TS-509 pro link aggregation problem (STILL not fixed!!!)

[petur]

Another interesting thing: If I'm playing webradio on my computer thru WMP and trying to copy file from/ to TS-439 my max speed not more then 7-8MBt/sec. Without playing- 60-80MBt/sec. And this with old and new firmware. May be I missed something in networking...????

And you are using Vista, right? Known *vista* issue, search this forum for a registry setting to tweak. Vista reduces your network speed to enhance your multimedia experience (no kidding!)

[jello_moto]

Same thing with TS-439 Pro- one port utilized only. Another interesting thing: If I'm playing webradio on my computer thru WMP and trying to copy file from/ to TS-439 my max speed not more then 7-8MBt/sec. Without playing- 60-80MBt/sec. And this with old and new firmware. May be I missed something in networking...????

Yea, that is a known MS bug. WMP will kill the network traffic because of this bug.
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovic ... 33290.aspx

[petur]

not even a bug, they did this on purpose and will not change it...

[Papasha]

Thank you everybody! Yes, it is Vista x64 and I didn't think, Microsoft decided to go from "working horse" to "music player" operating system ... But what the story with aggregation? After I made all changes to WMP traffic from /to TS-439 still goes thru one port, what I set Master in LACP switch configuration? Is something still wrong with NAS? Or OS on it?

[jello_moto]

James, what is going on with the link aggregation? Did this get tested before the new firmware was released?

[QNAPAlfred]

Dear jello_moto :
I have seem your problem,but I don't really understand it that "using one port for all the traffic.... ". Did you use more than one device to connect your NAS? It might be the issue I told you before ,
802.3 AD just choice the same port to transmit your both device's traffic. Would you might if you try to exchange
your device or add one more to let it get chance for another port. As I told you ,it will decide which port to use by your device's MAC .

If this way is too trouble you ,you might like to use others mode to achieve your requiement. Such
as
Balance-alb (Adaptive Load Balancing) Include balance-tlb plus receive load balancing (rlb) for IPV4 traffic, and does not require any special switch support. The receive load balancing is achieved by ARP negotiation. The receive load balancing is achieved by ARP Replies sent by the local system on their way out and overwrites the source hardware address with the unique hardware address of one of the slaves in the bond such that different peers use different hardware address for the server. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance.


For verifying 802.3 AD ,please tell me the detail for your problem if I misudersatood it .
I am looking forward to your reply.

Best Regards
QNAPAlfred

[QNAPAlfred]

Dear Papasha:
About 802.3 ad 's problem,I hope you can use more devices to connect your NAS . The traffic's path was decided by its MAC

Please refer to it if you want to get others choice:

Balance-rr (Round-Robin) Transmit packets in sequential order from the first available slave through the last. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance.

Active Backup Only one slave in the bond is active. A different slave becomes active if, and only if, the active slave fails. The bond’s MAC address is externally visible on only one port (network adapter) to avoid confusing the switch. This mode provides fault tolerance.

Balance XOR Transmit based on the selected transmit hash policy. The default policy is a simple [(source MAC address XOR’d with destination MAC address) modulo slave count]. Alternate transmit policies maybe selected via the xmit_hash_policy option. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance.

Broadcast Transmits everything on all slave interfaces. This mode provides fault tolerance. This mode provides fault tolerance.

IEEE 802.3ad Creates aggregation groups that share the same speed and duplex settings. Utilizes all slaves in the active aggregator according to the 802.3ad specification. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance but requires a switch that supports IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic Link Aggregation with correct LACP mode configured.

Balance-tlb (Adaptive Transmit Load Balancing) Channel bonding that does not require any special switch support. The outgoing traffic is distributed according to the current load (computed relative to the speed) on each slave. Incoming traffic is received by the current slave. If the receiving slave fails, another slave takes over the MAC address of the failed receiving slave. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance.

Balance-alb (Adaptive Load Balancing) Include balance-tlb plus receive load balancing (rlb) for IPV4 traffic, and does not require any special switch support. The receive load balancing is achieved by ARP negotiation. The receive load balancing is achieved by ARP Replies sent by the local system on their way out and overwrites the source hardware address with the unique hardware address of one of the slaves in the bond such that different peers use different hardware address for the server. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance





Regards
QNAPAlfred

[jello_moto]

Alfred, 802.3 AD will balance traffic through both ports for increased throughput. On my server I have a dual port intel PT1000 gigabit adapter with both ports teamed to 802.3 AD. The TS-509 is set up as an iSCSI disk. Lets say I copy a huge file to the TS-509. I can monitor the traffic on the switch with the status page (I presented a screenshot here showing that already). On the server the outbound traffic is balanced between the two ports (which I can SEE on the switch status page). On the QNAP TS-509, one port is receiving all the traffic and the other port is close to idle. So, in fact its not doing 802.3 AD, which would use both ports and have a higher throughput. After the firmware update the maximum throughput in 802.3 AD is STILL one gigabit even though two gigabit connections are linked on the switch. Is the TS-509 only supposed to go to a max of one gigabit in 802.3 AD mode?
I eagerly await your reply.

[Papasha]

Hi, Alfred,

Can I re-phrase question, please? How can we utilize 2 ports on TS-439 and TS-509 to have 2 Gbt. througput and using smart switches? It makes all configurations flexible and we can do everything. I have 2 teamed network cards on my computer and L2 switch where I configured aggregation for this 2 cards. Computer shows me 2GBt. network connection speed. Based on this, I'm expecting min. 200MBt file transfer speed with same type aggregation configuration. But my max is 80MBt. and switch monitor shows only 1 card active on NAS. Another card is 0 util. What is wrong?

[QNAPAlfred]

Dear jello_moto :
I am afraid that I have to divide your problem as two block. One is your server to switch ,another is your switch to NAS. At first , How to elect the slave(port link) should be addressed. 802.3ad selects the transmit hash policy to use for slave selection . Possible values are:

layer2

Uses XOR of hardware MAC addresses to generate the hash. The formula is

(source MAC XOR destination MAC) modulo slave count

This algorithm will place all traffic to a particular network peer on the same slave.

This algorithm is 802.3ad compliant.

layer3+4

This policy uses upper layer protocol information,when available, to generate the hash. This allows for
traffic to a particular network peer to span multiple slaves, although a single connection will not span
multiple slaves.The formula for unfragmented TCP and UDP packets is

((source port XOR dest port) XOR
((source IP XOR dest IP) AND 0xffff)
modulo slave count

For fragmented TCP or UDP packets and all other IP protocol traffic, the source and destination port
information is omitted. For non-IP traffic, the formula is the same as for the layer2 transmit hash
policy.

This policy is intended to mimic the behavior of certain switches, notably Cisco switches with PFC2 as
well as some Foundry and IBM products.
This algorithm is not fully 802.3ad compliant. A single TCP or UDP conversation containing both
fragmented and unfragmented packets will see packet striped across two interfaces.

The default value is layer2. This option was added in bonding

For the block between your switch to NAS,it regards the source MAC address as just one MAC and use layer 2 policy to elect the transmission slave.

For the block between your server to switch, I couldn't say it certainly but I guess your server and switch support layer3+4 policy to implement 802.3 AD. Could you check this issue to prove my suspicion. Thanks a lot.
Forwarding to your reply to let me get improve.

Regards
QNAPAlfred

[jello_moto]

I cant find any specific switch documentation that shows if layer3+4 is implemented. However, both the server and the switch support bonding the two connections for a 2 gigabit link. Is the QNAP hardware capable of supporting 2 gigabits of bonded output through its two NIC's?

[Papasha]

Hi,

So, can somebody from QNAP answer this question from jello_moto? Because for me it looks like we got very nice GUI interface in the new firmware, but nothing behind it... I don't see improvements in file transfer speed what should happened after getting 2 GBt. network speed.

[jello_moto]

Hi,

So, can somebody from QNAP answer this question from jello_moto? Because for me it looks like we got very nice GUI interface in the new firmware, but nothing behind it... I don't see improvements in file transfer speed what should happened after getting 2 GBt. network speed.

If you are not using iSCSI I can see where this would REALLY bug you too. I blew away the iSCSI partition and reloaded the box setting up shares with the SMB server. Wow, was it outrageously slow. I am really surprised that customers find it acceptable. It topped out around 250 megabits. As soon as they fix the aggregation problem we'll see what it tops out at in iSCSI and SMB modes.

[mlabate]

Wow transferring files is bad now, I was getting 60-90 MB/s reads before I went to 3.1 and not I am topping out at 30-40 MB/s

Any idea what is going on Qnap? I might have to get another box and dedicate the entire thing to iSCS then share it out.

[jello_moto]

I am going to assume that Ts-509 will not be getting real LACP support? I have not heard anything more about this.....