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Network Attached Storage, strange slowness

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shmokes:
I have a Buffalo Terastation NAS device that I store all my media on.  Recently I gave my neighbor's access to it, but they've got a couple of kids so I want to separate out the rated R stuff and the TV shows that aren't appropriate for children, so that the parents can watch them, but the children can't.  This should be easy: just make an everybody folder and a password protected folder and sort all the files into them.  But for some reason, moving the files is taking FOREVER.  I tried to move my music folder, which is under 5 GB, and it was going to take at least all night, and that just ain't going to work when it comes time to move hundreds of gigabytes worth of TV shows and movies. 

I don't get it.  It wouldn't even make sense to take that long if I were copying the files, but cutting/pasting them (same drive, just moving from one folder to another) should be practically instantaneous.  The only thing I can think of is that, for some reason, it's copying the file over my network to a temporary location my desktop computer before copying it back over the network to the new location back on the NAS device.  The NAS is sitting on a network bridge so it can communicate wirelessly over a mediocre 802.11g signal, which would explain the slow transfer speed if each file is having to copy over a slow wireless network twice before settling in its new location. Does my hunch sound right?  If so, is there any way to tell it to stop using my PC to temporarily store the files, so that the entire copy operation takes place on the network drive?

Am I even making sense?

ark_ader:
Yes you are making sense, but most of the nas drives out there use some kind of Linux OS.  I got the very same issue with my Airlink Nas (which is crap BTW avoid it).  Looks like the fetch is coming from your PC via the network instead from the unit directly.

With regards to the R rated stuff I would just reattach the drive or buy another format it to NTFS.  Then the NAS (most NAS drives) treat the drive read only.  Do your file movements locally via USB external, then pop it back into the NAS.

MAKE SURE YOU BACK IT UP!

I lost the entire drive to the Airlink.   :dizzy:  It   :censored: me right off.

If it was me I would use an old PC laptop and have it sitting on the network, than those NAS drives...

shmokes:
I don't know . . . it doesn't make sense.  It can't possibly be designed to work that way.  It's just so incredibly inefficient.  People wouldn't even use NAS if it doubled the time of every copy operationa and about 1,000,000x'ed the time of a typical cut/paste operation.  This has to be fixable.

Samstag:

--- Quote from: shmokes on June 06, 2008, 03:47:03 am ---I don't know . . . it doesn't make sense.  It can't possibly be designed to work that way.  It's just so incredibly inefficient.  People wouldn't even use NAS if it doubled the time of every copy operationa and about 1,000,000x'ed the time of a typical cut/paste operation.  This has to be fixable.

--- End quote ---

I don't think the Windows filesharing protocol has any mechanism for local copy commands.  There's not much a NAS designer can do about that.  If your device can support telnet/SSH sessions you can log in and do local copies/moves which will be instantaneous.  That's what I do in these situations, but I'm running a linux PC.

bishmasterb:
I believe samstag is correct.

If the same thing (file move on a remote server) was being done across a network to file targets on a Windows Server, you'd have the same issue.

The solution, as samstag pointed out, is to always initiate file copies/moves locally on the system hosting the data. This can be done via SSH or RDP on most systems, but I don't think the Buffalo NAS devices support either. If I'm wrong about Buffalo's support for remote control, please let me know.

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