WD MyCloud NAS Slow Transfer Speed

Question

Let me start by saying that I'm a networking newbie. I understand the basic processes but not the intricacies of multiple routing devices on a network.

My setup is essentially this:

------------------        ----------      -----------------------
| Internet/Cloud |  <-->  | Router | <--> | PowerLine Adapter 0 | <---*
------------------        ----------      -----------------------

                                                          -------------
    Upstairs                                           -> | NAS Drive |
    -----------------------      ------------------ <-/   -------------
*-> | PowerLine Adapter 1 | <--> | Gigabit Switch | 
    -----------------------      ------------------ <-\   --------------
                                                       -> | Desktop PC |
    Downstairs                                            --------------
    -----------------------      -------
*-> | PowerLine Adapter 2 | <--> | PS4 |
    -----------------------      -------

The internet speeds I get are as fast as they should be on average (74Mbps). When attempting to transfer files between my NAS and Desktop PC, I am expecting to get transfer speeds of 1000Mbps (~125MBps) however I am only getting speeds of 100Mbps (~12.5MBps).

I understand that the PowerLine elements of the network will mean the transfer speeds across that interface will be limited to 300Mbps (I'm only getting 100Mbps there but I'm not as fussed about that). However, with the Gigabit switch located between the NAS, PC and PowerLine Adapter 1, I am of the opinion that I should be getting gigabit speeds between the NAS drive and the PC?

Can anyone point out where I might be going wrong or misunderstanding something.

EDIT: Just to note also, the drives in question are SSD in the PC and WD RED 4TB drives in the NAS, so should not be a bottleneck in this process?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Ok, so I finally found out what is going on here... There is nothing wrong with my network setup, cables or drivers. The issue is caused by the encryption of the drives that is an option when creating the volumes. If volume encryption is enabled, the processor is simply not powerful enough to decrypt the drive at the speed required for gigabit data transfer.

Unfortunately this means that in order to achieve the speeds desired, you have to reformat the drives, which is not ideal if you have no other storage options.

EDIT: As suggested by Daniel B, the NAS drive in question here is a WD MyCloud Ex2.

Hope this helps someone else who is seeing this issue.

Answer 2

There are theree issues that might be at work here:

1. There is a problem with the link itself. Make sure you get the full speed negotiated, not 100Mbps. The answer is pretty much in the comments to your question.
2. Despite full speed and fast disks, the NAS is incapable of processing the data at full speed. Check this out: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/nas/view , or google for more.
3. There is a compatibility issue between the OS and the OS of your NAS, but this is a broad issue.

Answer 3

I Have 1 wdmycloudex4 and 2 Qnap NAS Devices on my network.

I have been battling for days with this issue on mycloudex4 and have I have been up and down with emails from WD support.(WAIST OF TIME!!) From my experience with the "support" is they acually don't know how to fix it. All they recommend is to reset the device, check you cables ect. ect. After going through all their suggestions I was still getting the same painful 3MB/s transfers the crash/retry after about 250MB is transfered.

After tinkering for a while I found that if you enable oplocks and make the shared folder accessable to public, the transfers went up to 70MB/s with no retries.

So I assume the when the folder permissions are user specific the wdmycloud processes the authentication to frequently(ie. with start of each file)then kernel/processor crashes and recovers allowing the copy to resume for the next 250MB, causing everything to be slow (webinterface, browsing, copying whatever)

I Seriously hope they release a better firmware than this.

Suggestion TO WD ... bridge the NAS network interfaces to share 1 IP and double bandwith to 2gb/s will make it much better for multiple devices to access the nas. If it works on qnap then why not on WD. Both devices run a varient of Linux and use the same basic apps to deliver file shares.