Maxtor Shared Storage II and osX networking problem

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Maxtor Shared Storage II and osX networking problem

I bought recently the maxtor shared storage II as a backup solution. It's connected via a gigabit switch. surprisingly, i get half decent speeds copying to it (up to 18 MB/s) but what takes ages is deleting files from it. for example when deleting an old backup set, 1000 files will take over 10 minutes to delete. The finder goes 'preparing to move to trash and then file numbers go up but ever so slowly'. The speed i get doing that is 280 kB/s according to menumeters. The drive is mounted via SMB in the finder. Can anyone recommend a trouble shooting solution? I have the same issues even when i hook up the drive direct into the macbook pro and assign both sides static ip addresses so it seems to be an SMS file sharing problem.
Has anyone managed to use this drive in an osx network environment?

MacBook Pro (1.87 Ghz), iMac G4, iPod 40GB, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Oct 8, 2006 3:03 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

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Oct 8, 2006 10:45 AM in response to Bucht

Not certain on this, but besides the book's HD being way overmatched by Gigabit... I would think looking into whether it's doing Half Duplex or Full Duplex, and what Packet size, (MTU), it's using on both ends, (middle too when that's hooked up)... thinking too big of MTU might hurt in this case. Sometimes Auto Negotiate doesn't end up with the best setup.

Might ping the Storage device just to check that angle, then observe the deletion process in Network Utility>Network, to see if it's a really jagged graph or big dead spots.

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Answer 2

Bucht Author

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Oct 8, 2006 11:12 AM in response to BDAqua

thanks for your reply, although i am not versed enough to understand all you said. HEre is the restult of pinging the drive:
PING 10.0.1.2 (10.0.1.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.186 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.144 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.143 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.150 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.141 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=0.168 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=0.127 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=0.170 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=0.140 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.2: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=0.151 ms

--- 10.0.1.2 ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.127/0.152/0.186/0.017 ms

I don't think it's an issue of the macbook hard drive because when copying to a firewire drive it works at good speed. also it's fast enough when copying files to the maxtor NAS. what's realy slow is DELETING files from the maxtor NAS. deleting also seems to drive a lot of data exchange between the MBP and the drive, someting like 2-300 MB, no idea what is being exchanged.

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Answer 3

BDAqua

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Oct 8, 2006 11:37 AM in response to Bucht

Nice Pings... didn't think that was it.

Deleting files requires tons of little tiny bits of info going back & forth, not big Sequential chunks like Copying, so any little slowness of the Books HD is going to be magnified many times, yet that isn't the biggest issue here.

Deleting in OSX sure takes a lot longer than it should even on an internal Drive.

Your original times for Copying AND Deleting, are just about what I get with a G4/eMac and a 10/100 NDAS, Forcing Full Duplex.

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Answer 4

Bucht Author

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Oct 8, 2006 11:47 AM in response to Bucht

sorry, but i don't know how to switch the duplex to half-duplex nor how to see a graph in network utility. there is no network submenu. any clues along the way?

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Answer 5

BDAqua

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Oct 8, 2006 12:01 PM in response to Bucht

Gaaack... sorry, I meant observe the graph in Activity Monitor>Network !!!

I blame my 6th grade eduction!

Duplex can be set in pref pane Networks>Show:>Built in Ethernet>Ethernet>Configure:>Manually...

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Answer 6

Oct 11, 2006 6:26 AM in response to Bucht

Hi,

I'm considering the Maxtor Shared Storage II 500 GB (i think it will be released shortly in Australia).

Did you have any success with your 1 TB version regarding your slow delete problem?

Did you have it set to Full Duplex?

Had you formatted your disk as EXT 3 or was it the default FAT32?

Any statistics on copying a large collection of files (say 4 GB) to the disk and then back from the disk would be very much appreciated.

Regards

Tony

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Answer 7

Bucht Author

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Oct 11, 2006 8:03 AM in response to Tony Kambourakis1

that is my week end exercise. so far no success. it's still he default setting. what would be the benef of ext 3? for more info check the review on tom's hardware guide although my experience has not been near as good as his - blame my tech incompetence although i am probably a couple of sigmas away from the average user already... p

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Answer 8

Bucht Author

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Oct 15, 2006 6:12 AM in response to Bucht

Forcing full duplex has helped. I seem to have to leave the packet size (MTU) to 1500 though. i still am getting nowhere near gigabit speed. seem that best i can do is about 15MB/min. really disapointing. of course the help from maxtor is nill, the guys at the online support can barely speak english and probably would not recognise a nas drive if it hit them in the head which it would if they were any closer... what a crap product.

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Answer 9

BDAqua

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Oct 15, 2006 10:42 AM in response to Bucht

Where you forced Full Duplex... Network>Ethernet... did you also try forcing Gigabit under Speed?

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Answer 10

Bucht Author

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Oct 15, 2006 12:50 PM in response to BDAqua

yes i did. it's really strange, sometimes i get good speeds (c. 15mb/s) but it keeps dropping to like 200kbps. you are right that the network graph is all over the place as well. i suspect it could be that the router which i uses (an airport express) is removed from the switch by a wds link. hte problem is that the dsl modem is downstairs and my switch is in the office upstairs so i have a wds bridge between them with an airport express next to the dsl modem and a airport extreme connected to the switch.
i hate networking when it goes wrong.

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Answer 11

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

Oct 15, 2006 1:44 PM in response to Bucht

15MB/sec is not good, I get a bit more than that with a 10/100 NAS Drive! 🙂

I'd look into the stuff along the way to force 100Base, but I doubt it all supports GigE... especially Wireless.

One other thought, any 802.11b, or 10BaseT in the Network will drag down the whole thing in spurts like that, even setting the ABSes to accept both will do it.

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