BlackArmor NAS Network Storage Server

[Lasso]

Hi, i would be pleased if someone here can help me with my Router/NAS problem.

Yesterday I purchased a Asus RT-N56U Router hoping to be a good update for my 10 year old SMC 100MBit Barricade Router...
Everything works fine, changed IP Adress of the Router, enabled fixed IP's for NAS and PC, established Internet conn. etc.

Problem:
Then I tried to view some pictures on my Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 (Linux based, so NTFS I suppose) and was shocked by the very very slow performance, took 5-10 seconds to view actual sized JPEG's (around 1-3 MBs). I tried it again with the old 100MBit SMC Router and it works fine. When I copy Movies on it, it has around 20-30 MB/s but I cant explain the slow performance just viewing JPEGS. The Media Service is enabled for this Folder.
Same with Movies, they need years to start, but with the old router there are no problems.

Some Facts about my System:
Network: Fixed IP's, changed standard-IP from RT-N56U as my standard Gateway, no extra switches, everything wired

PC: Windows 7 64 Bit, fixed ip
NAS: Linux based Seagate BlackArmor 220, fixed IP, Media Service for Music, Picture and Movies folder enabled, MTU 1500
Router: Same settings for old and new router,fixed ips, same subnet masks, DHCP on

I dont know where it comes from but I think its the NAS but I dont know why it should be faster with a 10 year old 100MBit Router than with the new Gigabit RT-N56U? Do you have some suggestions?

I read about MTU issues, might this be a problem? But then again: why is ther such a big difference between old an new router?

[AskTheLeaf]

Would you let me know what firmware version your BlackArmor NAS has? You can find it  by logging into the web UI...it'll be displayed on the first page.

[Lasso]

Hi Leaf,

thanks for the reply, my firmware version is: 2000.1211, Built on Fri, 11 Feb 2011. I updated all firmwares of the components.

Some other things i figured out:

When I put the old SMC 100 MBit router as switch between Asus GBit router and the NAS and PC it works. But not with the NAS directly plugged into the 1000MBit Asus router

ISP---Asus1000MBit---SMC100MBit---PC+NAS : works

ISP---Asus1000MBit---SMC100MBit---NAS : works
              |
             PC
ISP---Asus1000MBit---SMC100MBit---PC : works NOT (slow)!
              |
           NAS

So might it just be a compatibility Problem between NAS and the new Asus router?

What I figured out too:
 - changing an old CAT5 cable to CAT5e improved the issue a bit... around 1MB/s downstream from the NAS, but way to slow. The speed varies a bit when switching positions of both CAT5e cables.
 - via FTP protocol its the same slow downspeed 

[AskTheLeaf]

If the entire network is gigbabit then the speeds should be running normal for your devices.

In the event that not everything on the network is gigabit, the network speed will most likely adjust itself to the speed of the slowest component on the network.

[Lasso]

For sure, but i dont have a component in my GB-Network that limits the speed to 500 kb/s downstream from the NAS (and only for downstream, upload was fast!)

Putting a Sitecom GB-Switch between NAS and router solved the Problem. (15MB/s write, 40 MB/s read)Seems to be the same mystery like the story with dlink switches. But I'd like to know if Seagate is finally going to do something against that? I don't seems to be the routers that cause the problem because only BlackArmor has NAS has problems with them.

[Fredt]

I've got the same problem with the same setup, Asus RT-N56U and Blackarmor 220 NAS. I also had the problem with my old Linksys WRT350n Gigabit router but not from the beginning. At first I got acceptable speeds. I think it all began when I made an update of the Blackarmor firmware, dont know which version that started the problems, but at first I thought the problem was my router.

The speeds where so slow around 500 kb/s and the router also rebooted itself and the NAS became unresponsive over the network.

I tried everything, reset the NAS, updated the firmware (2000.1211), factory reset but nothing helped.

Then I bought the Asus Gigabit router but the problem remained with poor speeds.

I then tried to plugin the NAS in my ADSL-modem with router which is a 100Mbit router and then I got speeds around 10MB/s. So it seems that the NAS is somehow incompatible with gigabit routers?

[Farside22]

Hi,

I Got the exact same problem.

I can add that if i start a torrent and sets it to download to the nas directly (as i did with my old router , everything worked great) , it now get disk overload problems and the NAS disconnects from the network for a second or two.

Also , earlier i could stream flawlessly from my nas to my tvix (divx files).

But with the new router , it lags like heck , makes the movie un watchable.

when using filezilla to ftp files to the NAS , i get great speed for a couple of seconds (20-30secs) then it freezes , and i need to restart the NAS (didn´t have this problem before)

Please help us out , this is not acceptable.

I borrowed another NAS (Netgear) from my neighbour, it worked perfect!

Best Regards

Patrik

[coca]

Hi@all,

is there any solution for this problem?

I have also a Asus RT-N56U-Router and a BlackArmor NAS 110. The download from the NAS is ~200kB/s and the upload is 15MB/s.

regards, coca

[DCHERATH]

Hi guys having gone through setup pains, even when using a Netgear router, see my post just now, whilst it may seem to be the router, I think it is more poor Linux and Unix comparability with the Seagate NAS.