upgrading from TS-228a hints?

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k24043
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upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by k24043 »

I am running currently TS-228A with 2x 1TB WD RED 3.5" drives in RAID 1 config in my SOHO network. It is 99% in single user (me) use. I use it to back up files/pics from onedrive and some media streaming (mainly videos) to different media players e.g. NVIDIA Shield. I just feel more comfortable with local copy of my files and pics.

It seems to work fine and not running malware/virus scans. Only sync to onedrive and media server. The NAS has most recent hardware (QTS) version.

TS-228A seems to struggle quite a bit performance wise although the memory and CPU do not seem to be maxed out (memory at 60% and CPU mainly max 30%). Maybe the hardware specs do not meet the requirements of the most recent QTS version. Any tips and tricks to improve the performance?

If nothing cannot be done, what about upgrading to TS-233, is it worthwhile and does it improve performance? Can I just migrate by putting the disks from TS-228A to the TS-233? At least there is some indication in the QNAP site that this is possible. Do I need to get SSD:s and install from the scratch to ultimately remedy the performance issues?

All insight is welcome, thanks in advance!
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dolbyman
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by dolbyman »

Where exactly does the NAS to "struggle" with performance?

You can check the migration compatibility here

https://www.qnap.com/en/nas-migration
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k24043
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by k24043 »

Overall it becomes unresposive if copying files and iften crashes if big files and while media streaming etc.
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dolbyman
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by dolbyman »

Media streaming ..so just as a SMB source for the actual server then..correct?
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k24043
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by k24043 »

yes either over inbuilt media server (dlna) or as a smb source for media player such as nvidia shield running for instance vlc or similar. the whole thing just becomes very congested although cpu is not heavily burdened maybe at 30-40%. I think it is a lack of memory issue.
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dolbyman
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by dolbyman »

Sequential SMB transfers should be very low on resources (e.g. memory)

My 12 year old 419p+ works just fine as a SMB target/source

Make sure all unnecessary programs are unisntalled/disabled) on the NAS (antivirus/firewall/malware remover/etc)
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k24043
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by k24043 »

all unnecessary is off only HBS, DL station and media streaming on the top of the "stock" services.

when congested, the whole thing sounds like a old pre-SSD era windows PC. I think it is swapping to disk hard-core due to lack of memory?
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by dolbyman »

Depending what download station is doing..it could hog resources as well..make sure you disable that too..QNAPs crabby media streaming stuff is also much much resource hungry than twonky (if you REALLY need DLNA)

Bottom line a 228A should work just fine as a simple no bells and whistles SMB device..if you want to cram more functions into the NAS it might be a better idea to look at a x64 NAS (e.g. Plex/emby/jellyfin)
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k24043
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by k24043 »

yea I only have these running. but even the slightest bit of load sends TS-228A swapping like crazy. really would need more memory IMHO.

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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by dosborne »

Seriously look and replacing the multimedia player. Get rid of qboost and go through the entire lost to disable and remove anything possible. Every little bit will help. You say everything was removed, but some unecessary items are in the list.

As @dolbyman says, if you get rid of all the multimedia stuff and just use that unit as a file source (non DLNA) it should work fine. Consider getting another media server to provide the DLNA of you really need that , but use the NAS as a file source only.
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by Moogle Stiltzkin »

if you are getting swapping, that means not enough ram. so it's dumping onto drives which is slow.

qboost may alleviate but that is more of a temporary measure. solution is get more ram.

i am assuming the reason for the mem swap is not due to a memory leak by apps, but more as a result to you running too many stuff that requires ram that clearly you didn't have enough of.

You said you have a nvidia shield? so if plex is running on the nvidia shield, and the nas only streams the content via smb, then this nas model should be fine based on what i saw others said for this type of use case without issue.



just look at the specs for your nas

Realtek RTD1295 4-core 1.4GHz processor
1 GB DDR4, not expandable


this type of nas model i imagine your not meant to be doing much with it other than very basic usage. it's only 1gb of ram.... and it says not expandable .....

if your requirements for nas is you need to run many apps, then get a better nas model that can install more ram e.g. 8gb or more, and a better cpu to handle more loads.


anyway for now you can probably try to reduce the apps being used on nas, especially to get the ram usage under control.

do you need the qnap nas to do thumbnail generation/indexing? try disable that.

Plex has it's own thumbnail generation. the QNAP thumbnail generation is separate to that and is mostly used for the qnap station app stuff. If you're not using those station stuff, then you don't need it. and hopefully with that disabled it will tax your nas less.

If you go into resource monitor, maybe you can observe what types of apps is using up the most ram. check if you are able to disable those apps.

it's bad when your nas goes into mem swap, because things will be slow...



for my own usage, i run a docker server with many apps, so something like your nas model with an underperforming cpu and very limited ram is clearly not a best fit. so decide first if you are able to reduce your resource consumption to continue using your existing nas model, or whether you need to upgrade to another model that can handle higher loads for more demanding tasks.

next level up is the intel celeron models, or the amd ryzen. then they got the newer quts hero or the older qts. then there is multi gig or the standard gig ethernet. so check whats needed and see model is available for that.

:)

if you do upgrade nas, the old one can then just be used as your backup.
2x 1TB WD RED 3.5" drives in RAID 1
doesn't seem like you have high storage requirements. usually i would recommend the 4bay models since you can then do stuff like raid5 (qts)/raidz1 (if using quts hero). But if you don't need that, there are the 2bay models.
Last edited by Moogle Stiltzkin on Tue Jun 06, 2023 4:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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k24043
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by k24043 »

don't use plex, just smb sharing and DLNA. I killed all the services that I could but seems to be a bit on the fence with MS networking, HBS and mm console running and with that i got 15-20% free memory.

In summary 1GB of ram seems to be just too little for QTS 5.1.0 even just running basic stuff. TS-228A would be more than ok with expanded memory but that's not possible.

have to think about ts-233, do not really need much more bells and whistles than that and only have a 1G LAN and I'm practically the only one using the NAS.

But thanks for all the insight!
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by OneCD »

Also note: the TS-233 has 2GB RAM installed, but reserves 0.5GB for “transcoding operations” (even if you don’t do any transcoding). So, you only get the remaining 1.5GB to use for QTS and your applications. :(

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k24043
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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by k24043 »

If i upgrade from ts-228a -> ts-223 with +1GB memory would I get rid of swapping 500MB to disk while still having 500MB ram "available" and 200MB "free"? Why is the swap partition as huge as 21GB ?

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Re: upgrading from TS-228a hints?

Post by OneCD »

As I mentioned previously, you won’t have an additional 1GB of RAM if you upgrade to the TS-233, only 0.5GB.

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