WD MyBook World Edition II Speed problems

[kaotik78]

Hello all,

I have just purchased a WD MyBook World Edition II (gotta shorten the title..) and have it hooked up through my 100mbps LAN. My network setup is my Laptop which goes through Wi-Fi on my Netgear RangeMax Router.

The MyBook has a 10/10/1000 ethernet port on the back, and I have even tried plugging in directly to my laptop to the router to transfer files. It seems that anything I do with this unit, even browsing through a shared drive on my laptop has a lag time of click, wait, view the files/folders, click, wait etc... Transfering files/writing/copying etc is also like using a old 10based T connection to transfer files, slow...

I have now worked myself into a corner as this was to be a simple purchase for my small business to archive work etc and has turned into a small side project researching and reading etc, time I don't have right now. I looked at the HP Media Vault and the Netgear SC101, but opted for the WD based on the price, 3 year warranty, and small footprint. HP Mediavault required me to purchase an additional drive on top of the 500.00 pricepoint with one drive, and the SC101 has too many hardware incompatibilities I have read and thus, my purchase of the WD.

One other point to note, that accessing the control panel on this unit, is even slow, click, wait, click wait etc. Contacting WD has yielded a no response, message boards over at WD have also yielded little to no responses so I am looking for some help if anyone has run into this problem, has any suggestions or ideas? To me 100mbps should be pretty fast to transfer/copy/write etc, do I have to upgrade my network to 1000gigabit ethernet???

Thanks everyone for any help/suggestions you can throw at me!

 

[Iceblue]

The pattern of dots and dashes on the case might look like cooling slots, but they are actually a message in morse code put there by a disgruntled employee. It says "warning this device is slower than it appears warning this device is slower than it appears warning this dev"

Seriously, it may very well be that this is just a slow device. For some reason, small NAS appliance makers have been pretty shameless about advertizing "gigabit" for the network interface while supplying "kilobit" internal electronics for getting the data on and off the drives.

You should test it using the simplest possible WIRED connection between a fast PC and your NAS. Understand, all parts of the system may be contributing to the performance problems. Certainly, wireless is not the way to get high performance file transfers... that is actually a lot closer to the old 10Base-T networks than most people realize.

Also, use a desktop PC for the test, if possible. Laptop hard drives are notoriously slow. Usually, 5400 rpm or even slower, for example, and compromised ATA controllers to conserve battery power.

Then, with your fast PC wired to the NAS and nothing else going on on the network, set up several large file transfers and time them - both directions. That will give you a pretty good idea of the sustained throughput of your system.

 

[kaotik78]

Actually I took a 196mb movie and transfered it via wireless to the NAS, it took 1:32 to transfer. I tried my ethernet port and went wired to the network and it took 48sec. I did not try to "pull" anything off of it yet.

Unfortunately the laptop is all I use, but I'll give it a shot with my desktop which is current but not used.

 

[Iceblue]

I'm assuming your video file is actually 196MB ("B" = bytes; "b" = bits). That would compute to 1568Mb.

That would mean your wireless connection transferred a file from your laptop hard drive to the NAS drive at ~17Mbps. About typical for 802.11g wireless.

Your wired connection performed at ~33Mbps. This should be faster, but a lot depends on the sustained throughput specs of your laptop hard drive and your NAS. You should be able to reach in the vacinity of 60 - 70 Mbps with a 100Mbps wired network and good performing drives / drive controllers on both ends.

 

[kaotik78]

196 MB (206,467,076 bytes) is what the ol' properties has yielded through Win XP. The laptop is a Gateway MX6421, 1gb ram, and the hdd is 80mb running at 4200rpm. I guess im just spited and bitter that the drive's supplied archive software stinks and otherwise does not work which after the 420.00 investment, I have to buy different archival software. Guess I couldn't beat a 2hdd Raid enabled NAS for that price.

So I think the transfer rate is on par with the wi-fi? Probably best that I hook it up to the wired ethernet for transfers

 

[kaotik78]

Bumping this up for some attention to this reply from WD.

"In most cases, the best way to share a drive on a network is with a Ethernet port. The drive is rated at 10MB/s, so if you need a faster drive, then you may wan to get a USB/FireWire drive. This drive is not meant for businesses, only SOHO or small business use."

"A Network drive isn't going to be as fast as a USB/FireWire drive or another computer on the network. You can expect transfer speeds of 10 MB/s. And there is no revision to speed up the interface speed."

Is this true of all NAS systems, only 10MB/s on a 10/100/1000 ethernet connection????

Im having a hard time believing that even if I had a gigabit ethernet, I could not get faster rates than 10MB/s??????????

 

[Iceblue]

10MB/sec = 80Mbps, or pretty close to the max you could expect from a 100Mpbs ethernet.

In the real world, the throughput you can expect from a NAS is governed by more than just the ethernet throughput. A NAS that advertises 1000Mbps (gigabit) support does not mean it actually provides throughput in and out of the device any faster than it would through a 100Mbps network.

Here are some things to consider:
ATA 133 (PATA) goes up to 133MB/sec (~1000Mbps)
SATA 1.5 goes up to 150MB/sec (~1200Mbps)
SATA 3.0 goes up to 300MB/sec (~2400Mbps)

However, the Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 SATA 3.0 hard drive has a sustained throughput of only 32.9 - 67.8 MB/sec (depending on location of the data on the platters), or ~ 260 - 540 Mbps. So, even with a perfectly efficient NAS electronics, using one of the highest performing comsumer drives on the market will not get you but 1/3 of the way to gigabit throughput on and off the drive for large files.

Check out SmallNetBuilder's NAS pages, and especially their NAS test charts.

 

[kaotik78]

So by me trying to find something different than this WD im basically only going to get around that 10 megs a second transfer rate given the network traffic etc?

I thought that when the network was 10MB/s it transfered exactly 10MB/s, same for 100MB/s ethernet etc etc. This must be the considered "norm" for NAS systems then?

It's been a LONG time since I really looked at ethernet or TCP/IP that "in-depth" and im still here scratching my head asking WHY.. lol.

My 100Mbps ethernet can really only transfer 10MB/sec? Where did the 80Mbps come from? I think im getting my abbreviations screwed up?

Mbps = Megabits per second
MB/s = Megabytes per second

AH HA! I think I had an epiphany.... If network gear is all listed as Mbps, then my 100Mbps router/switch converted to MB/s is around 12.5MB/s transfer rate

I always thought they transfered in Megabytes not Megabits....... Am I now on the right path in my thinking???

 

[Iceblue]

I always thought they transfered in Megabytes not Megabits....... Am I now on the right path in my thinking???

Yeah, you have to pay attention to the units of measure. Networks (wired ethernet, wireless, USB, firewire, etc) are typically specified in xbps, where x=K, M, or G, and b=bits. File sizes and hard drive data transfer specifications are typically specified in xB, where B=bytes. There are 8 bits in a byte.

So by me trying to find something different than this WD im basically only going to get around that 10 megs a second transfer rate given the network traffic etc?...This must be the considered "norm" for NAS systems then?

I didn't say that. Anything upwards of 60Mpbs file transfer rate across a 100Mbps network is in the expected range. A pretty much idle network can get upwards of 80-90Mbps, but not much higher. Ethernet does have some overhead.

For wireless, you can use a rule-of-thumb that you take the claimed bit rate (54Mbps for 802.11g) and divide it by 3. If you can reach that 1/3 threshhold, you're in the acceptable range. A really fussy network designer might get wireless to approach 1/2 for "perfect" wireless network. Wireless has much more overhead than wired, plus the other noise issues wireless has to deal with.

For gigabit, you can expect general network throughput to be able to approach the same percentage as for your 100Mpbs wired - that is, upwards of 800Mbps should be achievable with true gigabit equipment. To reach that, you need to pay attention to the equipment you buy (routers, switches, NICs, NASs, etc.) to make sure it actually performs at gigabit speeds, and is not just compatible with a gigabit interface. There are a lot of marketing games going on here. If you expect to reach this throughput, you also need to understand and pay attention to such concepts as "jumbo frames" and ensure that is supported by your equipment where necessary.

The NAS chart I provided the link to includes several NAS devices that exceed 100Mbps in throughout, but to get the truly high-zoot performance on gigabit networks, many people custom build their NAS.

 

[kaotik78]

Ok I believe I get it now. I was hung up on sheer numbers now and the 10MB/s of this drive seems to me to be decent. Firewire 800/400/USB2.0 when converted from their Mbps to MBPS is interesting. I kept asking myself, did I get something that is bad, and basing my decision purely on a numerical value that I did not have full understanding of in the first place. Damn those abbreviations!

The NAS chart was interesting to look at, just wished that the model I have was on there

If I had a gigabit ethernet setup that could get 800Mbps, my WD could only use around 10MB/s of the network transfer, and not the full 100MB/s. I don't expect to get to that point where that type of throughput is necessary, as the WD is used as a archival drives.

Just want to make sure I got a good NAS drive and didden't get scammed This is sort of like the old Wattage vs RMS debate for speakers, where they advertise 600watts when in reality it's 300 rms... :roll:

 

[thecoyotebites]

The internal processor is the problem with this waste of money, i mean NAS.

What's that? Processor speed? Yes. The processor in this beastly piece of crap is capable of an astonishing 5 MB/s. 5 Megabytes per second. 40 Megabits per second. That's a far cry from 1000 Megabits per second.

At least they included the fast ethernet interface so the entire network doesn't get dragged down. Don't believe me? Read this:

Begin---
Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.

Our internal testing and what we've seen from other customers show that the MyBook World's will transfer speed is 24-40Mbps (3-5 MBps) on a local network. The drive does not move data quicker because that is the maximum throughput that the enclosure's CPU can handle.

Sincerely,
Jeremy H.
Western Digital Service and Support
---End

What a waste of 270 dollars.

 

[Guest]

That is exactly the problem. The CPU inside one of those is a small ARM processor running about 200 MHz. It's common in many mobile phones. And interestingly enough, it uses a very small version of linux (extremely stripped down) running a SAMBA share to make things available to windows.

It seems possible to overclock one, but in the little bit of research I've done, it doesn't look like anyone has overclocked one yet.

 

[Guest]

overclocking WD mybook world editionII is entirely feasible，the ARM processor core before @100MHz（200Mhz） read 5~6MB/s，writing 4~5MB。Overclocking to 133MHz（266Mhz），copy file （by copy software Fastcopy 1.90 rev R4），speedup to read 6~7MB/s，Writing 5~6MB/s 。
very fun，the ARM core BUS running about 100MHz（like 200Mhz），overclocking BUS at 133MHz，ARM core running @266MHz。
In China, there's enthusiast-made systems can be deployed to the WD mybookWorldEditionII, just need to click one button to switch 100/133Mhz frequency, I used about 100 days, all good.

Transmission performance of the above based on a 100Mbps network and TPlink WR340G 54Mbps wifi router. With PC-NAS moving a 1GB file transfer test.

 

[HardHedd]

Does anyone know if there is a way to move files and folders around on one of these drives without having them ever hit the Ethernet - i.e., completely internally? I haven't been able to find this. I loaded many GB onto my unit and now want to reorganize the folders. Doing this in the obvious drag and drop way from my computer (and yes, I'm using a wireless connection at the moment, to make matters worse) is taking a *very* long time. The Copy Manager seems to only want to move files between the internal drives and the USB port. Would I be better off just doing that - i.e., using the USB port for large file transfers, and forgetting about large moves between internal folders?

 

[kefalak]

I have found two ways for moving files efficiently:

When moving within the same share (and not between different shares), I found the speed to be fine, it obviously moves the pointers and not the files, as it should.

When you want to move files between different shares, the only efficient way I have found out is by logging on through SSH and using the shell (linux) to move the files/directories. It's fairly easy if you are at least a little familiar with linux. In order to enable ssh access, though, you may have to use a little "hack"... see http://martin.hinner.info/mybook/

 

[HardHedd]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the reply!

Re: moving files and folders within a share:

This seems to be correct, I stumbled onto it myself a few days ago. I was braced for a long wait and was pleasantly surprised when the move was finished in an instant. But I didn't figure out the reason, so thank you very much for pointing it out.

Re: moving files and folders between shares:

The good news is that my drive seems to be new enough that I don't need to use your hack to enable SSH. This can be done via the browser-based configuration facility. A default SSH password is also provided. (Likewise, via the browser interface I can also completely disable MioNet - that piece of s#!t.)

The bad news is that I'm close to being a complete *nix imbecile. I have no problem with command-line interfaces, and the commands for manipulating files would be no big deal, but I don't actually know how to do an SSH login! I assume I can use the WinXP version of telnet, but beyond that, I'm pretty clueless. If you (or anyone else reading this) can point me to a "Linux for Dummies" or "SSH for Dummies" tutorial, I'd be eternally grateful.

Thanks again!
HardHedd

 

[mergatroid]

Nice to see other people concerned for the speed of their WD MyBook World Edition II other than just me. I purchased the little brother to the Raid version, with just one drive. I was getting transfer rates of about 8MBs. I could transfer a 4.8GB directory of assorted files in about 8 minutes.

I upgraded my LAN to 10/100/100, and although the transfer rate for files between our computers increased, the transfer rates for the WD MyBook World Edition II stayed exactly the same.

They really sucked me in on this one. I waded through all sorts of different network drives but decided this smaller more inexpensive unit would do the job for home use. To be honest, it does what I want it to do (network storage and media server for my PS3) so I can't really complain too much. Still, I honestly expected a product advertising Gigabit compatibility to be somewhat faster on a Gigabit LAN.

 

[Guest]

hi all,
well, i got the same issue and maybe even worst. When i moving files from folder to folder, my speed is around 900KB/s. It's insane !!! move one about 700MB file take me close to 10 min !!!
I tried to update new firmware, but still same transfer speed. Do i have to change something in WD settings to get better speed ???

thx

 

[ranliv]

Hi all,

Mine really sucks!!! all of a sudden my trasfer rate is around 200KB/s to 600KB/s Max. I upgrade the firmware, change cable, do direct connection via cross cable and its still very slow. Why all of a sudden it became like this? Is this OS or Hardware issue?

 

[Guest]

I have mine wired to a Gigabit network and it transfers files from my PC at around 9-10 MB/second and writes at about 7-8Mb/second

I bought it mainly to stream media to a WDTV Live media player. The files are .mkv 1080p at around 10GB, luckily I don't get any streaming problems.

I admit I was disappointed about the transfer speed. I kind of assumed that I would be able to transfer at Gigabit speed around the network when I bought it.

It became a pain when I wanted to transfer downloaded .mkv files from newsgroups to watch on the media player. I tried downloading directly to the NAS but as the files came down my broadband at 50MB/s it was producing a bottle neck as they could only write at 10Mb/sec . As the downloaded files coming down were .rar files and were un-rar'd on the NAS This also meant the films I was downloding were taking and age to complete as .mkv files

To get around this I download films directly to my PC (using the full 50mb/s) and use some software called Second Copy to watch my incoming folder for .mkv files so when the files are un-rar'd into .mkv's they transfer directly to the NAS when ready so at least I don't have to manually copy them across when I'm ready to watch them.

Still, the NAS is a bit crap isn't?

 

[Guest]

My experience in upgrading to a gigabit network makes a difference. I was achieving about 6 MB/s write speed and 8 MB/s read speed on a 100 Mbps network. I upgraded my router to a Cisco (formerly Linksys) WRVS4400N gigabit router and added an Intel Pro 1000 GT PCI gigabit card to my old computer. It's a Pentium 4 running XP. I enabled Jumbo Frame and set it to 9000 on the NAS, selected 9014K in the advanced section of the Intel gigabit card driver, and set the maximum frame size to 9018 for the 2 ports on the WRVS4400N where the NAS and the computer are connected. The extra 4 bytes is according to the instructions for the Intel card for the Jumbo Frame overhead. With this configuration, I am now achieving about 15 MB/s write speed and 25 MB/s read speed.

On another note, my laptop with a wireless 802.11g connection is getting about 2 MB/s read and write speeds which is about typical for wireless-g connections. When I plug in the laptop's 100 Mbps ethernet port, the transfer rates go to about 9 MB/s which is close to the theoretical maximum for a 100 Mbps connection.

For the price of the NAS, I'm pretty happy with the performance.

 

[milos85]

The internal processor is the problem with this waste of money, i mean NAS.

What's that? Processor speed? Yes. The processor in this beastly piece of crap is capable of an astonishing 5 MB/s. 5 Megabytes per second. 40 Megabits per second. That's a far cry from 1000 Megabits per second.

At least they included the fast ethernet interface so the entire network doesn't get dragged down. Don't believe me? Read this:

Begin---
Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.

Our internal testing and what we've seen from other customers show that the MyBook World's will transfer speed is 24-40Mbps (3-5 MBps) on a local network. The drive does not move data quicker because that is the maximum throughput that the enclosure's CPU can handle.

Sincerely,
Jeremy H.
Western Digital Service and Support
---End

What a waste of 270 dollars.

Thanks a lot for this post. I could not believe that I cannot go faster than about 3MBps when I bought even small 1Gb ethernet switch for better operation of this drive (how funny). But when WD itself says that this piece is really so terrible ***, I must believe. After one hour of reading I am sure now that it is waste to read more, very important info ;-)
Milos

 

[ncudmore]

I've a couple of these I just got and spped is an issue and I was going to use them for Backups...

One thing I did find, is the lack in the GUI to set the WorldBooks interface speed and duplex. I have both connected to a cisco 100mb swith with the pots on the switch set to 100mb full duplex, and when copying and during backup the collision light flashed most of the time.

I've seen this before with my Sony laptop and after setting a manual 100mb full on the laptop in place of Auto I hardly ever see a yellow collision light flash.

Perhaps, thru the telnet/ssh session the speed and duplex can be set manually and that would help.....

Any takers on the busybox config required for this?

 

[j00p34]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the reply!

Re: moving files and folders within a share:

This seems to be correct, I stumbled onto it myself a few days ago. I was braced for a long wait and was pleasantly surprised when the move was finished in an instant. But I didn't figure out the reason, so thank you very much for pointing it out.

Re: moving files and folders between shares:

The good news is that my drive seems to be new enough that I don't need to use your hack to enable SSH. This can be done via the browser-based configuration facility. A default SSH password is also provided. (Likewise, via the browser interface I can also completely disable MioNet - that piece of s#!t.)

The bad news is that I'm close to being a complete *nix imbecile. I have no problem with command-line interfaces, and the commands for manipulating files would be no big deal, but I don't actually know how to do an SSH login! I assume I can use the WinXP version of telnet, but beyond that, I'm pretty clueless. If you (or anyone else reading this) can point me to a "Linux for Dummies" or "SSH for Dummies" tutorial, I'd be eternally grateful.

Thanks again!
HardHedd

For ssh from windows google putty ssh. There's also winscp this gives you an explorer like view. One thing I need to mention, if you allow access to this disk from the internet better set a very strong password for the 2!! standard accounts. Or setup certificates.

ssh howto: ssh username@ipadress (e.g. root@192.168.1.10)

will ask you for a password

change directory:

cd <directory> (use forward slashes e.g. cd /home/Downloader )

List directory contents:

ls

get a manual page :

man <command> (e.g. man ls)

copy a file:

cp file newfile

move/rename a file :

mv file newname
mv file /path/path/file

logout:

exit

But i would go for winscp if i were you

 

[me3x]

How did you do that??? Please post instructions to http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/

overclocking WD mybook world editionII is entirely feasible，the ARM processor core before @100MHz（200Mhz） read 5~6MB/s，writing 4~5MB。Overclocking to 133MHz（266Mhz），copy file （by copy software Fastcopy 1.90 rev R4），speedup to read 6~7MB/s，Writing 5~6MB/s 。
very fun，the ARM core BUS running about 100MHz（like 200Mhz），overclocking BUS at 133MHz，ARM core running @266MHz。
In China, there's enthusiast-made systems can be deployed to the WD mybookWorldEditionII, just need to click one button to switch 100/133Mhz frequency, I used about 100 days, all good.

Transmission performance of the above based on a 100Mbps network and TPlink WR340G 54Mbps wifi router. With PC-NAS moving a 1GB file transfer test.