Transfer rate and Networkperformance of the D-Link DNS-320

After unpacking the D-Link DNS-320 i checked the performance of the DNS-320 in the Network. All these measurements were done in my home environment so be careful to see them as representative.

Werbung


My environment:
The transfers are initiated from a pc with a onboard gigabit network adapter over gigabit-ethernet with a D-Link DGS-1005D as a switch in between (no other clients active). Two Seagate 500GB 7200rpm-harddrives are used for storing the data in the NAS. The NAS with Firmware 1.00 gets set back to factory settings and the harddrives are formatted before every test which disables all server software except the samba server (for the network shares). I transferred a dummyfile with 1,5GB size once with windows 7 copy functions and once with TeraCopy. In all cases the transfer rates between the two tools didn’t differ.

The results:

  Write Read
ext3 – Single Disks 25MB/s 30MB/s
ext3 – RAID 0 24MB/s 36MB/s
ext3 – RAID 1 23MB/s 29MB/s

JBOD got the same results as single disks.

D-Link created a NAS with reasonable performance, even when using RAID. The difference between the different modes is nearly not visible. The user can choose between them with only looking at the data integrity/security and not at the speed.

72 thoughts on “Transfer rate and Networkperformance of the D-Link DNS-320”

  1. Thanks for the performance review.

    Could you please say if the device was supplied with a Cat 6 Gigabit-ethernet cable by D-Link?

    Thanks

  2. Cheers Uli,

    I take it that you ran your tests with a different gigabit cable then? I’m really curious to know what the speed/performance difference would be between Cat 5e and Cat 6 ethernet cable transfers; assuming of course all other components are at gigabit ethernet standard

    Some people seem to think there wont be any performance difference on this D-Link NAS but I’m not sure how/if thats the case?

    Any insight you could provide would be much appreciated

    1. Hello Jr,

      i’ve ran the tests using CAT 5e Cables and not the original cable, that’s correct.

      The cable from the NAS to the switch is only 1 Meter long in my case so i don’t think that a different cable can introduce much interference on this distance.

      The cable from my PC to the switch has 15m and is only CAT 5e, not better. I think this will only bring very small differences in the results if i had used CAT 6 or even CAT 7. Currently i don’t have a CAT6 or 7 cable here so i cannot check this.

      Cheers,
      -Uli

    1. Yes the CPU would support it, but Marvel hardcodes the processor specifications. Maybe it is reconfigurable with Development Tools, but i don’t think so. But i have no idea. Sorry.

      Cheers,
      Uli

  3. Have you tried a transfer to the device with a service other than Samba?

    For a gigabit capable device, it’s rather slow – and the bandwidth’s definitely not high enough for Full HD streaming – yet I have a nagging feeling that it’s the bottleneck is at the CPU (I’ve had similar experiences with other Linux devices using ARM processors).

    So in other words I wonder if it’s possible to circumvent using Samba for streaming and see how the transfer rates go in that case.

    1. I’ve tested a gigabit network (Linksys E2000 + Dlink DNS-320+ Asus x52JU) with a cat5e cable (1,0m), and i’m getting around 25MB-30MB/s in write mode, using windows explorer.
      Also actived journal to writeback mode, to speed up things.

      So, i’m very glad with this solution :))

      1. but in NFS mode, performance still needs to be tweak (client) as i’m getting lower speeds :/

  4. I would like to know if it is possible to use DNS-320 has a shared folder to a Asus O!Play and stream 1080p videos. :/

    1. That should be no problem at all. Even if you take a Blu-ray quality movie file of 40GB and consider a standard 100min movie it gives 6.8 MB/s.

  5. Hello,
    Just unpacked and installed a DNS-320. I cannot upload files to the WEB File tool using IE9. After the file has been selected in the box there is an endless blinking blue circle and the file is not uploaded. Can you help?
    Regards, Viktor

  6. I got faster Write speed ?!
    – Write at about 18MB/s
    – Read at about 9MB/s
    – Windows 7 and DNS-320 with Fun_plug

    Do you have any idea about this ?

    1. That is really unusual. Try deactivation the fun_plug (just rename the file fun_plug) to check if the read rates persist in that way. If not, try deactivating daemons until you find which service is blocking your read-speed.

      Cheers,
      Uli

      1. Thanks for your reply!
        I have tried disabling fun_plug, but the performance remains the same.
        I’ll update to the v2.02.
        Thank you againg.

  7. Yang XIAO did you solved this issue? I have the same…
    -reading speed 8,5MB/s
    -writting speed 7,5MB/s

    I have ver. 2.00, DNS-320 with 2x Hitachi HDD 1,5TB 7200RPM…. I have it 2 months.

    Maybe my RAID Type cause speed problems
    Volume_1 : RAID 1 (Completed ) – 500GB
    Volume_2 : JBOD -the rest GB’s

    I was trying to deactivate the fun_plug but it didn’t help. Before installation of fun_plug (new NAS) with one mirroring partition I got speed about 30MB/s

    1. I haven’t tested the new version.
      My configuration is only one volume with 2 Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB on RAID 1.
      Firmware version 2.01beta.

      I’ll tell you later about my test of v2.02.

    2. Always the same situation with FW v2.02:
      -Write about 18MB/s
      -Read about 8MB/s
      -without fun_plug

      1. My situation was about the same (write around 22 MB/s, read around 8 MB/s), after disabling P2P daemon write speed is still 22 MB/s but read speed increased to 24-26 MB/s

        Regards
        Marcello

          1. Get it fixed? i have the same 20MB W/10MB R problem and can’t be fixed. no fun_plu or anything. is killing P2P actually work? and wierd thing is, when local back running, the read speed improved?! the network monitor from windows side showed pulse behavior, peak over 25% (25MB/s) but low in 3%. not network issues either, win7 to win7 over the same cable pairs running 80MB level.

  8. What speed you guys have if you copy files within NAS. If I use rsync to copy files, from JBOD to RAID 1. I get slow internal speed.

    Install/_Images/sk.iso
    3101321216 100% 6.79MB/s 0:07:15 (xfer#162742, to-check=1037/177743)

    Speed must by higher. If Uli can get 20-30 MB/s with 1GB speed I can’t have internal speed 7MB/s

    Guys> try to use rsync so we know what internal speed you have..

    rsync -rv /mnt/HD/HD_b2/ /mnt/HD/HD_a2/

    1. i was wondering why the speed was so low between pc and nas, so i did a little test:
      pc1 : old celeron pc
      pc2 : new laptop
      nas : dns-320
      sw : gigabit switch
      file : copy a file size of 5GB
      cabling: cat 6

      file from nas(auto or 100Mbit) via switch to pc1: 6MB/s
      file from nas(auto or 100Mbit) via switch to pc2: 6,5MB/s
      file from nas(1000Mbit) via switch to pc1: 9MB/s
      file from nas(1000Mbit) via switch to pc2: 9,5MB/s
      file from nas(1000Mbit) to pc1: 9MB/s
      file from nas(1000Mbit) pc2: 9,5MB/s
      file from pc1/pc2 via switch to pc2/1: 55MB/s
      file from pc1/pc2to pc1/pc2: 80MB/s

      I found out that on dns-320 u cannot switch directly from low to high transfer speed. U have to select auto first..
      Why is dns320 copy so slow compared to pc1 to pc2?

        1. Yang XIAO it’s not just CPU. I had similiar problem as you can see in my previous posts.

          I did few tests with other HDD drives and I got write speed > 20Mbytes/s and reading speed > 23Mbytes/s

          Try to:
          1. Save Configuration Settings and turn off NAS
          2. Take out HDDs
          3. Restore To Factory Default Settings and turn off NAS
          4. Insert HDDs
          5. NAS will find out RAID configuration from HDDs
          6. Check if your problem is solved
          7. Load old config file if you realy need some settings otherwise reconfigure your NAS

          I had good speed before fun_plug installation. There is some reason why it was so. CPU was on 0% idle before and it is the same now. Just it’s much faster 😉

          Let us know if it’s work for you.

          1. Thank you Sw4p !
            I just tried what you suggested, unfortunately nothing changed.
            Write speed is always faster than read speed.

            Thank you anyway!

          2. sw4p – thanks for posting that obvious post about resetting the NAS if you’re experiencing slow read/write rates – I had about 8MBps before (read) and now I’ve followed your advice I’m getting sustained 47MBps, WOW

            THANKS!

  9. I bought a DNS 320 a couple of months ago. I am really satisfied with it in all respects but one: I am getting really low transfer rates. Max 2.5 MB/s.

    It is connected to a combined ADSL modem and wireless router through a Cat.5E patch cable.

    Any ideas?

    1. I have tested the DNS 320 with a cross-over cable, connecting it straight to the computer. I am now getting a read rate of 10MB/second and write rate of 8MB/second. It’s nowhere near Stra’s read rate of 47MB/second. But at least this indocates that the router is not the only issue.

      1. Hello Chris
        I’ve spent a number of hours searching for instructions to connect my DNS-320L directly using a cross-over cable (ubuntu). Any chance you could help me with this? Hugely appreciated.

          1. Hello Uli
            Seems whatever I do, the connection status gets stuck on “Preparing to connect” I am painfully notice at this, could you please be more specific?

  10. I also have a DNS320 connected via gigabit network, etc.. I can read at aprox 27-28MB/s and write at 26-27 Mb/s.

    For those experiencing what seems to be half the speed in one direction over the other you likely have a duplex mismatch, google that term for he explanation. Now how to fix it??

  11. I have tested the DNS 320 with a cross-over cable, connecting it straight to the computer. I am now getting a read rate of 10MB/second and write rate of 8MB/second. It’s nowhere near Stra’s read rate of 47MB/second. But at least this indicates that the router is not the only issue.

  12. Hi Uli,
    thanks for your test results! Did you have jumbo frames enabled in your setup?

    I suffer low transfer rates of less than 10 MB/s for writes without jumbo frames enabled (my switch does not support it).

  13. Hi all, first of thanks to Uli and all others who have contributed to the wealth of info on nas-tweaks.net, it has been a HUGE help with selecting/setting up & tinkering with the DNS320.

    I got my DNS-320 yesterday morning:
    Hardware ver: A1
    Firmware:2.02(came pre-implemented).

    Drives installed:
    Single Seagate 750Gb(685gb) ST3750640AS as Volume_1

    PC/LAN Setup:
    D-Link 2640S (D-Link 2640R in disguise).
    Cat5e cable (From cheap reel – hand crimped).
    Realtek 8111C/D(L) set to 100Mbps Full Duplex/Jumbo frames set to 9KB.

    Write Average: 10.41MB/sec
    Read Average: 11.64MB/sec

    Tested using NAS Performance tester from http://bit.ly/ekKR0.

    Used standard test parameters: 400MB File with 5 loops.

    I also did the same test without jumbo frames:

    Write Average: 8.7MB/sec
    Read Average: 10.1MB/sec

    Not too bad as it seems to be utilising 100% network bandwidth+- with jumbo frames, although I’m sure I read somewhere that the DNS320 does not support jumbo frames, or could it have been a previous firmware?

    Anyway – tomorrow I’ll be getting a new gigabit switch to add for hopefully better throughput – TP-Link TL-SG1005D. I’m hoping to get about 2x Write speed and 2.5x Read compared to above. I’ll be adding another drive as well Seagate 1TB ST31000528AS.

  14. I resolved, i modified smb.conf file under
    /etc/samba/smb.conf , i replace the line with socket option with value 65536 where is 1310** and after this my trasfer speed is up like 30mb read and write

  15. I would like to increase transfer rates, How to overclock the cpu or RAM size?, maybe change to a Linux distribution?, thanks in advance

  16. For you guys getting sub 100mb read/write speeds with the DNS-320. If nothing else appears to be the issue, I would take a look at your cabling. I was using the 320 with some several year old “Cat5E” and was getting terrible speeds. I spend 5 bucks on a couple of Cat6 patch cables my speeds tripled. That’s not to say you need Cat6, but I think my cheap Cat5E wasn’t performing to spec.

  17. Following what samuelz sayd worked! Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf. with putty and change socket parameters. I’ve used 16k for snd and 32k for receive buffer to get my nas best write and read performance. You can try your own settings live without restart because it takes the changes instant. Remember to save a copy of the file smb.conf edited somewhere else and the add a “cp” line in funplug.init to copy your edited smb.conf file at each restart of the nas. In other case every time you restart the nas you’ll have the default config bavk. Sorry for my bad english, hope to have been usefull. 🙂

    1. Can you state what and where on funplug.init should i add “Cp”.

      Sorry, just a noob in linux terms, but good in copy-paste…

      (altough tweaking socket parmeters, didn´t upgraded transfer speed (~30W/~10R))

      BTW, fw:2.03

  18. I have firmware 2.02 and fun_plug,

    i also get write speed 30mb/s and read speed 10mb/s

    to make things worse this new firmware loses all network shares settings upon each reboot

    will try the Sw4p reset settings thingy and report back

  19. I have firmware 2.02 and fun_plug,

    i also get write speed 30mb/s and read speed 10mb/s

    this new firmware loses all network shares settings upon each reboot

    will try the Sw4p reset settings thingy and report back

    1. i tried resetting settings and even turning off fun_plug read speed always slow no matter what

      i have cat5e cables will change to cat6 maybe helps

      but still 2.03 firmware is awful, i lose the network share settings on each restart

      1. I get the same. write about 20MB/s and read about 15MB/s after all the tricks mentioned here. no change. not even fun_plug installed.
        v2.03, 2 TB drive.

        i found the network share will stick if you save the setting then reload the setting, which will force a reboot and after that it sticks.

        1. My read dropped to 9MB/s. So i did the following as the last try:
          1. use the reset button to reset for more than 30sec (HDDs out)
          2. login and downgrade firmware to 2.02,
          from 2.03 and it actually successful.
          3. plug back HDDs and test
          now read at 36MB/s write at 22MB/s
          Not sure which part fix it but 2.03 is 30MB and 2.02 is 27MB. some extra junks? Dare not upgrade anymore

  20. If you’re using AFP, you can delete “-advertise_ssh” option in /etc/netatalk/afpd.conf
    This option causes heavy load on server, and is not recommanded. But it is enabled by default in DNS-320.
    Now I can get 20-25MB/s read by using afpd, I can only get 5MB/s before. You can see the detail in my post : http://fduo.org/solved-dns-320-low-speed/ (Chinese only)
    Samba is still slow, I can’t get more than 5MB/s.

  21. First I was not happy with this share center DNS-320L with two 1000GB segate server disks in Raid 1. The usual trasfers are: Write 10MB/s Read 12 MB/s for a 2GB avi or ZIP file over wired network.
    Today, I replaced my switch with cheap Tplink TL-SG1008D 8 port 10/100/1000 switch. Now the transfer rates are Write 32MB/s and Read 58 MB/s.
    If you connect two PC’s do read (download) from the share center at the same time both of them has 23-25MB/s.

    I don’t like the fan of this share center, it’s small and noisy somethimes. The user interface is not that good, but for the money this share center is nice and do what it is suppose to do.

  22. I am using the DNS 320. 2 hard disk inserted with 1 TB and 2 TB it was connect to noontec V9 media player with the UPNP cant read the RMVB file from DNS 320. Do anyone know why ??? Please comment

  23. I had same issue with reads as “high” as 7 MB/s over 1G network and i choose (after trying in vain to play with PC`s NIC settings) to simply downgrade fw from 2.03 to 2.02. After it was done, i resumed my batch of transfers and instead 12 hrs, time got down to 2 and speed is between 35 – 40 MB/s.
    So that done it in my case – downgrade from 2.03 to 2.02.

  24. OMG! Help!
    What should be wrong?
    My Enviroment: Dell Inspiron 14R i7, Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54G2 and 2x Samsung 1.5Tb 5200 Model HD154UI.

    Write Average: 2MB/sec

    Can you help?

    1. Via wireless G, if that is the case,you should have a at least twice the speed. in any case test it via wired connection and post results.

      Somewhat important: Firmware revision?

      1. Paulo, Thanks a lot for the tip…I got better results…
        Using a ethernet cable: 10 MB/s
        Current NAS Firmware Version:
        2.02
        Firmware Date: 23092011
        Now I’m gonna try Wireless-N
        As soon as possible I post the result.

  25. I did some basic disk throughput benchmarks on my unit.

    It’s configured with two samsung 2tb drives that are in good condition outside of the NAS

    I have fun_plug 0.7 installed, and the latest firmware version (2.03).

    Write test:
    time dd if=/dev/zero of=temp.img bs=1M count=1024
    1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 19.4278 s, 55.3 MB/s

    Reading the same file back
    time dd if=temp.img of=/dev/null bs=1M count=1024

    1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 153.992 s, 7.0 MB/s

    So the problem (at least what I’m having) is to do with the physical read performance of the disk.

    On a normal Linux system, I’d use the hdparm utility, to tweak various DMA settings, etc… but I have no idea if it can be build for this unit.

    Read performance should in theory be higher than write, not lower.

    1. It’s because we have a HDD (my – WD1000EARS) with 4k physical blocks, and read speed is so low.
      Partitions must be aligned, but DNS-320 didn’t do that at installation HDD in it 🙁

      …Any ideas??

      1. I disabled fun_plug and read speed grows to 40-50Mb\s and write speed is also increased slighty.
        So, fun_plug is greatly slows down the system, and i don’t know why and how – the cpu load around 10-20% on read.
        RAM free – 30-40Mb, transmission idle, ftp & nfs off.. -_-

        1. Hi Pinglost,

          check if you have activated some stuff in ffp, which you do not need. Write-speed is often connected to issues with ram free space.

          Best Regards,
          Uli

  26. Hi all,
    What would be your recommendations for the following transfers?
    a) DNS HD_a2 to HD_b2
    b) PC to DNS
    c) DNS320 to another DNS320 (I have 2 systems)

    Any recommendations or pointers would be good too.

    I usually put mine on NFS and rsync the lot, I tried using the DNS-320 rsync from ffp but that is really slow.

  27. Hi all!

    Forget 2.03 or 2.04. firmwares if you have hardware version A1. I have tried all of them! Check the most recommended firmware at D-link’s technical support page :http://tsd.dlink.com.tw/

    Try to avoid the new betas. You should get similar results for A1 hardware on gigabit network:

    Running warmup…
    Running a 400MB file write on drive Z: twice…
    Iteration 1: 21,92 MB/sec
    Iteration 2: 19,77 MB/sec
    ——————————
    Average (W): 20,85 MB/sec
    ——————————
    Running a 400MB file read on drive Z: twice…
    Iteration 1: 47,92 MB/sec
    Iteration 2: 44,55 MB/sec
    ——————————
    Average (R): 46,24 MB/sec
    ——————————

    Read speed around 46 MB/s ! Otherwise you are lucky to get 10-15 MB/s.
    So downgrade to 2.02.

    Regards,
    Zs

    Running warmup…
    Running a 400MB file write on drive Z: twice…
    Iteration 1: 21,92 MB/sec
    Iteration 2: 19,77 MB/sec
    ——————————
    Average (W): 20,85 MB/sec
    ——————————
    Running a 400MB file read on drive Z: twice…
    Iteration 1: 47,92 MB/sec
    Iteration 2: 44,55 MB/sec
    ——————————
    Average (R): 46,24 MB/sec
    ——————————

  28. Or even higher…

    NAS performance tester 1.4 http://www.808.dk/?nastester
    Running warmup…
    Running a 200MB file write on drive Z: 3 times…
    Iteration 1: 19,10 MB/sec
    Iteration 2: 23,70 MB/sec
    Iteration 3: 23,43 MB/sec
    ——————————
    Average (W): 22,07 MB/sec
    ——————————

    Running a 200MB file read on drive Z: 3 times…
    Iteration 1: 54,23 MB/sec
    Iteration 2: 55,17 MB/sec
    Iteration 3: 53,10 MB/sec
    ——————————
    Average (R): 54,17 MB/sec
    ——————————

  29. Hi everyone, i had problems with reading speed, solved by downgrading the firmware from 2.03 to 2.02

  30. Pingback: Home NAS Project | Hayden Grant
  31. crap .. the 2.02 firmware does indeed fix the speed a lot ! but now I have issues with this bug: [Bug Fix] FPT cannot re-upload same file. that is fixed in 2.03. Downgrade to 2.00 fails I will try a few more attemps.

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