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HPN54L ESXI 6.0.0 Update 1a - Transfer Speeds drop


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I was having a nightmare with FreeNAS and JAILS so decided to spend the time switching to XPEnology. The process went smoothly, I had my VM booting up without any issues and I was extremely impressed with XPEnology so hats of to people who work on that because my problems/issues are outside of that.

 

I have setup PlexMediaServer which also went smoothly so at this point I was really happy but then it come to transferring my media and it all came crashing down :sad:

 

My transfers start out about 100MB/s but then they come to crawl <5MB/S.

 

I have been formatting the disks, trying different RAID types or individual Volumes but still having the same issues.

 

I have just removed the disks, put them in my desktop and ran some tests which were all fine. I also didn't have speed issues with FreeNAS nor do any other VMs on the Host so I think I have something configured wrong.

 

I have seen a couple of posts about setting up RDM, but I have also seen people report stable 100MB/s with a HP N54L so I don't think I need to go down that road.

 

 

Specs;

 

HP N54L - 16GB RAM (6GB to XPEnology)

HP NC360T + Onboard (3 x GB)

I have teamed the 2 x HP so it shouldn't be a network bottleneck.

2 X 2TB Samsung Drives + added 1TB for SHR.

 

I was that impressed with XPEnology I have ordered another HP N40L and was going to put in my spare 2GB ECC memory into that making it 4GB ECC. Populate it with4 x 3/4TB drives making it a dedicated NAS for media and VMs but that will go on hold now until I know if running this one as a VM is the issue.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for what could be causing my speed issues?

 

I am just wiping the disks now as I type help and will try all 3 disks in a SHR group again to see if anything has changed.

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Just been using LAN SpeedTest.

 

I have 1 Volume (1 x 2TB disk) - starts off rapid and then just grinds to a halt when testing a 1GB file.

 

 

 

Version 1.3.2

OS Version: Windows 8

Processor: Intel® Core i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz

Date: 12/30/2015

Time: 14:20:16

Program Parameters: 0

High Performance Timer: 0.000000256

 

Test File: \\10.0.1.3\test_1\NW_SpeedTest.dat

Write Time = 47.0813169 Seconds

Write Speed = 169.9187840 Mbps

Read Time = 8.8635690 Seconds

Read Speed = 902.5709600 Mbps

 

 

Started a 2nd test for a 5GB file, got to 952MB and froze, then shot to 1200MB, then 1400MB and seemed to continue like that.

 

It performs the same on another DISK so I don't think the DISKs are at fault.

 

No other VMs are running on the host and there isn't any other traffic on the network. This is extremely frustrating though cause I much prefer this OS over FreeNAS.

 

Willing to try anything at this point, I don't think it is this but I could split the virtual switch and give the VM its own or even 2

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I was having a nightmare with FreeNAS and JAILS so decided to spend the time switching to XPEnology. The process went smoothly, I had my VM booting up without any issues and I was extremely impressed with XPEnology so hats of to people who work on that because my problems/issues are outside of that.

 

I have setup PlexMediaServer which also went smoothly so at this point I was really happy but then it come to transferring my media and it all came crashing down :sad:

 

My transfers start out about 100MB/s but then they come to crawl <5MB/S.

 

I have been formatting the disks, trying different RAID types or individual Volumes but still having the same issues.

 

I have just removed the disks, put them in my desktop and ran some tests which were all fine. I also didn't have speed issues with FreeNAS nor do any other VMs on the Host so I think I have something configured wrong.

 

I have seen a couple of posts about setting up RDM, but I have also seen people report stable 100MB/s with a HP N54L so I don't think I need to go down that road.

 

 

Specs;

 

HP N54L - 16GB RAM (6GB to XPEnology)

HP NC360T + Onboard (3 x GB)

I have teamed the 2 x HP so it shouldn't be a network bottleneck.

2 X 2TB Samsung Drives + added 1TB for SHR.

 

I was that impressed with XPEnology I have ordered another HP N40L and was going to put in my spare 2GB ECC memory into that making it 4GB ECC. Populate it with4 x 3/4TB drives making it a dedicated NAS for media and VMs but that will go on hold now until I know if running this one as a VM is the issue.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for what could be causing my speed issues?

 

I am just wiping the disks now as I type help and will try all 3 disks in a SHR group again to see if anything has changed.

 

On old machine like my E8500, RDM does improve speed by over 50%. Another benefit I just realized is that the RDM can direct migrate to bare-metal Xpenology.

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On old machine like my E8500, RDM does improve speed by over 50%. Another benefit I just realized is that the RDM can direct migrate to bare-metal Xpenology.

 

 

Did you have a problem where it starts off quick and slows?

 

Mine seems to be random, up and down if it is a large file.

 

Same to me. Start up fast and dropped after a while. Would it be the buffer which help in the beginning?

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This is a better example of a transfer failing/slowing.

 

I'm not sure why the dramatic change. Given that it does transfer at top speed in the beginning, it worth to try RDM to see if the bottleneck can be relieved.

 

Setup RDM is easy. Just need couple of command lines. The rest is similar to regular vmdk. You can do from ssh. Drive symbol is long so better do copy and paste.

 

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=1017530

 

My ESXI crashed and I'm able to keep a RDM disk on a new bare metal installation. Really cool if you may setup bare metal one day.

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Downgrade hpvsa drivers to scsi-hpvsa-5.5.0-88OEM.550.0.0.1331820.x86_64.vib, it will get better.

http://homeservershow.com/forums/index. ... sxi-notes/

 

Thanks, will give this a go. Would this be in addition to RDM or a way of avoiding that?

 

My N40L has arrived, is it worth trying the same 2 X 2TB drives in that and should I install XPEnology natively or as a VM again?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I recommend rdm if you use esxi.

If you go native or virtual it is up to you, your necessities and hardaware. I choses esxi because I have an Xeon processor and I like to play with vm's. I have xpenology installed on a datastore and 2 hdd's added using rdm. My drives are each configured in raid 0.

The downgrade is in adition to rdm.

 

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

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Downgrade hpvsa drivers to scsi-hpvsa-5.5.0-88OEM.550.0.0.1331820.x86_64.vib, it will get better.

http://homeservershow.com/forums/index. ... sxi-notes/

 

Thanks, will give this a go. Would this be in addition to RDM or a way of avoiding that?

 

My N40L has arrived, is it worth trying the same 2 X 2TB drives in that and should I install XPEnology natively or as a VM again?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Why not try driver first? If it's solve the issue, you can then decide if rdm is needed or not. My suggest is also to go with rdm unless you plan to share the hard disk with other VMs.

 

Sent from my LG-H818 using Tapatalk

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Just to be clear, I have a hp gen8; I just realized that in here it's about another model; not sure if the driver is the same for n40 or other hp model, but the issues are identical :smile:

 

The server I am having issues with is the HP N54L but I think they are identical to the HP N40L.

 

I will try this driver downgrade anyway and see if it helps.

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I am trying the RDM setting now but having a problem?

 

Guides say create a folder/datastore for the RDM.

 

I have a datastore called OS_SSD which is where I store the VMs. I created a folder called RDM in there and ran through the RDM guide. Have 2 X 2 lots of files in there to show my drives but when I try to add the drive to the VM selecting existing disk they're not showing up

 

 

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USER ERROR.

 

Didn't type .vmdk correctly so it didn't pick them up.

 

Fixed that now so booting and will transfer speeds using RDM.

 

I have just noticed an error though, probably nothing to worry about but any one know if I can ignore?

 

Loading module usbnet FAILED

Loading module ax88179_178a FAILED

Loading module asix FAILED

Loading module r8152 FAILED

 

 

 

Just done some transfers, still has a little pause at the end but seems to be a lot more stable now I am using RDM.

 

The drive is still going through optimization on DSM so it could be that, will wait until that is done and run some more tests.

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The modules errors are the same for me and others when booting xpeno, nothing to worry I think. Sorry for my confusion with the gen 8 drivers, the symptoms were identical and didn't read carefully enough the thread. Hope I didn't caused any troubles while trying to help :smile:

 

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

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The modules errors are the same for me and others when booting xpeno, nothing to worry I think. Sorry for my confusion with the gen 8 drivers, the symptoms were identical and didn't read carefully enough the thread. Hope I didn't caused any troubles while trying to help :smile:

 

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

 

Not at all, at this stage I am willing to try anything.

 

I am just installing ESXI on my N40L so hopefully the problem disappears on that.

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still not getting stable speeds.

 

Fresh install on the N40L. I am getting stuff transferred now but it is awfully slow.

 

Currently moving 4K Jessica Jones and it goes from 3 to 40MB/S.

 

I am going to have to put it down to the disks, will have some replacements soon and will just try 1 of them on its own.

 

Can you do any sort of scans/test from within DSM or do I need to remove the disks?

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still not getting stable speeds.

 

Fresh install on the N40L. I am getting stuff transferred now but it is awfully slow.

 

Currently moving 4K Jessica Jones and it goes from 3 to 40MB/S.

 

I am going to have to put it down to the disks, will have some replacements soon and will just try 1 of them on its own.

 

Can you do any sort of scans/test from within DSM or do I need to remove the disks?

I usually use MHDD for low level health check. But it would take a day to finish entire surface. Most of the time run for 15 mins can already give a good indication.

 

MHDD needs offline and in DOS mode and IDE setting in BIOS.

 

Sent from my LG-H818 using Tapatalk

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still not getting stable speeds.

 

Fresh install on the N40L. I am getting stuff transferred now but it is awfully slow.

 

Currently moving 4K Jessica Jones and it goes from 3 to 40MB/S.

 

I am going to have to put it down to the disks, will have some replacements soon and will just try 1 of them on its own.

 

Can you do any sort of scans/test from within DSM or do I need to remove the disks?

I usually use MHDD for low level health check. But it would take a day to finish entire surface. Most of the time run for 15 mins can already give a good indication.

 

MHDD needs offline and in DOS mode and IDE setting in BIOS.

 

Sent from my LG-H818 using Tapatalk

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