TerraMaster Official Forum

I have an F2-423 and recently upgraded my home network to 2.5G. My F2-423 has 2x10TB Seagate 7200rpm enterprise drives capable of 280MB/s sustained writes in RAID1 configuration. It's one storage pool and single volume using btrfs.

When transferring a large amount of data to the NAS, the speeds will rollercoaster from around 280MB/s to 0MB/s and then back to 280MB/s. It does this every 15 to 20 seconds. It does this regardless of the client, Mac/Windows, and protocol. I've tried SMB/SFTP/FTP. I also created an SSD cache using NMVe and got the same results. Also tested with one large 100gb+ file. It's almost like TOS is buffering the transfer, where it will accept the file stream over the network as fast as it can until the buffer is filled and then halts the bandwidth until the buffer flushes to disk and then repeats. I'm just trying to describe the behavior, and this may not be the case, as I'm not sure what TOS is doing under the hood. CPU is also around 40% when transferring the file(s), and I have no other apps running on the NAS or other transfers happening.

Do you happen to know how I can troubleshoot this issue to get sustained transfers, or is this the expected behavior of TOS?

I wanted to post an update here as I did some more experimentation.

1. I believe I saw the same behavior with the SSD cache because the "jump SSD cache" was enabled. For some reason, I was not able to disable this. It would say the operation was successful, but when reloading the UI it would still be checked.

2. I deleted the SSD cache and created a mirrored storage pool and a single volume with btrfs. Then, I made a shared folder to test with. I get more consistent, sustained speeds transferring a large file to this share. It will still dip to 0MB/s occasionally but then resume a second or two later. (I think this has to do with the write speed of flushing data to disk, as it's much faster than spinning; see #3)

3. On the transfers to the spinning disks. I observed that while the client is sending data, there is no drive activity on the spinning disks. No sound or blinking lights for the disks. Once the data transfer hangs on the client side, the disks have activity, then once data transfer resumes on the client, the disks stop having activity. This leads me to believe it is doing some reading into a memory buffer, pausing the reading to flush the buffer to disk, and then resuming the data transfer to fill the buffer again. Maybe someone from TerraMaster can say if this is how it's working and/or is expected?

4. I copied a large file using the TOS file manager from the nvme volume to the spinning volume. It maintained a 400MB/s write speed to the spinning disks for the entire transfer with no dips, etc. This metric is doubled since it's written to both disks in RAID1. So, the drives can maintain a 200MB/s sustained write speed each, and this is what I'm expecting even when transferring over the network vs data bursts from 0MB/s to aprox 300MB/s.

I was going to test Ext4 to see if btrfs played a role in all this, but I think my test in #4 shows that is probably not the case, else I would see the same behavior when transferring from the nvme volume to the spinning volume

Hi,

could you figure out what the issue is here?
I'm experiencing the same issues, my transfer speed rises up to 140mb/s and goes down to zero.
I tried everything, TRAID, now I'm formatting to RAID1 but I doubt this will solve the issue.

Unfortunately, there was no answer to this threat from Terramaster.
When I'm not able to fix this in the next few days I'll return the NAS and buy a Synology.
Overall I'm achieving a bandwith approximately ~60-70mb/s instead of 110-120.

The NAS is connected with 2.5GBIT to my router and my desktop is either connected with WIFI (5Ghz 2400mbit) or LAN (1GBIT).

In case you can tell me if you could fix it that would things easier for me

Check this troubleshooting one item by item: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=527

That doesn't help at all, I don't have these up and downs with my old WD Nas. Everything around (client computer, cables etc) are healthy and capable delivering much higher transfer rates.

I'm happy to see there is another customer who is having the same issues. I saw a post in an earlier tos version where it struggles writing encrypted data. Allegedly this has been fixed in a later tos version, but it seems it's still there in another form.

Okay its definitely a TOS ISSUE !
I have first installed Truenas Scale and Unraid and I don't see those ups and downs here.
Both Truenas and Unraid have a smooth transfer rate at the upper limit of the HDD'S (150mb/s)

I'm now considering sending the TerraMaster back as I intentionally had in mind to use TOS as my daily driver.

Blaming "its definitely a TOS ISSUE" not only doesn't help solve the issue, but may also obscure the true cause. Based on our extensive lab testing and feedback from service users, we have found that this is not a widespread phenomenon but rather an isolated case. Due to the lack of sufficient information, we are currently unable to determine the root cause of the problem. Therefore, to effectively address the issue, we recommend that you provide more detailed information. For example, if your RAID is still in syncing.

Yes, I provide information based on the information I get.
Suggestions about defective cables and usual customer "miss" behavior from a support line are not helpful at all.
To be honest?! yes, I would wonder about the performance in case it's still initializing, for sure ... *sarcasm off*

Any other helpful questions that dig so deep into the issue like the initialization?

Again, out of the box, neither Truenas nor Unraid are showing ups and downs in transfer rates.

Until now I was still considering staying with the TerraMaster Nas (with a 3rd party OS) but the friendly customer support told me to do the opposite.
And I'm sure TerraMaster Support is happy as well to lose a customer like me