Windows 7 Slow LAN Transfers to NAS Box

Dadda

New Member
Hi Guys,

I have a Win 7 65-bit computer and a Thecus N2200 NAS Box which has just 1 x 1TB disk (ie not raided or anything - JBOD)

On my Win7 computer I have created mapped drives to the 2 directories on the NAS box where I transfer shows I've recorded on my TV Card. These directories are "Movies" and "Shows".

I have noticed that most of the time, once I've trimmed up my shows, that I can right-click and drag them to these networked drives (eg Y for \\N2200\Shows and Z for \\N2200\Movies) and select "Move" and the detailed dialogue box can show them transferring anywhere from 2 to 6 MB/Sec.

Unfortunately, on occasions, when I do this, the transfer speed will be something like 26kb/sec with an estimated completion time of say 10 hours. Yet I can click on the Y or Z drive and immediately see the existing files on the NAS box, plus I can double-click on one of the video files and play it back on the Win7 computer. Furthermore, playing/browsing these media files from either one of my 2 Network Media Players (Zensonic machines) isn't an issue.

There have been times when transfer speeds are slow, ie 26kb/sec so I stop the transfer and try the following:
1 - Reboot Win 7 box (actually do a power off) - No improvement
2 - Reboot NAS box as well - No improvement
3 - Checked drivers are latest drivers - no improvement
4 - Disabled IP6 - no improvement

Lastly, on occasions when the transfer speed has been slow, I've left the computer alone and gone to work only to remote access it later from work (using LogMeIn) and tried the transfer again (Explorer window still open from previous failed attempt) and now the transfer happens at 3MB/Sec. Nothing was changed, no cables touched, no boxes/switches/routers turned off or anything and yet my transfer speed has magically re-appeared.

During these slow LAN transfers, I can still download large files from the internet very quickly.

I've checked various posts about slow LAN transfer speeds with Win7 and have tried the recommended solutions (latest drivers, changing from auto detect to 100Mbs Full Duplex, disable IPv6, etc) but nothing works. There's no rhyme or reason why it suddenly slows or comes back. Most of the threads regarding slow LAN speeds seem to be for people who's speed is always slow, not intermittent like mine.

I suspect it might be some Windows service that stops (or hangs) but don't know which one to look at.

It's annoying at the moment, so when it does happen, I just leave my TV shows on the WIN7 computer until the next time the transfers happen again at 2MB/sec+.

Regards

Max
 
Hi Guys,

Does anyone have any ideas about this? I have noticed other threads about slow transfer speeds across the network and it seems to be with other non-Win7 systems.

Here's a transfer dialogue box showing my attempt of transferring a 1GB TV show to my NAS box

Transfer Speed 2..png

Here's a screenshot of me trying to copy all my pictures of my daughter to my laptop which is running WinXP Professional

Transfer Speed 1..png

Each day that goes by means more and more TV shows that I have on my computer that I can't transfer to my NAS box. If I leave it run overnight, I often come back to find an error message saying it can't find the destination. In other words, the transfer speed slows down so much it stops. Actually, whilst typing this, my transfer to the NAS box (ie the 1st screenshot) has timed out, so here's an example of the error message I get:

Transfer Speed 3..png

This wouldn't be so bad if I could watch my shows via the Network Media Player, but my "Video" folder, even though it's shared, can't be seen by either player. I've got another thread about that, plus there's someone else who's shared folders aren't seen by their media player.

As for my network issue, I've been looking around and found a thread which mentioned AVG. I was using AVG Free version 9 so I uninstalled this in case it was an issue, but after a re-boot, still no luck - the above screenshots were done without AVG on this Win7 computer, so I'll reinstall it. I thought it sounded like a reasonable thing - perhaps AVG was doing file scans before allowing a file to transfer, but the uninstall has proven that idea wrong.

1) Is there any logs that I can provide that might give a clue such as what it's trying to do when it making the transfers?
2) Is there any services that should be (or should not be) running which may impact performance.

I have mapped my drives as follows:

\\N2200\Shows
\\192.169.1.10\Shows

I've also:

1) gone and expanded the Network section of Explorer and tried dragging the files to that rather than a mapped drive but still no luck.
2) unchecked IPv6 in the network adapter settings

Surely there must be some logging that is either happening or can be turned on to find out what the problem is. I can click on one of the network drives to the NAS and it usually displays the contents immediately (sometimes there's a lag of a second or so). The NAS box must be working ok as the wife and I can both be watching different shows from it at the same time with no issues (we have 2 network media players).

I'm using the standard built in Windows Firewall. Is there something there that can be set to say anything in an IP range of 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.10 is trusted both ways and not to block anything (this might also fix the Shared folder issue perhaps)????

This is very frustrating. As mentioned in my original post, sometimes the high transfer speed will come back of it's own accord, either after restarting or even being left alone without a restart, but I've now got TV shows from the 15th Feb that I still haven't been able to transfer given the fact I try at least once or twice a day and it's now the 21st Feb.

Regards and thanks in advance for any suggestions on what to try.
 
Just a thought! What cables are you using and is your network adapter a gigabit variety. I had slow transfers around my network and then upgraded to all gigabit switches and more importantly CAT6 cables to all equipment. Cat5e is ok but Cat5 is NOT up to the standard. My transfer speeds are now very good and can do massive system image in a few minutes. So I would check cables and network cards first.
 
Yes my adapter is a gigabit variety.

As it turns out, yesterday I booted up the computer and once again tried to transfer one file and this time it started transferring at around 4MB/sec. So I then grabbed the 10 or so other TV shows that I haven't been able to transfer since the 15th Feb and dragged them to the mapped drive and within a couple of hours, they had all transferred.

Mind you, this is how it goes. Randomly, and sometimes without even restarting the computer, my transfer speeds either go from Great (3-5MB/sec) down to pathethic speeds (26kb/s) or vise versa.

That's why I suspect it might be some service that needs to be running for good network transfer speeds (or perhaps not running, if the service is putting too much overhead on the system).

That's why I'm hoping there's some logging that I can examine and compare a good transfer speed to when I have lousy speed.
 
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