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

stark 1218568507|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

open your MBWE, boot it up and make it do some work. then hold your finger on the CPU. i think it need a cooler it overclock is possible..

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

jounhi 1218569182|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Yes it probably would need some extra cooling. As a test it could be cooled with a heat sink and a fan. Those won't fit inside if one wants to close the box again but that would end speculation whether or not faster CPU would make a difference.

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

stark 1218573482|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

A small cooling rib thats come whit some GPU cooler system, can fit. One thing i came over when i opened mine, is that even if the MBWE is off but the power supply is in, it's still have some heat.

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

jounhi 1218576503|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Some info from net:
Hynix HY5DU561622E 256Mb DDR SDRAM Datasheet
http://www.datasheet4u.com/download.php?id=573686

VIA vt6122 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
http://people.freebsd.org/~wpaul/VIA/DS6122R160.pdf

Has anyone found the datasheet for OXE800SE/OXE800DSE?
Also does anyone know any other device using these? Any change of it's sources being available and that the device has better/worse performance than MyBook?

Edit:
http://www.softconnex.com/products/storage/OXE800SE.html
From the product brief pdf.
Features:
"Network coprocessor for TCP/IP acceleration"

ummm… did they forget to turn it on?!?

last edited on 1218577208|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by jounhi + show more

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

jounhi 1218817208|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Oxford Semiconductor has updates their page about the controllers.
It now says about OXE800SE/OXE800DSE that they are 10/100 Ethernet to SATA controllers.

So what does that mean??
Has WD disabled the internal 10/100 LAN and is using the 1G VIA chip through PCI?
Or are the internal LAN and VIA chip connected and the internal stuff is blocking the data?

Oxford Semiconductor has the new and improved 10/100/1000 controllers, 810 series.
What I can gather from the specifications they have the same CPU core.
800 @ 200MHz and 810 @ 367 MHz. I would be very interested to know about overclocking the MBWE.

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

jounhi 1218669523|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Found an interesting memory upgrade post:
http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=12381&page=3

This tells me that the memory chip can be"just" swapped to a bigger one.
This of course opens up some more questions like:
How much is needed to make a difference? I know we all want GB:s of memory. :)
How much memory can the controller handle? Datasheet would be nice.
Which memory chip would be right and where to get them?
Is software modifications needed? I suppose this can be found out after the swap.

edit:
More closer to MBWE:
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/FattenYourSlug
Good info about memory upgrades to NSLU2. Also about the software side.

last edited on 1218671176|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by jounhi + show more

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

jounhi 1218818613|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Answering myself since no one else has.

The onboard memory chip is 16Mx16 = 32MB chip.
The controller can handle 64MB of memory.
So it could be changed to 32Mx16 = 64MB chip. I'm I right??

Looking at the picture of the memory chip I cant figure out how to remove it without destroying the PCB at the proses. I can't see the pins on the side. Are they under the chip?

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

jounhi 1218824610|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Opened up my MBWE.
Memory is the same Hynix. Pins are hidden under it.
So no way to get that off without some brute force and destruction(?). I have no idea if a replacement can be installed even if that chip can be removed without damaging the PCB. Also how to add a new memory chip into the PCB is the pins are not visible?

The controller is OXE800DSE. hmmm… I have the one disk version. Any pictures of the two disk version PCB anywhere?? What is the difference? Could another drive be installed into one disk version?

darn… I feel the speed is crap and it's been well protected that it stays crap. Overclocking might help… or not. I'm hoping I get the time to try it at some point. If anyone wants to go first then please do.
More memory wouldn't hurt. If someone has a totally busted MBWE or they have no use for their MBWE it would be nice if they could try getting that memory chip out without damaging anything else.

So, any ideas? Or will everyone just be happy with this crappy speed?
Or just wait for the new MyBook with the new controller that can actually handle the speeds it is sold for.

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

stark 1218841894|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Well, if you want a Hi speed server, i recomend you to buy a real PC. I belive it this divice had a speed like an server, there would'nt be any use for a "server". Im not saying this is a divice whit a good speed. But for this amount of money, you could'nt get a hdd and a PSU.

IF ther's anyone that have the soldering skills for replacing the CPU and the ram i would gladly give it to He/she. (not sombody i don't know ofc)

-Stark

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

jounhi 1218890127|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I already have a server, mini-ITX with proper Gb LAN etc. runing gentoo.
MyBook is a badly peforming toy. My world doesn't crumble if this stays at the crappy state it is but I would still like to get the performace to a proper level.

You can't replace the CPU. It's integrated into the main controller. But as I said you can overclock it from software. WD has tested it. You can see that from the source codes. You need to modify bootloader and get it into the MyBook.

RAM can be switched. The chip is FBGA encased.
I think the HY5DU561622C datasheet shows the correct pin layout. So there is 60 small solder ball connections under the chip.
I think the chip can be pried off from the PCB. There is of course high risk of ripping some of the PCB along with the chip. Chip will most likely be in pieces after this.
The more problematic part is how to put in the new memory chip? And how to do that at home. One can't just solder it in place as there is no pins to solder.
After the memory chip has been changed successfully I suspect there is a need for SW modifications to get all of the memory in use.

I most likely will try the memory upgrade eventually. I do want to have some idea about how to get the new one in before taking the old one out. I would really like if someone could give some ideas. I think there is a need to find some connector or adapter for it. It needs to be something that can be soldered to the chip and to the PCB. Yet it should be quite small since there is no room to build towers.

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

DarkWan 1218747825|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I'm using a gigabit switch but no differences at all: max transfer rate is about 5/6 Mb/s.

When I opened my MyBook, I've plugged the sata drive directly to the pc (due to bad boot-configurazion setting).
I also used fsck.ext3 to repair some inode error-flagged.
Drive speed is not bad. It could be compared to internal SATA drives that reach 70Mb/s (my motherboard is pretty old).

I tried to copy a 100Mb file from /share/internal/PUBLIC/abc to /tmp/
Due to transfer time (doubled to sum read one and write one. I know it's only an aproximation), i think samba is not the bottleneck

So? I'm afraid the MBWE has not enougth memory to enable DMA access to disk(s).
Someone knows how to test this? I hope we not need to rebuild the kernel….

Re: Seriously, what's with the speed!?!?

Sergi 1221754820|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I've just bought new MBWE and see only 2.5MB/s write speed in pure 1GE LAN.

AFAIK, bottlenecks are RAM and CPU.

1. Currently installed RAM Hynix HY5DU561622E has following parameters:
DDR SDRAM 256Mb (or 32MB)
166MHz 16Mx16 FBGA (60ball) 4bank, 2.5V, CL2.5
another memory chip HY5DU121622C(L)FP-J(I) also have 166MHz FBGA (60ball) 4bank, 2.5V, CL2.5
but give us 512Mb (or 64MB). OXE810DSE memory controller support up to 64MB of 16bit RAM (according to datasheet).
It's hard to find but probably could be desoldered from some notebook SDRAM.
If you could do this then no problem with oversoldering of PCB.

2. ARM926 processor integrated in Oxford OXE810DSE chip operate at 200MHz.
OXE810DSE is obsolete. New OXE810DSE chip operate the same processor at 367MHz but with 32 Kbyte caches & MMU,
support TSO (TCP/IP segmentation offload), have 128 Kbyte on-chip SRAM, memory controller support DDR 1/2 SDRAM 16bit memory up to 256MB!
Probably old OXE chip could be also resoldier with new one, but I cannot find datasheet.

I've sniffed some flows of TCP session during write activity and discover lot of TCP retransmit.
I think network parameters of MBWE could be tuned.

Notice VIA vt6122 Gigabit Ethernet Controller support:
Jumbo frame up to 16kilobyte
DMA
Flow control
Wake on LAN
802.1p, 802.1q (VLAN)
CRC offload (IPv4)