Slow copy over network

[MB0]

For some reason, when I use BC3 to copy from local PC to network drive, the copy is very slow. But performing the same action using Windows file explorer takes seconds. Local PC is Win7 64-bit on 1 Gbs network. So I copy a 900 MB file using Windows explorer and it takes 8 to 9 seconds. Same operation using BC3 takes ~6 minutes. I can repeat this experiment over and over. Interesting thing, when copying from network drive to local, both explorer and BC3 perform fast. It's just when the network drive is the destination. Any ideas?

Thanks,
~M

[Aaron]

Hello,

Thanks for contacting us. What kind of network drive are you copying to? Is it a NAS device or a samba share on a specific version of Windows?

Before attempting the transfer, are all other background comparisons completed (the red Cancel button has stopped blinking)?

[MB0]

The drive is a 4 disk RAID drive hosted by a Windows 2003 Server. I have run the test using both mapped drive letter and UNC path to access the network. I have copied using Windows 7 File Explorer, command prompt, and BC3 build 13046. I am copying a 976 MB video file, back and forth between two folders, one on my local pc and one the file server.

I just ran the same tests again and watched the I/O using sysinternals process explorer utility. When copying either direction with file explorer copy and paste, or command line, I see about 95 MB per second I/O. When copying from network to local using BC3 I also see about 95 MBs. But when copying from local to network with BC3, I only get at most 12 MBs. I'm pretty sure it has not always been this way. I just sort of realized yesterday when copying some large video files from my PC to the file server, it was taking an unusually long time.

I would be happy to help debug if there is anything I can do like run tests in a debug mode or something or use some special utility.

Just let me know if I can help.

Thanks,
~M

[MB0]

Update

I got a new NAS yesterday and finally got around to repeating my tests. I still the get same results with the old Win 2003 file server, but BC3 performs as expected (equivalent to other copy methods) against the new NAS. I guess there is just something bizarre with the old file server.

[Aaron]

We've had some reports that NAS devices can exhibit odd behavior. Thanks for reporting back that you were able to track that down. Let us know if you run into any other issues or have any other questions.

[f111th]

I am experiencing same thing , but not NAS connected

I have a direct connection to my server as a mapped drive.
Win 7 - 64 ultimate 1GB network , server is win 2003 server r2 using 4 GB teamed network .
Windows explorer copy uses between 80 and 98% bandwidth (About 80- 115 MB/s)
BC3 only uses 10% of the bandwidth.
I love the product , but have stopped using it because i am transferring HDD images that can be 1-2 TB in size. Copy is almost 10 times slower us BC3.

Local tests show the transfer with BC3 and Exploerer are the same, however network speeds are brutal.

I figure it must be something with the packets that are being sent over the network that would cause the slowness.

Please help as i would prefer to start using the product again

Derek

[Aaron]

Hello,

In most cases where we have heard similar reports, both Explorer and BC3 have both been slow. Are you using the latest release of BC3 (3.2.4)? All BC3.x updates are free and you can update to the latest from the Help menu -> Check for updates or manually from our website.

Does Win7 have all the latest patches applied? Did you recently install Service Pack 1?

[f111th]

Yes

BC is upto date
I have not specifically let it update to SP1. Other than that mostly upto date.

The slowness was noticed before in previous releases as well on XP64 and at that point i chose to drag and drop in explorer.

Today i wanted to try and see if was any better, as well with Win 7 and it had not improved.

Are there any other changes i can try.

Derek

[Aaron]

Would it be possible to test on an unteamed connection? Is your server currently configured with 4 1GB network cards?

[Aaron]

In addition, when you mention Teaming, this is what you are referring to, correct?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/254101

[helispot]

I'm having the same problem. I'm on a Win 7 Professional 64 bit machine, and mirroring a directory to an NAS on my network. It's just crawling. Although interestingly, I'm 99% sure when I first started, it was moving along fast, then something happened during the process and all of the speed went away.

The folder being mirrored has 300,000 items in it, almost all of them are small email files. It's moving about one file per second right now. This is going to take an eternity.

Was there ever a fix discovered for this?

Yes, I have all of the Service Packs installed.

And yes, everything moves much, much faster (read: normal) if I just drag the files over in Windows Explorer.

And I'm not using a "mapped drive", I have the destination folder selected directly. (i.e. not using "Z:", but rather, "\\networkshare\folder", etc.)

Any help?

[Aaron]

Hello,

What type of NAS device is it? Is it running with the newest drivers/firmware, and can you 'reboot' it? Most NAS devices run a variant of Linux, and if something changes mid-stream, a good troubleshooting step is to reboot both system and NAS.