Vikash Autar

Q: VPN Finder Slow

Having problems using our VPN connection access files in the finder. It takes ages for the finder to list the files. Navigating through multiple folders takes ages. This only really happens when going overseas. I am aware latency and speed decreases the further you go, but I can't understand why it would even take so long to just like files in a folder. I can browse the internet (all traffic over VPN) just fine.

 

We connect to the drive with the files by connecting to VPN and then using the 'Connect to Server' command to connect to the drive (because Bonjour doesn't work).

 

Running Server 4 on Yosemite

VPN is set up L2TP over IpSec

Internet connection is 100/100 based in Sydney

Speedtest to the server from Europe comes in at 20/20

 

Any idea how to increase the speed so this is workable for us?

 

Thanks!

Posted on Jul 26, 2016 11:38 PM

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Q: VPN Finder Slow

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  • by John Lockwood,

    John Lockwood John Lockwood Jul 27, 2016 3:38 AM in response to Vikash Autar
    Level 6 (9,215 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 27, 2016 3:38 AM in response to Vikash Autar

    It is a long known case that the Finder is appallingly bad when accessing a remote file server.

     

    I agree on the face of it 'merely' listing names of files in a folder should not take as long as the Finder does. However the reality is that the Finder is not merely listing the names of files in a folder.

     

    It gets…

     

    • Names
    • Sizes
    • Kind
    • Creation date, modification date, last accessed date
    • Icons
    • Tags/Labels
    • and probably a lot more besides

     

    In other words vastly more than a simple list of names and therefore not only needs to transfer far more data in total but also has to engage in far more transactions with responses and delays and acknowledgements for each.

     

    So not only is the Finder itself extremely poorly 'optimised' - an oxymoron if ever there was one, but it does a lot of things you are not necessarily aware of and you cannot turn these off.

     

    In the Windows world the equivalent of the Finder is 'Explorer' not to be confused with Internet Explorer. It does not ask for as much information for each file and the impression I get is that is far better optimised as well. Furthermore Windows machines obviously use the SMB protocol whereas it is still the case that most Mac users use AFP. A lot of WAN equipment particularly the category of devices known as WAN accelerators are able to further optimise SMB network traffic but not AFP traffic. (Less likely to be applicable to a remote VPN user, more applicable to site-to-site links.)

     

    If you are currently using AFP I would try SMB. Even if the Finder is just as bad and as I suspect you will not get any WAN accelerator boost, it is going to be the case that Apple themselves have stopped work to improve AFP and that in normal use now with the latest Apple software SMB is faster than AFP.

     

    Depending on what you are trying to do it may also be worth trying WebDav instead.

  • by Vikash Autar,

    Vikash Autar Vikash Autar Jul 27, 2016 4:30 AM in response to John Lockwood
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 27, 2016 4:30 AM in response to John Lockwood

    Thanks so much for this incredibly detailed response.

     

    I tried switching the share to SMB and connected to it using SMB but unfortunately no speed difference. The odd thing is that the VPN connection and finder are really fast as long as I am in Australia. The further I go the worse it gets (understandably). In Europe and Hong Kong it's almost unworkable slow. Here is what I find so odd though. I open screen sharing connect to our server and work super fast and lag free. However, if I just try to use the finder using VPN it's really slow.

     

    I also wanted to get your opinion on the below. We are a film production company and run a couple of drives connected to a mac mini server which hooks up to our suites. Our main drive is our 24tb edit drive (thunderbolt raid) we also have a few drives for Admin and Back Up. All of these were set up on AFP 3 years ago. Are you saying it would be better for us to switch these over to SMB in general? Will we have issues if we do the switch to SMB?

     

    Thanks!

  • by John Lockwood,

    John Lockwood John Lockwood Jul 27, 2016 5:13 AM in response to Vikash Autar
    Level 6 (9,215 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 27, 2016 5:13 AM in response to Vikash Autar

    For the Finder yes the latency is the real killer.

     

    The drives on your Mac server are neither AFP or SMB, it is the means you connect the server that is AFP or SMB. You can actually have both turned on at the same time and the server defaults to this I believe.

     

    Depending on how a Mac client is told to connect it these days is likely to default to using SMB. If you have not already enabled SMB I would go ahead and do so.

     

    Apple have indicated that AFP is going to be removed from a future version of the Mac operating system so you might as well start taking steps to prepare for this.

     

    Network Time Machine backups currently require using AFP but Apple have indicated this is changing in macOS Sierra. I am not sure what the situation is/will be regarding Spotlight searching.