Solved NAS newbie seeking advice

22H2 22621.2361

I have recently acquired a Synology DS-112 with a 1TB WD Red hard drive. (WD10EFRX). I was hoping to use it for Macrium Reflect backups but it is very slow - about 120Mbps over wifi, whereas backing up to a USB 3 HDD reaches 1Gbps.

The laptop is an Acer Swift 1 SF114-34. It has no ethernet port. Its network device is an Intel AX201 160MHz with 802.11 a/g/n/ac/ax

My router is a BTB Business Smart Hub 1, with 802.11 b/g/n/ac

I realise the NAS is ten years old and I can always use it to store all the music I have ripped over the last decade.

Any tips are gratefully received.

is the nas attached via a wireless networking adapter? Or is it connected to your router via a network cable?

kelper said:

It has no ethernet port.

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No internet port on his notebook pparks1. I was also wondering why a NAS if it's only for backups?
Are you going to be in another part of the house. Does the notebook and the NAS have Bluetooth ?

Flashorn said:

No internet port on his notebook pparks1. I was also wondering why a NAS if it's only for backups?
Are you going to be in another part of the house. Does the notebook and the NAS have Bluetooth ?

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I know that his laptop does not have an ethernet port and is wireless only.

I know the NAS has an 1Gbps ethernet port, and I believe it is capable of wireless as well...but i believe you have to add a wireless adapter to the NAS for it to be wireless. So my question is whether the NAS is setup wireless versus wired.

pparks1 said:

So my question is whether the NAS is setup wireless versus wired.

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From his explanation, seems, to me anyway, that he already tried the wireless way
and deemed it too slow. My guess is that he is wanting maybe other alternatives
like the one you just mentioned , a wireless adapter or BT adapter.

Feel free to laugh, it is actually funny looking. I have a network adapter for my old dell. I’ve always found NAS drives to run at snail pace so I removed all mine. And to be brutally honest, I have never bothered to look up what a NAS drive actually is, I originally bought 3 x 3TB NAS drives because they were cheap.

So I converted my old Dell into some sort of a mini PC. Placed an SSD into an external hub and added a Ethernet adapter and USB C/3 hub. They’re attached with Velcro. I get stared at in cafe’s. But it causes people to ask. Kind of like having a pet poodle in a handbag, it draws attention

I know this doesn’t answer your question, but lately I’ve been buying SSD’s for backups, I have 4 for backup purposes now.

antspants said:

... lately I’ve been buying SSD’s for backups, I have 4 for backup purposes now.

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I'm currently using two Samsung 2TB T7 Shield portable SSD drives for backups. One T7 is dedicated to Macrium images. I have a 1 TB C: drive and it takes just a little over 5 minutes to make a complete drive image on the T7 using one of my Thunderbolt 4 ports. The other T7 is used for Microsoft File History backups.

TraderGary said:

I'm currently using two Samsung 2TB T7 Shield portable SSD drives for backups. One T7 is dedicated to Macrium images. I have a 1 TB C: drive and it takes just a little over 5 minutes to make a complete drive image on the T7 using one of my Thunderbolt 4 ports. The other T7 is used for Microsoft File History backups.

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I’ve also been cloning my drive, removing the drive with the clone and putting it on a shelf. It just makes sense, any fatal issues with my C: drive would be instantly resolved. At least that’s how it appears in my thinking.

"it is very slow - about 120Mbps over wifi,"

That would be a WiFi limitation, check the hardware specs of WiFi links and signal strengths.
You can expect 2-3 times faster with all Ethernet cable.

The Laptops Intel AX201 which is 2x2 maybe the limiting factor depending on the signal strengths.
The exact specs of the BTB Business Smart Hub 1 are difficult to find, factors like number of 5 GHz channels is significant, should be more than 2 but I don't know.

I have a DS212J NAS which is just a 2 bay slightly slower version. It has 2 x 2 TB WD20EFRX Red drives in it.
Laptop to NAS is all 1 Gbps network cable.

The speed doing a MR image backup, essentially one big file, is around 300 Mbps(35 MB/s). That is the same as reviewers said at the time.
It is going back a bit, but from what I recall the DS112 version is only a bit faster than the DS 212J.
So a reasonable estimate would be around 400 Mbps(45 MB/s).

The WiFi Analyzer App from MS Store is what I use for more detail on the WiFi scenario. Useful to understand what dBm power levels are, not just channel occupation.

FYI, the Samsung 2TB T7 Shield portable SSD is on sale right now on Amazon for $129 USD.

I have a Netgear Nighthawk Router [no Modem in it] with 802.11AC Wireless. It's using the Uplink port to a PoE Modem for Internet. I also have an 8-port Switch attached to it by cable. Six Desktops are connected by Ethernet cable plus 2 printers and a Buffalo LS220 NAS unit with 2 x 2TB Seagate drives running as RAID 1. I also have 2 Notebooks connected Wirelessly to the Router and the one I'm typing on now is also accessing files on the NAS, not seeing much difference in speed versus a USB External drive on a Desktop. A whole lot of my file sharing speed depends upon the size of the files involved.

TraderGary said:

FYI, the Samsung 2TB T7 Shield portable SSD is on sale right now on Amazon for $129 USD.

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We get absolutely smashed in Australia. Nothing in my opinion is affordable anymore.
I can get a 500GB for AU$110.00. But none of this, I suppose, fixes kelpers issue.

antspants said:

We get absolutely smashed in Australia. Nothing in my opinion is affordable anymore.

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We are getting slammed, also, since 2020. A large part is people don't seem eager to have jobs so it affects ALL supply channels, e.g. parts ranging from a 2x4 screw to a jet engine.

Berton said:

We are getting slammed, also, since 2020. A large part is people don't seem eager to have jobs so it affects ALL supply channels, parts ranging from a 2x4 screw to a jet engine.

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I think that is what is happening here. And companies are also still using COVID as an excuse

I was looking for a NAS for latter this year as project but, saw this:


Now, I'm the only one using this notebook and really don't have the need to use
any of my storage outside my PC room so, in order to clean up the desk, one of these
options might just do the trick. Might not be what you are looking for but, it's an
alternative.

kelper said:

22H2 22621.2361

I have recently acquired a Synology DS-112 with a 1TB WD Red hard drive. (WD10EFRX). I was hoping to use it for Macrium Reflect backups but it is very slow - about 120Mbps over wifi, whereas backing up to a USB 3 HDD reaches 1Gbps.

The laptop is an Acer Swift 1 SF114-34. It has no ethernet port. Its network device is an Intel AX201 160MHz with 802.11 a/g/n/ac/ax

My router is a BTB Business Smart Hub 1, with 802.11 b/g/n/ac

I realise the NAS is ten years old and I can always use it to store all the music I have ripped over the last decade.

Any tips are gratefully received.

Click to expand...

@kelper

The big problem with wifi for any sort of continuous background processing jobs shifting masses amounts of data is that it usually (or probably invariably) works in half duplex so if you can cut that bit out of the mix you are already on to a winner.

SO : How to do it ->

One way which would work decently is from the NAS get a USB_>LAN (faster than a WIFI->USB) adapter - cable up to a 4 / 5 port cheap unmanaged switch (I suggest the switch because you could use other devices that way such as a laptop with a slow wifi card or devices that don't have wifi) -- then run a lan cable to a decent modern wifi extender with some lan ports.

A Nighthawk extender is a good one - it has a theoretical wifi speed of 1.3 Gbps which is faster than typical LAN at 1.0 Gbps but should be fast enough. Now you should be able to get a much faster speed on your backups - especially if you use a lan connector from the device being backed up (even via USB->LAN). You might not get the 1Gbps depending on the type of data being backed up but you should certainly get much faster than 200 Mbps The router itself can handle the ac protocol between it and say a wifi extender and also the extender can increase traffic throughput by using both the 2.4 and 5GHZ bands simultaneously (and full duplex too).

So NAS->USB/LAN->Switch_>LAN->Wifi extender->wifi to router

Device being backed up->USB/LAN->Switch

You only need a single cable from switch to the wifi extender.

Cost of this fairly negligible for switch (probably around €12-15, LAN cable - just "nick some from your office" !!, USB_>LAN can't be more than € 5. The Wifi extender is the priciest bit but these have come down significantly in price. My one still gives a good signal in my shed over 150 metres from the main router (It's where I'm banished to on Sat afternoons etc when watching football -- i.e the real one with a round ball not a squashed rugby ball and where you actually have to kick the ball).

Cheers
jimbo

I have a cheap USB-LAN adapter. I used this to connect the laptop, via a Cat6 to the NAS bur the speed was only 120mbps.

I think I will give up using the NAS for backup and possibly buy an external SSD as suggested.

My wifi link seems to be only 144mbps each way so that's the problem. Would a dongle be any faster as it would have to go into my USB 3 port?

For those asking, my NAS was attached to my router with a Cat 6 cable. The manual says I could fit a wifi dongle to it.

Thanks to all who replied.

kelper said:

Its network device is an Intel AX201 160MHz with 802.11 a/g/n/ac/ax

Click to expand...

This is mine on this notebook:
Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (211NGW)
which is Intel
I can change /upgrade if I want too. Can it be done on yours?
Also, you were asking about a dongle well, this is not a dongle but
a WiFi adapter.

kelper said:

For those asking, my NAS was attached to my router with a Cat 6 cable. The manual says I could fit a wifi dongle to it.

Thanks to all who replied.

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Since this NAS is so old it probably only has a 10/100 adapter so network speeds will be much lower than a gigabit adapter. I had been an older Netgear NAS that only had a 10/100 port. I finally updated to a newer Synology with gigabit ports. Much faster network transfer speeds.

BamaInArk said:

Since this NAS is so old it probably only has a 10/100 adapter so network speeds will be much lower than a gigabit adapter. I had been an older Netgear NAS that only had a 10/100 port. I finally updated to a newer Synology with gigabit ports. Much faster network transfer speeds.

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The Synology DS-112 has a gigabit LAN interface.