Why is my external nas drive so slow when connected to my router?

Hello,

I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I connect it
to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes ages to read/
write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS router.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Alex

"Alex" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I connect it
to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes ages to read/
write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS router.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Alex

Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
on a LAN .connection

On Jan 1, 9:52*pm, "Ian D" wrote:
"Alex" wrote in message

...

Hello,

I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I connect it
to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes ages to read/
write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS router.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Alex

Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
on a LAN .connection

Oh so that explains it. I don't have a Gigabit port on my router. How
can I test my transfer speed from pc to router and attached storage
and how can I test the speed with my storage attached directly to my
pc?
WHat do you mean with "more data overhead".
Thanks a lot for your help

On Jan 2, 5:57*pm, Alex wrote:
On Jan 1, 9:52*pm, "Ian D" wrote:



"Alex" wrote in message

...

Hello,

I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I connect it
to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes ages to read/
write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS router.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Alex

Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
on a LAN .connection

Oh so that explains it. I don't have a Gigabit port on my router. How
can I test my transfer speed from pc to router and attached storage
and how can I test the speed with my storage attached directly to my
pc?
WHat do you mean with "more data overhead".
Thanks a lot for your help

I was reading this pc magazine that said there are only advantages to
network attached storage for your backups but I can't see the
advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds. It
even takes ages just to browse folders and sometimes explorer even
hangs. How do other people do this with their network drives to backup
data? Do they have super-conductive optical cables from cryptonite or
do they leave their pc running the entire night to copy a folder? I am
using syncback for backups. My external drive is attached to a USB
port on my 'topcom skyr@cer wbr 7121gmr nas' router and my pc is
connected with a Cat5e cable to the router's LAN port (it says LAN
10/100M).

On Jan 1, 9:52*pm, "Ian D" wrote:
"Alex" wrote in message

...

Hello,

I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I connect it
to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes ages to read/
write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS router.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Alex

Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
on a LAN .connection

another question:
Until I found a way of dealing with the slowliness of my network
drive, I now unplug my network drive and put the usb cable into my pc
for faster data transmission and I backup my data with syncback which
works great, but when I unplug the drive again and attach it back to
my router, I noticed that all the files' change dates have been
advanced by one hour! So a file that was last edited on
01/06/2009-19:30 will now read last edited (not created) on
01/06/2009-20:30. Why is this?? If the dates and times are not correct
I fear things could go wrong in the backup process where older files
will overwrite newer files instead of the other way around!
I appreciate your help

Alex wrote:
On Jan 2, 5:57 pm, Alex wrote:
On Jan 1, 9:52 pm, "Ian D" wrote:



"Alex" wrote in message

...

Hello,

I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I
connect it to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes
ages to read/ write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS
router.

Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
on a LAN .connection

Oh so that explains it. I don't have a Gigabit port on my router. How
can I test my transfer speed from pc to router and attached storage
and how can I test the speed with my storage attached directly to my
pc?

WHat do you mean with "more data overhead".
Thanks a lot for your help

I was reading this pc magazine that said there are only advantages
to network attached storage for your backups but I can't see the
advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds.

It shouldnt take that long.

It even takes ages just to browse folders and sometimes explorer even hangs.

There's a problem with that system.

How do other people do this with their network drives to backup data?

They use a network drive that doesnt have a problem and
have backup scheduled so you dont care how long it takes.

Do they have super-conductive optical cables from cryptonite

Nope, they're a tad thin on the ground.

or do they leave their pc running the entire night to copy a folder?

It doesnt take that long when its working properly. 8GB
should only take 30 mins or so with a 100Mb network.

I am using syncback for backups. My external drive is attached
to a USB port on my 'topcom skyr@cer wbr 7121gmr nas' router

That last is likely the problem.

and my pc is connected with a Cat5e cable to the router's LAN port (it says LAN 10/100M).

Previously Alex wrote:
I was reading this pc magazine that said there are only advantages to
network attached storage for your backups

You should not belive all the press writes. They are certainly
wrong on this one.

but I can't see the
advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds.

How large?

It
even takes ages just to browse folders and sometimes explorer even
hangs. How do other people do this with their network drives to backup
data? Do they have super-conductive optical cables from cryptonite or
do they leave their pc running the entire night to copy a folder?

Well, I have a Linux box with NFS that gives me 5-10MB/s real speed,
which is on the low side, probably due to it using 2.5" drives and
a slow CPU. It uses Gigabit Ethernet though. Listing folders is as
fast as if it was local. For 8GB, I would have to wait somethin like
15 Minutes.

I am using syncback for backups.

Hmm. Not familiar with that.

My external drive is attached to a USB
port on my 'topcom skyr@cer wbr 7121gmr nas' router and my pc is
connected with a Cat5e cable to the router's LAN port (it says LAN
10/100M).

This may be your bottleneck. If this runns at 10 Mbit (check the
status LEDs on your network card, they should indicate speed),
all will become painfully slow. Even at 100Mbit, you can expect
a maximum of 10MB/sec, but only with fast hard/software.
The translation to USB will take additional ressources.

The box you are using is strictly speaking not a NAS. It is better
described as a very slow minimal computer, likely ruinning Linux
or some embedded OS with minimal RAM for buffer/cache, that just
happens to have an USB port. When looking at the backside in the
brochure, this layout reminds me very much of an Embedded-Linux
Router from Edimax that I experimented with. If it is the same
hardware, then it just has USB 1.0. which tops out at 11Mbis,
giving you a theoretical maximum access speed of about 1MB/s
and much less in practice. Add the slow CPU, missing RAM for
buffer/cache, non-current/minimal software (as this thing only
has 4MB FLASH) and the observed slowness is not a surprise at all.
Given that the brochure does not list ISB speed, it very likely
is the slow variant.

Arno

Previously Alex wrote:
On Jan 1, 9:52*pm, "Ian D" wrote:
"Alex" wrote in message

...

Hello,

I have a maxtor external portable hard drive of 160GB and when I
connect it to my pc via 2 USB2.0 cables (one for power and data and
the other for data) data transfer is almost instant. When I connect it
to my router to use it as a Network/NAS drive, it takes ages to read/
write data! I have a Topcom Skyracer WBR 7121gmr NAS router.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Alex

Unless you have a gigabit switch in your router with a gigabit
LAN card in your PC, and CAT5e cable, the practical maximum
date transfer rate will be about 10MB/sec. The USB2 connection
can run at speeds up to 60MB/s. Also, there's more data overhead
on a LAN .connection

another question:
Until I found a way of dealing with the slowliness of my network
drive, I now unplug my network drive and put the usb cable into my pc
for faster data transmission and I backup my data with syncback which
works great, but when I unplug the drive again and attach it back to
my router, I noticed that all the files' change dates have been
advanced by one hour! So a file that was last edited on
01/06/2009-19:30 will now read last edited (not created) on
01/06/2009-20:30. Why is this?? If the dates and times are not correct
I fear things could go wrong in the backup process where older files
will overwrite newer files instead of the other way around!
I appreciate your help

Simple: The timestamps are in UTC. For dieplay they get converted
to your local time. The setting for that on your router and your
PC are different, possibly because of dailight saving time or a
wrongly configured timezone.

Arno

On Jan 6, 11:27*am, Arno Wagner wrote:
Simple: The timestamps are in UTC. For dieplay they get converted
to your local time. The setting for that on your router and your
PC are different, possibly because of dailight saving time or a
wrongly configured timezone.

That's what I thought too but my router, my laptop and my pc are
configured to the same time zone which is Brussels UTC+1. The only
difference is my router is not configured to enable daylight saving
while my computers are. But since DST has not started yet, it
shouldn't make a difference I think? On the router's page there is a
checkbox near DST that says "enable function" and then it says "times
from 'month' 'day' to 'month' 'day' " where I have to select the month
and day from a dropdown list. I have no idea what to fill in there (if
that's causing the issue).

but I can't see the
advantage of having to back up 8 GB of 'my documents' when it already
takes 1minute to copy one simple xls file instead of a few seconds.

How large?

34,7MB xls file takes 40sec to copy from the network drive to a local
drive while the same file copies in 1sec from one local folder to
another.
Opening a folder on the network drive takes 2-30 seconds and sometimes
explorer even hangs. I just had to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL maybe 10 times to
open task manager and end the process but the folder simply wouldn't
close.

This may be your bottleneck. If this runns at 10 Mbit (check the
status LEDs on your network card, they should indicate speed),
all will become painfully slow.

When I look at the LAN port on the back of my pc there are 2 LEDs but
nothing is written besides them. While copying from the network drive,
the red one burns steady while the yellow one flashes.

The box you are using is strictly speaking not a NAS. It is better
described as a very slow minimal computer, likely ruinning Linux
or some embedded OS with minimal RAM for buffer/cache, that just
happens to have an USB port. When looking at the backside in the
brochure, this layout reminds me very much of an Embedded-Linux
Router from Edimax that I experimented with. If it is the same
hardware, then it just has USB 1.0. which tops out at 11Mbis,
giving you a theoretical maximum access speed of about 1MB/s
and much less in practice. Add the slow CPU, missing RAM for
buffer/cache, non-current/minimal software (as this thing only
has 4MB FLASH) and the observed slowness is not a surprise at all.
Given that the brochure does not list ISB speed, it very likely
is the slow variant.

I'm not sure what you mean with the above. I have win xp home and the
network drive is a Maxtor portable 160GB drive with a USB cable that
goes to the router. Maybe it's a cheap drive or maybe I should buy a
drive that has a network port for a LAN cable instead of USB to
improve the speed?