SMB, High Sierra & the iMac Pro - HELP!

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SMB, High Sierra & the iMac Pro - HELP!

Alright - Wow! So do I have some epic questions and a long story for this community...a little backstory:

We are medium-sized video production company and for the last 5 years we’ve edited from Mac's through and through - as it stands, we have 5 iMac's, 3 Mac Pros, 2 MacBook Pros, and a Mac Mini. Needless to say we're very familiar with the Mac "workflow", operating systems, and capabilities of these machines. All in all - we love the Apple brand, but we're having some serious issues...

We've started working and storing files & footage on a 100TB 10Gbps server that is set up for access through the (very popular) SMB protocol. The operating system is freeNAS. Very simple setup.

A week ago we purchase our very first iMac Pro (10-core, Vega 64, 64GB, 1TB). The machine is insane - editing Native 6K at full-resolution and high-quality playback is another world. That being said, we are having some MAJOR connection/compatibility/error issues working with our SMB share.

The first thing you should know is that the iMac Pro HAS been updated to the newest version of High Sierra (10.13.3). It's my understanding that this update fixed disconnection issues with SMB shares, but that doesn't seem to have helped any our problems - there are a variety of things happening here:

Our first major transfer was 5TB from a USB 3.0 RAID5 External Drive through our iMac Pro to our server (10Gb port>Switch>Server), but it never got past 200GB :-/ The machine crashed completely, no error, and left us with the terrifying single blinking folder on the desktop. Ok, we restart and try again - same issue, right around 200 GB.

Fine, it's gotta be a server issue. One of our MacBook Pro's is still standard Sierra - so I grab our Sonnet Twin 10Gb Adapter, plug it into a Thunderbolt 2 port, sign-in, and connect to the server. Low and behold that same 5TB transfers without a hitch AND at nearly a 1/3 faster (850MB read/write). For that first 200GB through the iMac Pro's 10Gb port we were only getting in the high 500MBs. Hmmmm...something's going on here, and it doesn't seem to be the Server...

Is the iMac Pro's 10Gbps card the issue? Well let's try something. I grab the same Sonnet Twin 10Gb adapter, plug it into a Thunderbolt 2 to USB-C adapter, download the proper drivers, connect to the Server and start the transfer! We're past 200GB...400GB...550...600...and crash (this time with a simultaneous server disconnection alert and classic finder -36 error). This is starting to smell like a High Sierra issue.

Alright...so what is going on here? We need help, help from you, help from Apple - we have got to get this sucker working properly and fast. We're wasting money and I'm starting to get that gnawing feeling in the back of my neck that this is going to take another month to fix. HELP!

iMac Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), null

Posted on Feb 2, 2018 5:37 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

rehctelf

Level 1

63 points

Apr 26, 2018 9:11 AM in response to IndianaPwns

This is what I posted in another thread ...

iMac Pro + Synology NAS + 10GBe ... Full Speed Finally

On NAS:

- Turn off all file services except for SMB (ie - no AFP).

- Make sure MTU is same as iMac Pro and ethernet switch (if using one). MTU doesn't need to be 9000 ... 1500 is fine as long as all devices in the chain are also set to 1500.

On iMac Pro:

- turn off SMB packet signing. Other tutorials I've found on internet haven't worked for me ... official Apple instructions worked great.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205926

Just a friendly public service announcement ;-)

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Answer 2

Mar 8, 2018 6:26 PM in response to IndianaPwns

I would be interested in hearing about the final solution. When I first received my machine (10core, 64GB Vega, 2TB) I connect the 10Gb system to my server (SMB). Testing the speed I only got 105 MB/s, indicating 1Gb speed. I ended up switching to AFP and re-tested the speed it jumped to 550-600 MB/s. I have continued using AFP apparently there is a problem with the implementation of SMB on the 10Gb port. After a few updates I re-tested the SMB service and found it had a speed increase to 205 MB/s, better but no cigar. So far I have only been editing Still images on the system so I can't comment on the large file transfers.

Mike

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Answer 3

IndianaPwns Author

Level 1

15 points

Mar 9, 2018 6:20 AM in response to Michael Irvin

Hey Michael, so I went though some deep channels at Apple Support, and they basically said that 10.13.4 is going to fix all SMB issues. They acknowledged the problem and it will be fixed in the next update.

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Answer 4

rehctelf

Level 1

63 points

Apr 24, 2018 5:13 AM in response to IndianaPwns

To get top speed using 10GB and solve the large file issue you guys know that you need to turn off SMB packet signing right? I did that and it solved all of my problems ...

Look here for instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205926

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Answer 5

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,452 points

Feb 3, 2018 7:46 AM in response to IndianaPwns

You are not speaking to Apple on these forums. You have 90 days of complimentary AppleCare telephone service, I'd strongly recommend giving them a call. Please refer to Complimentary AppleCare Support

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Answer 6

IndianaPwns Author

Level 1

15 points

Feb 8, 2018 1:16 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Definitely! We plan to call them early next week to report the issue.

It looks as though there's been some progress updates in another similar apple thread. It seems the disconnection culprit is TCP.TSO. Turning it off (cmd in the other thread) has stopped the random disconnections - but unfortunately has drastically lowered our speed.

Will report back after talking to Apple Support!

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Answer 7

Apr 2, 2018 10:33 AM in response to IndianaPwns

I'm using a Netgear 526X with OS 6.9.3. I dropped a folder/subfolder 1.87 TB w/ 70K files (according to the finder copy info) on the NAS unit. So far its transfer 550GB without a problem. Thats different than on big file so I can't address that issue. It seems to transferring all the smaller files OK.

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Answer 8

Apr 6, 2018 9:14 AM in response to IndianaPwns

Is this thread still alive? I have discovered that 10.13.4 seemed to help with our persistent connection, but now we're having some major permissions issue on our windows share with the machines we have rolled to 10.13.4. Anybody else?

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Answer 9

IndianaPwns Author

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15 points

Apr 6, 2018 10:40 AM in response to tdthurston

Hey tdhurston - it certainly is still alive for me. It seems 10.13.4 is better, we haven't had a major drop yet. When signing in we're getting some speed issues though...like 1 mbps rates.

What do you mean by permissions issues...we're running FreeNas SMB - we might have the same issue.

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Answer 10

Mar 9, 2018 6:33 AM in response to IndianaPwns

Thanks for the reply, I'll be looking forward to the update.

Mike

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Answer 11

IndianaPwns Author

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15 points

Apr 2, 2018 8:43 AM in response to Michael Irvin

Update is out! We are trying various stuff now - any luck on your side?

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Answer 12

IndianaPwns Author

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15 points

Apr 2, 2018 9:01 AM in response to Michael Irvin

That's great to hear! Unfortunately for me I'm still getting Error -36 messages during large transfers...etc.

Are you using FreeNAS? If so - 9.10.2 or 11?

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Answer 13

IndianaPwns Author

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Apr 23, 2018 7:18 AM in response to tdthurston

Any update to this?

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Answer 14

IndianaPwns Author

Level 1

15 points

Apr 24, 2018 12:19 PM in response to rehctelf

What problems were you having exactly? Just tried to turn off SMB Packet signing manually but it doesn't seem to be creating the nsmb.conf file. Might be something I'm doing wrong...

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Answer 15

Apr 2, 2018 8:58 AM in response to IndianaPwns

Yes, my concern was with the transfer speed. Before the update using 10.13.3, using Blackmagic disk speed test I would get approximately 205 MB/s on SMB, and 550-600 MB/s on AFP. With the update to 10.13.4 and testing with Blackmagic the speed has increased to 450-500 MB/s for SMB. Still slower than AFP which remains around 550-600 MB/s, but fast enough so that I don't notice the difference. I am working with still images, the catalog is on my internal SSD, and the image files are referenced on the NAS. I have switched everything over to SMB for better security, and easier to manage permissions. Some would say I'm OCD when it comes to ransomware. I did run into the problem with the large file transfer (10.13.3), and had the system freeze during the transfer. in my case it was a folder/subfolder containing 600 GB of image files. Its rare that I transfer that much at one time, I haven't tried it after the update. I'm betting a bit bored right now so I think I'll give it a try and see how it works. Let you know.

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SMB, High Sierra & the iMac Pro - HELP!

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