Super slow NAS transfer speeds (macOS)

[kart_]

Hi guys,

I’d like to preface this by saying that I do not have a heap of knowledge around networking or NAS’s however I have had a Synology DS118j (yes lower end, I know..) for a coupe of years now and do use it mainly as a cloud solution which I access via mobile devices (iOS) and on my Mac.

From day 1 I have been using the NAS wirelessly and mapping it to finder on my Mac (MacBook Pro 15” 2016 w/ 16gb RAM) or Files on iOS (iPhone 12 Pro & iPad Pro.)

I have always had very low read/write speeds and I have just put up with it
However, lately I have been doing a bit more photography and been using larger raw files and have noticed how slow my NAS really is, to the point where it is basically unusable.
I use the wireless option rather then wired by Ethernet as it is a MacBook Pro that I use, and I like to move around with it, rather then be stuck on at a desk.

Now doing some test via Black Magic, when I am connected by wifi, I get low speeds of 3MB/s write & 12MB/s read. I use SMB, and have also tried AFP with no luck in speeds difference.

When wired by Ethernet, I get 86MB/s write & 98MB/s read.

I also do have Windows installed on my MacBook Pro, so I thought why not boot to Windows and see what speeds I get when mapping the NAS to explorer. To my surprise, I got 66MB/s write & 83MB/s read. Please note that I basically never use Windows and the only reason that I do have it as an OS on my Mac is because I needed it for study a couple of years back.

Now the thing I really do not understand here is why is the NAS so much faster when runnings Windows 10 rather then macOS (Big Sur)?

As you can see from those speeds, it is a noticeable jump on numbers. I can open photos folders in Windows and it loads almost instantly, whereas if I open the same photos folder on my Mac we are talking about 30seconds for it to open, and then forget trying to open a photo/file over 10mb, as you’ll be waiting about 20secs and it just leads to frustration.

The important thing to remember here is that Windows and MacOS are running on the same hardware, it is the same computer, in the same location to the router.

Router I am using is a Netgear Nighthawk (D7000) and there are no speed differences when running 2.4ghz or 54ghz. I have also factory reset the router with no luck. Doesn’t make a difference if I am 1 metre from the router (which sits next to the NAS) or further away.

I have also tested mapping the NAS to another Mac and had the same low read/write speeds.

Having now spent hours and hours on this issue, my final resort would be resetting the NAS to factory settings? Not sure if this would improve anything and I am worried about potentially losing data..

Any help/suggestions in trying to resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated.

TIA.

 

[Rusty]

How are your smb setting on the nas side? My 1st guess would be that it’s the smb signing problem but with Catalina that’s no longer the issue and you are on BigSur do that’s not it.

Also wired speeds are normal. Now why win has better wireless speeds then Macos is interesting indeed.

resetting nas would probably not fix it as it does work (via wire) as intended.

 

[kart_]

How are your smb setting on the nas side? My 1st guess would be that it’s the smb signing problem but with Catalina that’s no longer the issue and you are on BigSur do that’s not it.

Also wired speeds are normal. Now why win has better wireless speeds then Macos is interesting indeed.

resetting nas would probably not fix it as it does work (via wire) as intended.

Thanks for your response..
I have SMB min: 2 & SMB max: 3 on the NAS.
Was thinking about resetting the NAS as there may be a setting somewhere that I have potentially changed (for one reason or another) however, this is unlikely.
It seems to be a true head scratcher.

 

[EAZ1964]

I presume it is on macbook side, as windows connects fine.
can you share the wifi settings on the macbook ? E.g. Does it link to 5ghz ?

with the settings I mean: option+wifi logo in top bar overview and network settings advanced first tab and hardware tab.

 

[kart_]

I presume it is on macbook side, as windows connects fine.
can you share the wifi settings on the macbook ? E.g. Does it link to 5ghz ?

with the settings I mean: option+wifi logo in top bar overview and network settings advanced first tab and hardware tab.

Doesn't make any difference whether on 2.4ghz or 5ghz RE wifi.

5ghz:
Channel: 157 (5 ghz, 80 MHz)
RSSI: -47 dBm
Noise: -90 dBm
Tx rate: 878 Mbps
PHY Mode: 802.11ac
MCS Index: 9
NSS: 3

Wi-fi (advanced)
WPA2/WPA3 Personal

Hardware:
Configuration: Automatically
MTU: Standard (1500)

Hopefully this is what you're after.
Please let me know if there is anything else you need.
Thanks.

 

[EAZ1964]

I would agree that this looks fine.
Maybe this post helps (starting from point 4)?

How to Fix macOS Big Sur Wi-Fi Problems

Are you having trouble connecting to Wi-Fi networks on your Mac after updating it to macOS Big Sur recently? Although connecting to Wi-Fi networks on a Mac is a fairly straightforward procedure for…

osxdaily.com

 

[infinidim]

I have a Ryzen based PC with high speed SSD discs and 32 GB memory connected to 1 G ethernet and a DS220j also connected to the same ethernet network and get slow transfer speeds. I also have about 15 IOT devices connected to the same network as well but looking at the utilisation on the ethernet network there are very few collisions. It just seems that DSM 7.x is slow in handling data transfer from PC's. I have experimented with doing PC to PC and there is a dramatic improvement in transfer speeds.

 

[Nico]

just to follow this thread as I have the same speeds on MBPM1

 

[kart_]

Update:
Overnight I restored my MacBook Pro to factory settings & re-installed macOS Big Sur. Once complete I logged into my Synology NAS over wifi and got the same very low speeds (both on SMB & AFP).
8MB/s write & 7MB/s read.
I have now reset both my router and MacBook Pro to factory settings and seen no speed increases.
This is extremely frustrating considering I have gotten nowhere with the steps taken to date Not to mention the countless hours spent on this issue!

 

[vwgtiturbo]

I've had similar troubles since my Mini updated to Big Sur (regardless of SMB settings). I've yet to do any testing with my old El Capitan MacBook Pro, but seeing this post has rekindled the desire to find a fix. It's beyond infuriating...

 

[MajorArcana]

I have similar speeds (~70MB/s) using either wired or wifi connection between DS218j and Macs running Big Sur (11.6). Please post the output of 'sudo smbutil statshares -a' and the contents of /etc/nsmb.conf if it exists.

 

[jeyare]

To be sure:

Now doing some test via Black Magic, when I am connected by wifi, I get low speeds of 3MB/s write & 12MB/s read. I use SMB, and have also tried AFP with no luck in speeds difference.

Did you mean the BlackMagic Speed test from AppStore?
When yes, don't use it. It is pointless.


1. WiFi performance from two diff OSs and same HW used (computer)
- Each OS has a different and independent setup for the NIC. It is valid also for the SMB protocol mentioned.
- the check from @MajorArcana is valid to get a version of SMB protocol in your MAC OS
- In WinOS you can check it by PowerShell:

Get-SmbServerConfiguration | Select EnableSMB2Protocol

- you need to check in your NAS (SSH) current used SMB protocol ver by

smbstatus

Post the values here.
Note:
When you are in the same room with your rooter operated in 2.4GHz "n" standard or 5GHz "n" you have to get the same speed performance = same conditions. No need to reset the router. Only if you have very strong interference from neighbours, especially in the 2.4Ghz band.
Q: Is there just a single WiFi network defined by you? 100% Sure?
Also, you don't need to reset the NAS, because it's pointless.

2. Transferred content and NAS environment dependencies.
Q1: When the content is transferred to the NAS, is there also running Syno indexation service?
Q2: Even the power eater like SynoPhotos?
Q3: For the transfer is used Syno Drive or just a plain copy from the computer to the NAS?
Q4: When the Drive is used, is there used also versioning?

3. Testing sample = your data
- prepare the testing sample for source OS = same file structure/folders/subfolders to get comparable environment data for the evaluation
- be patient, for the RAW files you need to use more than 200 files. OFC to the same destination = Shared folder
- Needs to check if the parallel processes/setup (from point No. 2) is running, then wait for finishing (or pause during the test).

 

[EAZ1964]

@jeyare : I do use the blackmagic test to check transfer speed from my macs to the NAS, and that works fine. Over ac my macbook m1 reaches about 50MB/s, over ax it is 70MB/s both at 5 meter from the accespoint. On ethernetcable it measures 108MB/s.
I think Blackmagic should work and at least be sufficiently accurate to see the difference between 8 and 50MB/s.
If you have other information, please share.

@kart_ did you try to copy to and from the macbook to the windows machine? It would help understand if it is purely a mac or a mac+syno issue.

 

[jeyare]

@EAZ1964
the real purpose of any speed test is to understand what is happening and why. When you will get just AVG speed from unreal samples, you will get just numbers. BM test will show you just benchmark data for short test batch. Nothing more.

When you need use deeper level approach then you can use: iperf. You can set many useful parameters (packet size, r/w, tcp/udp/sctp, MSS/MTU, …) also you can choose a custom file for the testing transfers. You will get comprehensive report in JSON. Running also in Docker container for server mode.
Few details you can find here:

Host your own Internet Speedtest with LibreSpeed on Synology

Tired of using 3rd party speed test websites that are riddled with ads and pop-ups? Looking for a solution you can self host on your own NAS or server? Librespeed is a very lightweight Speedtest implemented in Javascript, using XMLHttpRequest and Web Workers. No Flash, No Java, No...

www.synoforum.com

to be sure: useful for LAN or WAN.
Note: you can also test several independent iperf servers to check an aggregation in your NAS.
Running on all possible home device OSs, include several router OSs.

-- post merged: 11. Oct 2021 --

@kart_ did you try to copy to and from the macbook to the windows machine? It would help understand if it is purely a mac or a mac+syno issue.

follow the OP description, there is single Macbook with Boot Camp, then no way to copy between dualboot OSs

 

[Robbie]

It is worth doing a raw bandwidth check from the NAS to the Mac using iPerf3 (using the official Synogear package running on bare metal (ie no Docker) in my case).

I have a 10GbE card in my main NAS and 10GbE on my Mac mini M1 and have no issue hitting 9.9Gbps or 1237.5 MB/s to and from my Mac via my network switch:

 

[jeyare]

@Robbie: not surprised

Back to the thread topic.
When you don't have the skills to use the useful measurement tools (CLI based), you can use this simple and free of charge method:
- homogenous environment, unchanged during the test (same OS setup, same HW, same network, ...)
- homogenous sample for the transfer (explained below)
- homogenous time spending measurement (e.g. your smartphone)
- homogenous transfer method (e.g. Copy + Paste between two folders).

Homogenous sample:
- there is a difference in the transfer of hundreds of small files that are written to the NAS (1400 files x 5MB=7GB), where the written target scenario is chosen, e.g. 2x parity in RAID, encryption, indexing
vs
- one large contiguous file of size 7GB, which is written in the same target scenario.
At 99%, it achieves fundamentally different results in favour of a single file transfer.
Of course, still about unchanged HW & SW & network environment. Changing the target Shared folder, which has a different environment (for example - without encryption), will cause different results.
When you will change something, write a note to the evaluation. it will help you to understand the output or compare it with the previous. Don't be in a panic to reset to default, because you will lose all the progress.

The named nice meter (BM) is really nice and user friendly.
But it serves something completely different than measuring the speed of your LAN:

Blackmagic RAW Speed Test is a CPU and GPU benchmarking tool that customers can use to test the speed of decoding full resolution Blackmagic RAW frames on their system. Multiple CPU cores and GPUs are automatically detected and used during the test so that customers get accurate and realistic results.

Just because it has something in the name of the "speed test" does not mean that it is a universal speed test for everything.

 

[EAZ1964]

there is a misunderstanding here.
We are talking about the macbook app blackmagic disk speed test Version 3.3.

not as capable as iperf, but still (in my view) capable lan speed test that writes the 5GB file to destination and reads it back.

 

[jeyare]

there is a misunderstanding here.
We are talking about the macbook app blackmagic disk speed test Version 3.3.

not as capable as iperf, but still (in my view) capable lan speed test that writes the 5GB file to destination and reads it back.

no misunderstanding here, still the same app

 

[EAZ1964]

Doesn't make any difference whether on 2.4ghz or 5ghz RE wifi.

5ghz:
Channel: 157 (5 ghz, 80 MHz)
RSSI: -47 dBm
Noise: -90 dBm
Tx rate: 878 Mbps
PHY Mode: 802.11ac
MCS Index: 9
NSS: 3

Wi-fi (advanced)
WPA2/WPA3 Personal

Hardware:
Configuration: Automatically
MTU: Standard (1500)

Hopefully this is what you're after.
Please let me know if there is anything else you need.
Thanks.

Have you tried a lower channel? If you set it at eg 100, does that help?

-- post merged: 12. Oct 2021 --

no misunderstanding here, still the same app

In my macbook app store they are two different apps But they look the same

 

[jeyare]

In my macbook app store they are two different apps But they look the same

I know both of them, still the same approach, diff name