D5-300 is glacially slow

[piglet]

I have bought a new D5-300 which I am using with my Mac Mini (2018) with OS 13.2.1.

On the D5-300 are four IronWolf Pro 16TB hard drives.

I've successfully used the Terra Master RAID manager to format it with RAID 0.

So I am copying some test files onto and it is copying at 13 MB/sec.

I do have some Terra Master D2-310 units and the normal copying speed for those is nearly 100 MB/sec. Those have 6TB Western Digital drives in them and they are RAID 0 as well.

I'm using the same cable as for those. Everything is the same as when I copy to a D2-310, so why is the D5-300 so desperately slow?

[TMroy]

Please refer to the trouble shooting:viewtopic.php?f=86&t=448

[piglet]

Thank you for your reply.

I've read the trouble shooting page you linked to, but it isn't any of those issues. I have it plugged directly into the Mac Mini using the supplied cable. The files being copied to it are mostly large media files, which I know copy quickly to other drives.

I just don't think it is up to dealing with 16TB hard drives in a real workable manner. I am going to return it to Amazon as I am within the 30 day return period. I realise I will have to spend more on a higher performance unit from another manufacturer.

[TMzethar]

{L_BUTTON_AT}piglet

Have you checked all the possibilities mentioned in the link? If you have checked but still can't solve it, it may be a button problem. Please provide us with the serial number of D5-300 to confirm some information.

[ezplanet]

I confirm that I have the same problem.

The D5-300 is so slow that it is practically unusable.

I think the problem is due to the fact that USB access is multiplexed to one device for all the 5 drives.
Accessing one drive at a time is slower than with a D5-300C (that has a different controller), still unacceptable, but workable, when accessing all drives at once (like when we have created a RAID array over the 5 drives, access throughput grinds to unworkable speeds, making the device practically unusable.

TerraMaster are unwilling to help, but I believe this is a design flaw rather than a defect of a device.
In a nutshell they have used the wrong USB controller for the 5 drives.

[TMroy]

May I know how slow? 1MB/s, 10MB/s, 100MB/s?

D5-300 is a quite old model which was released 6 years ago, it could not be a design issue. If your speed is extremely slower than the normal value (100MB~200MB/s), that could be something wrong. Please refer to the following guide for troubleshooting.
viewtopic.php?f=86&t=448

[ezplanet]

I am using Ubuntu Linux and I have both D5-300C (2 of them) and D5-300 (1 unit), therefore I can easily compare these 2 aesthetically similar but technically very different models.

All D5-300C and D5-300 are fitted with the same model Hitachi 6TB drives. All are used as JBODs (D5-300C raid to disks 1 and 2 is OFF).

Both have ZFS zpool RAIDz arrays, both are connected to the same computer, therefore the comparisons are under the exact same conditions.
The speed tests that I ran are on zfs without compression so that real read/writes are tested.

To take away any latency potentially due to the source device, I test the throughput as follows:

zfs create [mypool]/test
zfs set compression=off [mypool]/test
cd [mypool]/test
dd if=/dev/zero of=zero.dd bs=64k status=progress

RESULTS:

on the D5-300C I get an average of between 180 and 200 MB/s. This pool is in constant use by the server for other tasks, therefore the test is influenced by what happens at the time. The throughput is quite good as expected. When copying files from a single SATA SSD drive or the other D5-300C the throughput drops to around 130-150 MB/s, still quite good and acceptable for normal use.

on the D5-300 I get an average of 50 to 54 MB/s. This pool is not being currently used (due to poor performance), therefore the result is not influenced by other I/O tasks on the device. When copying real files from other units (either from the pool on the D5-300C or a single SATA SSD drive), this throughput drops to around 18 MB/s or less, making the device practically unusable. At this speed I managed to copy only 2.5 terabytes in nearly 1 day, so I gave up using the device altogether.

TerraMaster should solve the issue or offer its customers to replace these rubbish D5-300 devices with D5-300C.

[ezplanet]

May I know how slow? 1MB/s, 10MB/s, 100MB/s?

D5-300 is a quite old model which was released 6 years ago, it could not be a design issue. If your speed is extremely slower than the normal value (100MB~200MB/s), that could be something wrong. Please refer to the following guide for troubleshooting.
viewtopic.php?f=86&t=448

TerraMaster D5-300 is currently sold as new on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.it/TerraMaster-D5-30 ... 102&sr=8-1

I would not dismiss it as old either after only 6 years. Customers get quite angry when you do so because they expect their investments to last. Besides they are advertised for USB 3.1 throughout and they are not even close to it.

We troubleshoot it enough for you. There is nothing else to troubleshoot, the D5-300 is not fit for purpose.

[ezplanet]

When I had already two D5-300C unit, I decided to purchase another one recently on Amazon. I thought I had purchased a D5-300C, but I received a D5-300 instead. Initially I did not mind because I have never used the RAID option on drive 1 and 2 of the D5-300C. Also the D5-300C has its own issues, with the Linux device for the first drive often being mixed with another one in the pool, which requires to label all drives and point to the /dev/disk/by-label device path.

When I saw that this D5-300 had each drive recognized individually I was happy. Unfortunately the USB/SATA controller fitted in it makes this device useless for software RAID arrays.

[TMroy]

If you are sure you got a wrong delivery, please contact the service team for after sales service. Just find the email address from my signature.