NAS and iMac defaulting to 1gb not 10gbe when both plugged in...

[horacelothian]

This is beginner's question, probably!

I have recently started using a Synology DS1618+ NAS with my 2013 iMac Pro. I have installed a Synology E10G18-T1 10 gbe PCI card into the NAS and am connecting to my iMac using a Sonnet Solo Thunderbolt2-10gbe adapter.

The NAS is also connected via LAN1 to my router (an ISP-provided 'Virgin superhub'). The router is connected to the standard RJ45 port on my iMac.

The problem I am having is that either the Mac or the NAS, or both, seems to be prioritising the 1gbe connection and not the 10gbe Thgunderbolt connection when both are connected.

When I pull the LAN1 out of the back of the NAS, I get 10gbe speeds as it seems to default to the 10gbe PCI card....

How do I solve this and come up with a solution that allows me to work at home at 10gbe but still access the NAS remotely at 1gbe?

Thank you!!

 

[Rusty]

Welcome.

Guessing that you have interface order on your mac to have 10G as its primary adapter?

Are both 1 and 10G adapters in the same network subnet?

 

[fredbert]

How have you configured the IP addressing on the 10G direct connection? And how are you addressing the NAS from the Mac?

I don't think you'd want to prioritise the 10G Mac interface over the 1G because mostly that will affect Internet access. But you should use addressing to the NAS that uses the IP connection of the 10G link.

I bet if you resolve whichever name you are using for the NAS (mynas.local) it will be an address on the 1G subnet.

 

[horacelothian]

How have you configured the IP addressing on the 10G direct connection? And how are you addressing the NAS from the Mac?

I have no idea! Not sure how to change these things.

I've tried finding some local companies who do know what they are doing, or claim to, and they argue I need a switch. Which I don't believe.

 

[jeyare]

The NAS is also connected via LAN1 to my router (an ISP-provided 'Virgin superhub'). The router is connected to the standard RJ45 port on my iMac.

The problem I am having is that either the Mac or the NAS, or both, seems to be prioritising the 1gbe connection and not the 10gbe Thgunderbolt connection when both are connected.

As I understand you have connected 10G interfaces of NAS and Mac over 1G interface in the router. Correct?
or you have direct connection between NAS and Mac (no router, no switch) over 10G interface and you setup different LAN for such communication in the NAS and you found such IP address (from such LAN range) and you connect such NAS over 10G interface.

 

[fredbert]

What I read is (basically a triangular connection):

• Mac (built-in 1G) to router's LAN switch (1G port)
• NAS (built-in 1G) to router's LAN switch (1G port)
• Mac (Thunderbolt cable to 10G) to NAS (add-on 10G)

The router's DHCP will be assigning IP on the 1G LAN: either dynamic IP or reserved for each device (to ensure the same IP is always assigned).

There is probably a self-assigned IP on the Mac and NAS 10G interfaces (in range 169.254.0.0/16). But probably most NAS services are advertising on the 1G IP addresses, in which case the Mac will access via the 1G connection.

If the 1G connection is disconnected then the NAS will be advertising on the 10G connection. Also, if the Mac has it's 1G disconnected then it will default to the 10G.

Being Virgin Media then the default LAN subnet is 192.168.0.0/24. If you had it running in modem (bridge) mode and use your own Internet router (e.g. Synology RT2600ac) then there will still be a 192.168.100.0/24 subnet between the VM router and you router's WAN port (so the VM router can be managed).

So let's assume you have to avoid subnets 192.168.0.0/24, 192.168.100.0/24, and the other normal one 192.168.1.0/24. We can choose another subnet that you don't use/won't ever normally use in the 192.168.0.0-192.168.255.0.

Let's choose 192.168.200.0/24 since it's far enough away from where most things will select a default range (the NAS's VPN Server etc) and configure the Mac and NAS 10G interfaces to use this, as a secondary connection. The primary connection, 1G, will still access the Internet, be used for DNS (resolving URLs to IP addresses), and all other connectivity. The 10G will be used for accessing the NAS by its 10G IP address.


Mac configuration

Launch System Preferences and open Network settings. If the bottom-left padlock is locked you must click it to unlock this panel. Select your Thunderbolt 10G interface and then click the Advanced button.

TCP/IP tab:​

• Configure IPv4: Manually
• IPv4 Address: 192.168.200.2
• Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
• Router (shouldn't matter): blank or 192.168.200.1
• Click 'OK'
• Click 'Apply'

NAS configuration

Lauch Control Panel and open Network settings. Select Network Interface tab. Select you 10G LAN interface and click Edit.

IPv4 tab:​

• Select 'Use manual configuration'.
• IP Address: 192.168.200.1
• Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
• Gateway (shouldn't matter): blank or 192.168.200.1
• DNS Server: blank
• Set as default gateway: Unticked

You now should be able to access the NAS consistently from the MAC using Finder's Connect to server (cmd-k) using afp://192.168.200.1 and smb://192.168.200.1. In fact any time you want to access the NAS on the 10G connection you just use 192.168.200.1 as the address. So https://192.168.200.1:5001 for the DSM portal on 10G, of course your web browser will complain that the certificate doesn't match but you can accept that asa you know this can only be the NAS.


You could buy a new network switch that has at least two 10G interfaces and some 1G. Then only use the 10G Mac and NAS interfaces to the switch's 10G ports and a 1G to the VM router. You wouldn't need the above manual 10G interface configuration but would use the VM router's DHCP service as you do today on the 1G interfaces.

 

[jeyare]

@fredbert your post is definitely bigger as my avg post

 

[fredbert]

@fredbert your post is definitely bigger as my avg post

My byline should be "Excessively wordy. Please adopt <tl/dr>"

 

[stickhog]

@fredbert I'm in a similar situation as the OP and am trying to accomplish the same thing, but am having issues. I have an iMac Pro with a 10GbE port connected directly to the 10GbE port on a DS1621xs+. I am connecting the iMac to the internet over WiFi (Apple Airport Time Capsule), which is connected to a Comcast Cradlepoint cellular backup, which is then connected to Comcast's router/cable modem with its WiFi disabled. The Cradlepoint doesn't kick in unless it sees the WAN from Comcast's service get disabled, at which point it provides a connection via cellular. The other two ethernet ports on the DS1621xs+ are connected to 2 ports on the Time Capsule, bonded with the adaptive load balancing option set initially, but I since removed that as part of troubleshooting the problem below.

I followed the setup you described above, with 192.168.200.2 manually assigned to the iMac 10GbE, and 192.168.200.1 manually assigned to the NAS 10GbE port. But that 10GbE connection only works intermittently, but I still have access to the NAS over WiFi through its connection to the Time Capsule. If I run Synology Assistant, I see that it finds the 192.168.200.1 connection, but shows it as Connection failed. The other two ethernet connections are available and look normal, and I can access DSM connecting to those IPs, just not the 10GbE one. Curiously, at one point I was able to disable the iMac's Wifi and get the 10GbE connection to work, but of course then I didn't have a connection to the internet. But trying that now doesn't work either.

Appreciate any help.

 

[fredbert]

Hi @stickhog welcome to the forum.

On your Mac: looking at Network preferences, you can set the order of interface priority. This is my Mac Mini with the WiFi as primary interface (when it's enabled), then Ethernet, and then the others as an when I use them. So you should have something similar so that most traffic goes the the Internet.

Likewise your NAS has interface priorities too. This is my DS1520+. It's not a good example as they're all on the same subnet (I'm playing with it at the moment) but you get the idea: Bond 1 is the default gateway.

So for you to use the 10G direct connection you have to use the NAS's IP address of its 10G interface.

In the Mac screenshot you can see there's a Thunderbolt Bridge connection with self-assigned IPs. This is to my MacBook Air and I can access it directly using this connection and it's self-assigned IP. It's only TB v1 but iperf3 shows 5.21Gbps.



Can you provide some more details on what's not working and what you're doing when it's behaving strangely.

 

[stickhog]

@fredbert thanks for the welcome and the quick response. I've spent quite a bit of time since yesterday doing more troubleshooting to try to figure out some pattern. I left the office yesterday with it working after I reset the 10GbE connections on both the NAS and iMac back to auto DHCP, so that the iMac shows "Self-assigned IP" on the Ethernet and it transfers using the 1GbE bonded connection. I then redid the manual setup as you described. That fixed it. I even logged into the iMac late last night to check to see if it was still working and it was. But when I showed up this morning, it was back to "Connection failed" on the NAS 10GbE connection to the iMac and the bonded connection was the only one active. The only thing that changed from last night is that the NAS went through its programmed shutdown at 10pm and restart at 6am.

The iMac has the same interface priority as you show, WiFi first, followed by Ethernet. With that, internet works on the iMac and I can access the NAS through the WiFi to the gigabit ethernet ports on the NAS.

The NAS service order is set the same as you show also, with Bond 1 (LAN2 & LAN3 gigabit ethernet) first, followed by LAN 1 10GbE. The NAS has external internet access, e.g. it can go into the package manager and download apps.

When the issue occurs, I can't access DSM on 192.168.200.1. I can only access it through 192.168.165.160 (the DHCP-assigned IP to the NAS over the bond). Synology Assistant shows this when I search:

I've tried different ethernet cables and connecting the iMac's ethernet port direct to the Time Capsule and those all work. It doesn't appear to be a hardware issue.

I've just now tried that reset procedure I described in the first paragraph, setting everything on the 10GbE back to auto DHCP, and then redoing the manual setup, and again that fixed it. But it still randomly stops working, either after a NAS restart, or some other reason that I haven't been able to nail down yet. One thing I did notice is that when I apply the changes to the NAS 10GbE connection, it pops up this firewall dialog box:

I just unchecked that box and hit OK, not knowing much about this. It doesn't seem to matter whether that's checked or not.

 

[fredbert]

That's a bit odd. I wonder if there's something not initialising on reboot of the NAS? Pure stab in the dark thought.

That box that is popping up implies that you're running DHCP services on the NAS and this is the rule to allow it to do that on the new network connection, as the firewall is running.

 

[BoosterT]

Just thought I'd pop in to this as I have a similar problem but it's not identical. I have a 16 port 1G switch and a 4+1 10G+1G switch Here's what I have:

• iMac (built-in 10G) to LAN switch (10G port)
• NAS (using E10G18-T1) to LAN switch (10G port)
• LAN switch (1G) to LAN switch for rest of my network (1G)
• NAS (built-in 1G)) to LAN switch (1G) port

I did this because the E10G18-T1 does not support WOL.

Network access shows LAN5 as default gateway and it is placed ahead of LAN1 in service order.

The IP's are on the same subnet .. in order:

x.x.1.100
x.x.1.133
none
x.x1.134

When doing file copies, the LAN defaults to 1G ... if I pull the 1G cable from the main switch, it goes back to 10G.

Not sure what's going on. I'm ready to forgo WOL if this is a problem.

Thanks

 

[fredbert]

LAN5 is the NAS's 10GbE?

Could it be that the 1GbE interfaces get initialised before the 10GbE card and they've already started advertising on the LAN and so that's what the iMac is caching?

When doing file copies, the LAN defaults to 1G ... if I pull the 1G cable from the main switch, it goes back to 10G.

Which device is initiating the file copy? If the iMac then it is selecting which NAS IP address; if the NAS then that should be selecting the 10GbE as outbound interface.

On the iMac, look in Finder's sidebar and note the name of the NAS that is displayed, e.g. myNAS. Next open Terminal,app and run the command ping myNAS.local to poll the NAS using its bonjour name. The first line of the ping output will tell you what IP is being used for the NAS. You can stop the ping running using Ctrl-c

To guarantee using the 10GbE interface then either only have one NAS interface, or using Finder Cmd-k (Go -> Connect to Server) and use 'smb://nas_10GbE_IP' or 'afp://nas_10GbE_IP'.

 

[BoosterT]

LAN5 is the NAS's 10GbE?

Could it be that the 1GbE interfaces get initialised before the 10GbE card and they've already started advertising on the LAN and so that's what the iMac is caching?


Which device is initiating the file copy? If the iMac then it is selecting which NAS IP address; if the NAS then that should be selecting the 10GbE as outbound interface.

On the iMac, look in Finder's sidebar and note the name of the NAS that is displayed, e.g. myNAS. Next open Terminal,app and run the command ping myNAS.local to poll the NAS using its bonjour name. The first line of the ping output will tell you what IP is being used for the NAS. You can stop the ping running using Ctrl-c

To guarantee using the 10GbE interface then either only have one NAS interface, or using Finder Cmd-k (Go -> Connect to Server) and use 'smb://nas_10GbE_IP' or 'afp://nas_10GbE_IP'.

Thanks ... I'll try that

-- post merged: 3. Nov 2020 --

Yup ... that worked ... thanks