15

Our company has a brand new NAS, and the idea is that we will be able to use it for fast, shared access to our data on our network.

It's a fairly simple 2-disk system, but from what I understand, it should reach speeds of about 40mb/s. We have a 100mb/sec network between our PC's and the NAS.

However, we're only getting NAS speeds of around 8-10mb/sec. What could the bottleneck be?

0

3 Answers 3

84

You are confusing your units.

M = mega
m = milli
B = byte
b = bit

When referring to disk usage, we measure throughput in megabytes per second, or MB/s. Notice the capital M for mega and the capital B for bytes.

When referring to network performance, we measure throughput in megabits per second, or Mb/s. Notice the lowercase b.

A bit is eight times smaller than a byte. You can figure out your 100Mb/s network's maximum theoretical throughput in MB simply by dividing by 8. 100 / 8 = 12.5.

TCP/IP has ~ a 10% overhead, as does Ethernet, so realistically you'll only see about 80% of that at the high end. A little more basic math shows that 12.5 * .8 = 10. You should expect to be able to write at about 10MB/s over your 100Mb/s network. This lines up perfectly with what you are seeing.


tl;dr - Capitalization is important.

2
  • This doesn't really answer the question at all, from either a disk perspective, or a networking performance configuration perspective.
    – Brennan
    Jun 22, 2012 at 20:47
  • 31
    Of course it does. What part of the question do you not think is addressed? He has a 100Mb LAN and is only getting 10MBps throughput to his new NAS. This is the expected value for this configuration. My answer explains the math behind it and explains the confusion that the OP had with his units of measure. Not to mention that the OP selected this answer as correct, meaning that it answered th question to his own satisfaction.
    – MDMarra
    Jun 22, 2012 at 21:05
3

You should go for 1000 Mbps (gigabit) Ethernet. The pieces are cheap to buy these days and your speed will be faster. You should be able to reach the 40 MB/s.

Just make sure that your networking cable is all Category 5e. If it isn't at least that good, things will get weird.

9
  • It'll be 4 times faster, as it'll bottleneck on the NAS unit (if numbers in the question are correct)
    – Sirex
    Nov 23, 2011 at 8:08
  • @Sirex: Oh well, yes that is true. But the network will be 10x faster.
    – Zan Lynx
    Nov 23, 2011 at 8:09
  • If I remember correctly gigabit pulls a theoretical 125MBps, if taking into account the math done above you will run at 100MBps when running gigabit. Nov 23, 2011 at 8:26
  • 1
    @MarkM: If you look at the reviews of NAS equipment, you will find that 40/20 MB/s is not an unusual speed.
    – Zan Lynx
    Nov 23, 2011 at 17:36
  • 1
    my hunch is that's exactly what this is. However why not try plugging directly into it (with Cat 6 if possible) and see what speeds you get to take the network out of the equation entirely ?
    – Sirex
    Nov 23, 2011 at 18:38
-2

Make your device can handle the throughput. I have a 100mbps connection but the router I'm using can only handle 50mbps max. The new netgear business class routers are something to look into.

1
  • 1
    Abe, the question was answered and there was nothing wrong with his configuration!
    – Dan
    Nov 7, 2013 at 18:45

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .