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[jmone]

I have an unmanaged gigabit HP J9560A switch which I can saturate the link when sycing to my backup server (hits about 98%).  The issue is at that point any media playing off the server starts to stutter.  Is there anyway of configuring a priority or limiting the bandwidth that a single connection can take (they are all Win7 or WHS PCs).  In particular I'd like to limit how much can be pushed to the WHS 11 Server OR how much a single connection can take from my Win7 "Server".
Thanks
Nathan

[InflatableMouse]

The best way would probably be QoS: Quality of Service, but I don't think you can set that up in your environment with unmanaged switches, unless there's an internet router in between that supports it properly.

The other option is software on the pc; Netlimiter comes to mind and I think that's the most widely known and respected bandwidth limiter for windows. There is a 30 day trial license and a pro and lite version for 30 and 20 dollars respectively. Not very expensive but use the 30 day trial to test it extensively. Extra layers on a network stack often cause trouble and unexpected behavior due to the complexity and diversity of the situations.

[jmone]

Thanks IM - that is what I thought (my router does have QOS but it is on the edge of the network and the HP is the core).  I was wondering if WHS11 had an option of limiting the bandwidth but hey.... It is easy to just do the sync in quite times anyway.  I'm pretty stoked that I can saturate the NW in the first place!

[InflatableMouse]

All the modern Windows OS's support QoS. If you look at the network connection properties you'll see a QoS Packet Scheduler.

This is not enough though. It needs something to determine priorities of packet streams somehow. Not sure if this is good analogy, but see it as a client server principle. The QoS Packet Scheduler on your windows boxes is like the client, it still needs a "server" to prioritise the packet streams. This usually sits on network devices, gateways or proxies. Your ISP may use QoS for telephony services over IP. Its all quite complex and this is about all I know about it too  .

[glynor]

A few things:

1. QoS should be relatively easy to enable on your LAN if you have a decent router doing NAT internally.  I don't know what this means if you are using WHS for this function (can it even do DHCP and all that?)...  But, if your router supports it, and your WHS box is using a static IP on your LAN, then you should be able to get the router to limit it despite it being attached to the switch and not the router directly.  Usually the settings for QoS on the router are fairly simple, though with cheaper consumer ones, you might only have control over outbound bandwidth, which doesn't help internally.

If you have two gateways, one "between" the LAN and the router, then it won't work.  But perhaps you should evaluate why you have it set up that way, if this is the case.  You'd almost certainly be better served with a real router/gateway system serving this function (and you could even go with something like Astaro on a beigebox if you want a lot of power).

2. If that switch supports trunking, you could grab a nice Intel dual-NIC card and double your fun coming out of the WHS box.   

3. I've used NetLimiter in the past and have had sporadic BSODs and other issues.  It works, but I wouldn't call it exactly "reliable".  This was quite some time ago, though, and it might be vastly improved by now.  I last used it early in the v2.0 days.  I used it for a long while though, so I had lots of experience with it at the time.

[jmone]

Mmmmm Always good getting some Glynor insights.....

So pretty simple setup really (sort off)...Core Switch is the HP J9560A that all PC's, 3 x Wireless Access Points, and another HP switch hang off (this second switch just connects AV Equipment including an HD HomeRun, Yami AV, Sat Box) and of course the Router (DrayTek Vigor2710n) which is what does the DHCP.  Both "servers" have static IP addresses.

I've attached some pics from the Vigors Bandwidth Mgt options but I thought that once the IP addresses were allocated by the DHCP function on the router it did nothing as all traffic was handled by the switch?  Am I reading it right that the Router still somehow does QOS or Bandwidth mgt even though non of the PC's are connected directly to the Routers ports?

Thanks
Nathan

[InflatableMouse]

If your router is another plug on the same switch that connects the pc's, then it won't be able to see traffic between the pc's because the switch will route the traffic from pc to pc, bypassing the router.

Another thing ... QoS is not about limiting bandwidth for certain applications, its about guaranteeing bandwidth for applications. So if you would place your QoS router between the pc's somehow, and enable QoS on JRiver port (52199?) for your clients you should be able to configure a guaranteed bacndwidth for them. Then, regardless of other traffic (your sync and backups), these clients should always be able to stream  up the bandwidth you configured. If there is no traffic to guarantuee, your sync/backups should run at full speed until someone starts watching a movie, then it starts limiting bandwidth for other applications.

[jmone]

That is what I thought but the I'm not going to use the Router as the inbuilt switch in on 100mbs.  Also I use LS Clients with "play local file" so all the NW is going to see is another file request from a different PC.  I've really only every run over this issue once when syncing 500GB between my MainPC and the WHS box while a LS Client was trying to play content also from the MainPC.  The simple answer is to just do these big syncs at an appropriate time (it is not that often) but I was thinking there may have been something in the WHS windows config where you could say - only use 90% of available Bandwidth.

[jmone]

Here is the blurb on the switch and it does mention QOS but NFI how to use it!

HP 1410 Switch series
Product overview
HP 1410 series switches are unmanaged Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet switches designed for small businesses looking for entry-level, low-cost networking solutions with a lifetime warranty. The HP 1410 switch series consists of seven models with flexible mounting options that allow customers to choose the best switch to meet their network switching needs. All models have QoS support and IEEE 802.3x flow control features to provide outstanding data efficiency. Simplified plug-and-play operation is enabled by features like Auto-MDIX and auto-speed negotiation. HP has innovated and combined the latest advances in silicon technology to provide some of the most power-efficient switches: 16- and 24-port Fast Ethernet models are the industry's first IEEE 802.3az compliant unmanaged Fast Ethernet switches. The available green features, along with the lifetime warranty, make the HP 1410 switch series ideal for customers seeking low-cost and reliable networking solutions.
Unmanaged Gigabit and Fast Ethernet switches
Green features for low power consumption
Fanless for silent operation
Quality-of-Service (QoS) support
Lifetime warranty*

[jmone]

2. If that switch supports trunking, you could grab a nice Intel dual-NIC card and double your fun coming out of the WHS box.  

I was tempted but I just tested my read/write (copying to the same pool) maxes out around 125MBs so I'd just move the bottle neck to the HDD as I currently get 110MBs on the connection now.

FYI - Copying from my HDD Pool to the SSD hits around 140MBs which I'm sure is the max from the 4TB Hitachi read spead.

Still.... another 30% ... could be fun  

What NIC would you suggest and I take it I'd need 2 (one for the WHS Server and the MAIN-PC Server) and just run two cables from each box to the switch?

[jmone]

For fun I tried adding Bandwidth Limits on the Router but no change.  As you can see the connection to the WHS is maxing the connection.  I could be (very) wrong but I thought these settings on the router would only effect it's ports not that of another switch.

[jmone]

How about this.... If I put one of these dual NIC's in the MAIN-PC (MC Server) that would boost my throughput to 140MB/s but keeping a single NIC in the WHS box it could only ever pull at 110MB/s leaving 30MB/sec for other duties?  Does this make sence?  And if so - what NIC?  I have on the MAIN-PC a ASUS P8Z77-M Pro with 2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8), 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black), and 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots that I've only used one of the the GPU.

[InflatableMouse]

If youre going to work with another NIC, how about this.

Don't team the nics but configure a second, separate subnet. Do the same on your other pc and use a dedicated network for backups.

These networks can connect on the same switches.

[jmone]

OK - some options, but which NIC?

[InflatableMouse]

Intel.

[jmone]

Intel® PRO/1000 MT Dual Port Server Adapter
Intel® PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Server Adapter

other?

[jmone]

OK - ordered a couple of Intel PRO/1000 PT (EXPI9402PTBLK) from the US as even with shipping two of these are much cheaper than one here in Oz.  Paid about US$50 each from Amazon.  Just got to wait a week or so till it gets freight forwarded.

[glynor]

For fun I tried adding Bandwidth Limits on the Router but no change.  As you can see the connection to the WHS is maxing the connection.  I could be (very) wrong but I thought these settings on the router would only effect it's ports not that of another switch.

You're right, of course.  I'd assumed (stupidly, as is now obvious when I think about it) that the backup was happening to a cloud based solution like backblaze or something.  Now, clearly, that doesn't make sense because your Internet uplink would need to have been a gigabit link (doh).  The type of QoS supported by your average home router won't do it.  You'd need a better gateway...

Can you explain your actual system (backup, storage, and how they relate) better?  I'm just wondering because I get full throttle LAN performance like that too, and I haven't had similar issues.  What are you using?

However, one thing you might want to just think about, since you revealed the router is only 100mbps...
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30212/54/

Is the router also the gateway?  (Sorry if you explained above, a lot happened in this thread since I barged in half asleep last night.)

[glynor]

Not that I disagree with the advice above... I'm just curious.

[glynor]

By the way, that switch does support 802.1p, which you'd want for internal LAN QoS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_P802.1p

We do this on our network at the office to provide guaranteed bandwidth for videoconferencing and other low-latency-tolerant use, even while allowing massive data transfers and backups and crazy stuff.  My Astaro box has the stuff for it too, but as I said, I've never had to turn it on, so I don't know a ton about the details.  I know that all the switches and LAN cards involved have to support VLAN and 802.1 tagging, but I think the prioritization is done at the server level, and then enabled on the LAN card and usually switch (though on a totally unmanaged switch, this might be automatic?)...  You might want to read these articles, 2 & 3 in particular:

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles-tutorials/network-protocols/Throttling-Bandwidth-QoS-Part2.html
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles-tutorials/network-protocols/Throttling-Bandwidth-QoS-Part4.html

802.1 is level-2 though, not TCP/IP (MAC/Switch layer, not IP-address layer), so you should be able to use it inside the network, if you can figure it out.

I wonder if your problem isn't more disk and less network?  Or something specific to the backup scheme or system?

In either case, without knowing specifically which switch you have (HP 1410 is like "Toyota Corolla", so it isn't clear which one you have), it is hard to say if it supports LACP anyway.  But it looks like it probably has at least rudimentary VLAN control, Flow Control, and whatnot.  If the problem is the network, it should be solvable.

Making the separate subnet would probably work too... If network is really the problem and not disk.

[glynor]

One other thing...

I HAVE seen stuff like this happen with crappy NICs and bad drivers. I use all Intel NICs now, so that's a thing of the past.  I have one of those PT cards in the HTPC, one of those and an MT card in the Astaro box, and the onboard NIC in my server is an Intel.

But thinking back to the bad-old Realtek days...  My memory is hazy, but...

You might be hitting a driver problem on the server end, more than needing to enable esoteric priority tagging...  If it isn't disk, and the server or recipient is using a crappy Realtek NIC, try updating the drivers (or grab a few more intel NICs and be done with it).

[jmone]

Ok,  here is a pic of my Home NW (worth 1,000 words).  I guess the best way will be to play once the new NIC arrive.

[glynor]

Ok,  here is a pic of my Home NW (worth 1,000 words).  I guess the best way will be to play once the new NIC arrive.

That helps, but I wanted more info about the backup.

Where is it going to/from?  What software is doing it?  Etc.

[jmone]

OK - there are two parts to the backup.

1) the WHS box wakes every PC up every night at takes a delta (minus the Media Content on MAIN-PC).  This works fine and causes no issues as it is normally running between 12 Midnight and 3am
2) I manually sync (was using Sync Toy,  now using Free File Sync) to first compare the content of my 25TB Drive Bender Pool on the MAIN-PC with another 25TB Drive Bender Pool on the WHS box.  If I like the changes I can the kick off the sync.  This is what takes all 110MB/sec bandwidth and starts causing stuttering from the HTPC which is trying to read content from the same drive pool on the MAIN-PC.  The pools can delivery more than this (eg can read up to 140MB/sec from my earlier test).

I have also raised the question over at the "Free File Sync" forum about limiting BW and have tried their RunWithBackgroundPriority but no change https://sourceforge.net/p/freefilesync/discussion/847543/thread/59428959/

So I figure an "easy" way is of course just do may manual syncs at a good time.... but that is kinda boring when surely an overinvestment in tech could do such a thing!

[glynor]

The pools can delivery more than this (eg can read up to 140MB/sec from my earlier test).

Sequential read throughput != random read performance (IOps).

In other words, I don't know that your test accurately reflects the conditions of the issue.  It is absolutely possible that it is network throughput problem, but that should impact both simultaneous reads basically equally, which is what makes me skeptical.  In other words, you might see some issues with the playback, but you should still be getting roughly ~50MB/s for each with default network priorities.  You typically don't hit trouble like this unless you are doing LOTS of simultaneous transfers from a variety of sources (8 machines each doing their own thing on the network, with no "awareness" of what the others are doing at the same time).

It smells like a disk throughput problem.

I'd see if you can recreate the problem doing an identical sync to a local disk (preferably one that can sustain a similar write speed, such as to an SSD, though this admittedly might be difficult, but perhaps you can just limit the size of the transfer, while retaining a similar random read pattern).

[glynor]

This would be much easier to test if you could play content or do tests locally on the server box, by the way.  That way, you could just run the regular sync, as it normally runs, and then run a disk throughput benchmark locally on the machine while the test is running.  But I don't think you can on WHS, right?

Is there a regular Windows shell and console?

[jmone]

I can test (a bit later) as all content is served or played off the MAIN-PC (which I also use as my daily PC).  The WHS Box is purely for Backup and nothing is ever played, streamed or pulled from it.  It is off all the time unless it is doing a PC backup or I wake it up to push a Media Sync to it from the MAIN-PC. 

[jmone]

So what I'll do is:
1) Push a backup to the WHS Box from MAIN while playing Content on the HTPC
2) Push a backup to the WHS Box from MAIN while playing Content on Main

...then compare the NW and HDD throughput of the two as the second takes the extra network connection out of the picture.

[glynor]

FWIW...



And it lets you sync automatically (file change detection, ala MC's Auto-Import), and will sync outside your LAN (so you can sync your Laptop even "on the road").  Isn't free, of course, and isn't perfect in every way, but I'm happy with it.

[jmone]

OK - on the Main PC I did 3 x BD Rips and played a BD and was getting around 60-70MB/s disk activity on average (but fluctuated between 10 and 120MB/s) .  I then kicked off a sync to the WHS and it pushed the average to around 150MB/s (but fluctuated between 80 and 200MB/s).  So it is NW bound not HDD bound.  I then kicked off a BD playback from the HTPC and it did play without stuttering (no idea why) as which the HDD activity did not seem to change the NW utilisation did hit 110 MB/s though the sync did seem to occasionally hit full throttle (but was mostly less).  Since I've got the two cards being shipped I'll plug them in and see how they go.

GoodSync seems "good" but FYI I never auto sync as I need to check first what is going to be pushed to the backup server in case I've made a deletion or change I did not intend (would defeat the purpose really!)

[InflatableMouse]

To put things into perspective a bit, as I'm doing a similar thing.

I've got 2 drive bender pools living on different machines. When I copy (sync, allway sync, similar to free sync), I push my network to its theoretical limit. This causes the drive bender console to show between 100MB/s - 140MB/s; I guess its buffering technique causes it to sometimes peak and sometimes fall off a bit.

This sometimes causes even a simple music playback on a network client to stutter.

But locally, I can play blurays just fine. In fact, when I had a vm running with an extremely heavy database spread over all 5 disks in the drive bender pool, I was seeing nearly 200MB/s simultaneous read/write actions. I've peaked either one or the other higher than that, but never had this simultaneous so that was exceptional for me. Playback never suffered even though everything lives on the same pool.

So with regards to backups and syncs, I run 2 backups from my main workstation to my server/htpc, full image on sundays, daily incrementals at 18:00. A separate file backup at 19:00, same scheme full on sundays, incrementals on the rest. Allway sync is keeping photos and music folders in sync on the main pc and server/htpc and locally, the server/htpc syncs the music and photo folder to a backup disk with separate retention settings for modified and deleted files (this is why I like allway sync so much!). Also, locally an image backup is made the same as from my main pc. Last but not least, all library backups are synced to an online storage thingy, Skydrive.

The times at which the image/file backups run are times that we are having dinner/watching the news. No streaming will happen. The syncs from allway sync only have to keep things in sync, so their data copy is typically very low, except when I've done massive changes, and then there's no streaming because I'm working on making changes . But if someone would want to watch something, it shouldn't be a problem since storage is local to the htpc.

I guess its a plus that I'm having my storage locally in my htpc, it will almost always have enough resources to play. I've had trouble, when all cpu resources were being consumed by some other multicore process like parity calculations for instance.

Goodsync looks nice too, I might have a look at it because throughput throttling is one thing Allway Sync doesn't have.

[jmone]

IM - I agree.  All I have to do is pick when to do my sync as it is not time critical and I've only ever had the issue once.  Other options is to swap to another prog that has throttling... but it is all fun to see what we can do.  Looking forward to my new dual NIC cards!  Once bonus is WHS does not like NON Server Intel NICs and I and to bodge the install on this box to get it to recognise the embedded "consumer" Intel NIC.

[glynor]

Goodsync looks nice too, I might have a look at it because throughput throttling is one thing Allway Sync doesn't have.

It works quite well, all things considered.  Two things though...

1. It really, really, really doesn't like Offline Files (so if you have Win 7 Pro, you have to turn that off).
2. The interface isn't great.  It isn't terrible, but it isn't great.  They need a better UI designer.

In any case, it might very well be the network, and like I said... I run all Intel NICs.  I don't think you'll be sorry you got them.

[InflatableMouse]

In any case, it might very well be the network, and like I said... I run all Intel NICs.  I don't think you'll be sorry you got them.

I don't think so either, Intel makes some of the best NIC's if you ask me. I've had motherboards in the past with integrated Intel NIC's, but it doesn't seem they come like that anymore.

Having said that, I have to say that the integrated Realtek cards in recent boards (read: after s775 era) have been very good, for home use at least. I've not had any trouble with drivers, performance or compatibility with them. Personally I could not justify replacing them with Intel addon NICs.

[glynor]

I don't think so either, Intel makes some of the best NIC's if you ask me. I've had motherboards in the past with integrated Intel NIC's, but it doesn't seem they come like that anymore.

My ASUS Z77 board did (the P8Z77-V Deluxe).  It adds around $30 to the cost of the board for the OEM, so they only do it on their higher-end models.

Having said that, I have to say that the integrated Realtek cards in recent boards (read: after s775 era) have been very good, for home use at least. I've not had any trouble with drivers, performance or compatibility with them. Personally I could not justify replacing them with Intel addon NICs.

Agreed.  They're far less troublesome than they used to be now, though this really only applies to Sandy Bridge and later gen chipsets.  Up until then, I'd seen problems (including the Realtek LAN on my Nehalem board).  The problems were always solved by driver updates, but... After the fourth or fifth time it happened to me, I just decided to stop using them for the foreseeable future wherever possible.

I actually do still use one Realtek LAN chip at home.  That ASUS has a second LAN port, which is powered by the Realtek chip.  I use it only for certain VMs in VMWare Workstation, which I want to have on my DMZ rather than my main network.  It works fine and I've had no issues with it at all, but it isn't used heavily and certainly doesn't push the Gigabit link to the max.

[MrC]

Having written NIC drivers for a former premier NIC vendor, I can say with a high degree of confidence that there is a fair amount of variation of speed, quality and reliability across any vendor.  Chip suppliers routinely rev chips, fixing esoteric bugs,  vendors routinely source chips from multiple chip suppliers, a single product SKU may have several variations of chips or firmware updates, and there are often multiple product groups producing drivers, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.  I was absolutely amazed at the variance of product quality across seemingly identical or similar product lines.

For example, one NIC group produced a driver with a horrifically low 80% efficiency (so I wrote a new driver to bring it up to 99.6%).  They were leaving nearly 20% performance on the table.

[glynor]

3com?

I'm trying to think of whom would have been considered a "premiere NIC vendor" that doesn't make their own chips.  Actually, I suppose it could have been any of the other "big" guys too, though... Netgear, Linksys/Cisco, D-Link, Belkin, etc.

I used to love 3com NICs though, back in the old days, because their drivers didn't stink.  Maybe you worked there, and that was why. 

[MrC]

It is clear why you won a box of steaks.

(I did some consulting there for a while)

[glynor]

Hah.  Awesome.

[jmone]

  Geeks!

FYI,

MAIN-PC = Reltek RTL8168B : Never had any issue

WHS Box = Intel  82579V : Well...WHS (based on Windows Server 2008 R2) refused to install as it could not "find" a driver for my Intel Gigabit Ethernet 82579V Controller.  I had the discs, I had downloaded all versions of the drivers etc etc... Nothing... Turns out Intel don't what you using "consumer" grade stuff on their server products so in the install config file they removed an install option for the 82579V.  Strange thing is WHS is exactly aimed at consumers.  Anyway after many hours I found another in the same boat that had edited the install config file and away we went.  They really want you to use the Intel "Pro" adapters.....

[MrC]

You've gotta love brilliant marketing.  Take a NIC, assign it a PCI hardware ID, and call it the Consumer version.  Change the PCI hardware ID, its now a Server version, and mark-up the price by 100% to 300%.

[jmone]

You've gotta love brilliant marketing.

mmmm I can assure you I was using quite a different expression

[glynor]

Any luck?

[jmone]

Ahhh the two NIC cards are on a DHL plane somewhere around Hawaii I guess.  With luck I'll have the Monday sometime!

[jmone]

Got the first NIC card into the "Main-PC" - No probs, and tried three drivers (all seemed to perform about the same - Std MS, the ones from the Intel DL Site and the latest were from Intel Drivers from that windows "automatically" found and installed from the Net).

Anyway - how good is this!  I can now push 100% to the WHS box and 40ish% to the HTPC, so overall a 40% increase.  The odd thing is for the first segment you can see that the copying to the HTPC is also 100% but then it slows back down.  Now it does this exact behavior even if there are no other file transfers - eg only coping to the HTPC and NOT the WHS at the same time.  I don't know if it is the NIC in the HTPC or the fact the only drive is an older 64GB SSD and it does not have much spare room.

[jmone]

Also I put the second Pro1000 card in the WHS box and did a test with a dual connection copying JUST from the Main PC and (I think) as expected both PCs just used the one connection.  If I then kick of a copy from the WHS box to the Main PC it will crank up the second connection.  So I take it the benefit of the Pro1000 card in this WHS box is that it is supported by Windows Server 2008 (WHS11) but there is little point using the second NIC port as I'll only ever be hammering it from the MAIN-PC.

[jmone]

Due to an issue with a DLNA device dropping out due to "seeing" two NIC cards on my Main-PC (the DLNA server), I've had a play with Teaming and it seems to work with my HP Switch (see PIC).  In testing, the good news is I could play content without any stuttering (The HTPC was pulling content from a share, and the WDHDLIVE was using DLNA) while at the same time I was syncing to the WHS box and also having PC doing a copy.  While the NW utilisation was fluctuating a lot it seemed to handle it all without the clients having any issues.  

The only "downside" is the Win7 Network Map feature is no longer able to generate the map.

Pretty Happy!