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Slow Gigabit ethernet speeds on 2013 MacPro

Hello,
I have a late 2013 Mac Pro, Had it for maybe 3 years or so now and just am noticing an issue with it. (fast forward to 3rd paragraph in for actual issue if you want to bypass the fluff) It all started with me trying to run a network "stress" test on my synology NAS. I had every computer and possible media playback device steam a HD or 4k video. (8+ devices) again the test was on the NAS, but led me to find a flaw with my Mac Pro.


To add to the stress test, while playing all the videos, I started a file copy from the Nas to my mac, and the video stopped playback on just my Mac and would not continue till I stopped the file transfer. At first I did not understand what was going on. I have my gaming PC right next to me and did the same with no issues... in fact was playing the movie still and was able to transfer the file at still a high transfer rate (dont remember but does not matter all too much)


So... Fast forward to last night, I started running some more test just on the Mac. Using single ethernet connection to the same switch the Nas is on, I run Blackmagicdesign disk speed test on my "work" share folder, I get roughly 30MB/s read and wright... thought that was a bit low as on my PC (which is wired through the same networking hardware) I just about saturate Gigabit getting right at 100MB/s. Next I do a standard file transfer of a 3GB file... While there is no data rate indicator (that I know of) in OSX, my Nas is showing 28-30MB upload. sooo this all seems really odd.. I take it a step further...

I then link aggregate both the Mac and my Nas to the switch (yes its fully supported) on the switch verified all setting on all 3 ends of this and everything is "all green"..... Long story short, NO CHANGE in transfer rates, still right at 30MB/s. unfortunately I do not have another computer that can do link aggregation.. so I cant test with my PCs.
But even with my Mac in single gigabit ethernet connection, im only 1/3 of the performance it should be at.

I have done all kinds of searches online and have not found anything. I dont know if there is some hidden setting im missing... but... I never messed with any network settings because I never needed to.

Sorry for making this so long, and I know its not scientific, but the data is there in real world usage. I always felt that my Mac was dog slow at transferring project files (which can be well over 50GB each) , but... never paid much attention till now on the actual transfer rates. Now that I got this network switch that supports link aggregation, I wish I could use it. Shoot, getting full gigabit speeds alone would be a huge jump in transfer rates.
Thank you,
Andre

Mac Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), 2013 - 12 core - 64GB - D500s

Posted on Feb 16, 2018 10:03 PM

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Posted on Feb 17, 2018 10:25 PM

I dont know if there is some hidden setting im missing

There are *many* hidden settings on ethernet networks that could be affecting throughput rate. Ethernet can be tuned for many different models - the needs on a low-latency LAN connection, for example, may be very different from those for a high-latency trans-oceanic. Apple tends to default their systems to a generic, works-well-for-most setup, which may not be optimal in specific situations.

Unfortunately knowing all the options, their meanings and potential impact can be a life-long journey for many people. Things like buffers, maximum segment sizes, window scaling, slow start, flow control, checksumming and selective acks are good candidates.

Off hand I have no idea how to extract these settings from your Windows host (but I assume Google is your friend here). On MacOS, you can use a combination of netstat and sysctl to tune your network settings (the good thing is that these changes are generally transient, so if you screw up, a simple reboot fixes it.

Start with sysctl -a | grep net.inet for a list of tunable parameters.


Beyond the network, though, there may be differences in the networking protocols in use. I don't know enough about the Synology to know what protocol(s) it supports, but if the PC is running CIFS/SMB and the Mac is using NFS or AFP, that could also be a factor. Make sure you're testing similar protocols on both sides.


Lastly, for now, on a point-to-point connection link aggregation will do nothing for you. Link aggregation pseudo-randomly balances sessions over multiple connections but any session between two specific devices (e.g. between your Mac and your NAS) will only traverse a single link (to avoid out-of-order issues at the receive side). Link aggregation is useful if you're running multiple concurrent sessions (e.g. a server responding to multiple diverse clients) since the load will be shared, but every connection is limited to the maximum speed of the individual links in the aggregate, not the sum of all links. If you had two NAS boxes and a 2gpbs aggregate, you might be able to read/write to them at 1gpbs each, or you might be able to download from the internet at full speed over one link while simultaneously writing to the NAS over the other, but a single sessions will never exceed 1gpbs.

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Question marked as Best reply

Feb 17, 2018 10:25 PM in response to KooKoo102

I dont know if there is some hidden setting im missing

There are *many* hidden settings on ethernet networks that could be affecting throughput rate. Ethernet can be tuned for many different models - the needs on a low-latency LAN connection, for example, may be very different from those for a high-latency trans-oceanic. Apple tends to default their systems to a generic, works-well-for-most setup, which may not be optimal in specific situations.

Unfortunately knowing all the options, their meanings and potential impact can be a life-long journey for many people. Things like buffers, maximum segment sizes, window scaling, slow start, flow control, checksumming and selective acks are good candidates.

Off hand I have no idea how to extract these settings from your Windows host (but I assume Google is your friend here). On MacOS, you can use a combination of netstat and sysctl to tune your network settings (the good thing is that these changes are generally transient, so if you screw up, a simple reboot fixes it.

Start with sysctl -a | grep net.inet for a list of tunable parameters.


Beyond the network, though, there may be differences in the networking protocols in use. I don't know enough about the Synology to know what protocol(s) it supports, but if the PC is running CIFS/SMB and the Mac is using NFS or AFP, that could also be a factor. Make sure you're testing similar protocols on both sides.


Lastly, for now, on a point-to-point connection link aggregation will do nothing for you. Link aggregation pseudo-randomly balances sessions over multiple connections but any session between two specific devices (e.g. between your Mac and your NAS) will only traverse a single link (to avoid out-of-order issues at the receive side). Link aggregation is useful if you're running multiple concurrent sessions (e.g. a server responding to multiple diverse clients) since the load will be shared, but every connection is limited to the maximum speed of the individual links in the aggregate, not the sum of all links. If you had two NAS boxes and a 2gpbs aggregate, you might be able to read/write to them at 1gpbs each, or you might be able to download from the internet at full speed over one link while simultaneously writing to the NAS over the other, but a single sessions will never exceed 1gpbs.

Feb 17, 2018 10:44 PM in response to KooKoo102

There are a few brute force things you can check for before diving into the rabbit hole of performance parameters.


Gigabit Ethernet requires 8-conductor cables. If you set the Mac for manual Gigabit speed, an inadequate cable will NOT allow you to make a connection at all.


There are generally not enough frame numbers to run 1500-byte frames at full speed, so you need to increase the frame size. It is generally safe to increase it to the 9000 byte limit, but some equipment would run slightly faster at about 80 bytes under 8192 = 8K size.


Most Routers, including Airport base stations, can not handle frames over standard 1500 size -- you may need a dedicated Gigabit Ethernet Switch that supports large frames. They are not expensive.


Camelot already covered the fact that Link Aggregation provides no benefit for a single connection like this one, only for a complex composite stream with multiple sub-streams that can be split across the two paths.

Feb 17, 2018 10:43 PM in response to Camelot

Sorry for the slow reply back...

So, I took what you said and looked into the settings EVERYWHERE on my Synology server, Ubiquity equipment, and Mac. Long story short, even though AFP was enabled in the NAS, I had to use the "AFP" specific address to access using that protocol. Once I did that it was running full Gigabit, now getting right about 100BM/s up and down. Thanks for brining that all up, probably would have never bothered to look in that area.

Now for the other part that makes me sad... I understand what you are saying... no matter what I do... 1Gb connection in L.A will never exceed the performance of 1Gb. I was looking to get the new model of Synology with the 10Gb Nic, but then I need to either get a silly expensive TB2 to 10Gb adaptor for my current MacPro... or get the new iMac Pro (or wait for the announcement of whatever the new MacPro will be... and who knows when that will be) Ill run what i have for now, IF I upgrade my NAS, I will still get the 10Gb card and set that up and my switch can support it... I will just have to wait a long time to utilize it lol.


Thanks again, Loving the speed "boost". Feel a little silly that all this time it was just that I did not access my Nas the "correct" way to match up the right protocol... did not think that was a thing. It showed up on the finder bar... and it worked... would have never thought I would only be at 1/3 of the performance accessing it that way.

Slow Gigabit ethernet speeds on 2013 MacPro

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