Ultraslow SMB -> USB transfer (355KB/s)

Hello friends,

Today i installed Lede v.17.01.4 and also 17.01.5 in my Xiaomi Mini Router (From Pandorabox) and everything looks fine except one problem.

I mounted my 16GB USB (NTFS) and i tried to copy files via FTP and also via SMB, and it doesn't matter which type files i am copying, max speed is only 355KB/s.

Please can you help where can be the problem?

I am done :(((... I tried also different USB - the same problem.

It looks, like there is some "bandwidth" capped or something like that.

I was following this tutorial: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/storage/writable_ntfsSn%C3%ADmka%20obrazovky%20(179)

Thank you so much for any help.

If one of your options was

sync

as the guide suggests, try using

async

instead, I've forgotten the reason why, but sync is very slow compared to async.

So, a few things here...

  • Xiaomi Mini Router --> MT7620A, not a speed daemon but it should be able to push more than 355kbyte at least using Samba
  • NTFS performance is kinda poor in general and given the above it doesn't really add to the getting as much speed as possible scenario
  • USB flash drives are slow when it comes to random read and writes, adding NTFS on top of that which isn't very suitable for USB flash drive wont help

I don't know exactly what you're trying to do but given that you run Windows and use NTFS I guess you want Windows compatibility. In that case you can either use (V)FAT or exFAT, the latter requires you to compile your own modules. Don't expect any wonders but it should help somewhat at least. It could also be that our USB flash drive is horrendously slow, the really cheap ones only does a few mbytes/s sequential read/writes tops.

Seems strange that it seems limited to 355KB/s!

IIRC writing to NTFS formatted USB was extremely slower using 'sync'.

This is what I'm using...

ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 mnt/usb-ntfs -o rw,async

Edit the a1 section to suit your particular situation (ie a for USB disk #, 1 for partition #)
Also it doesn't seem to make any difference if using USB2/3 thumb-drives either.

As others have suggested, USB used with routers are slow especially writing to USB thumb-drives.
I understand why ISP's disable this functionality on their modem/routers with built-in USB.

It really depends on what you're going to use it for. In my case I use the router USB as a backup medium, also to stream movies from router=>PS3=>TV (works OK up to 1080p resolution, the resolution limits of my old PS3 (using 802.11n WiFi too) and TV)!

Thank you Mike, you were right!

Now it is going 3,5MB/s (Write speed on the USB). But this is still slow compared to speed on my pandorabox FW. There wasn´t problem going full 100Mbit link speed.
Sn%C3%ADmka%20obrazovky%20(180)
I found this in my error log when writing to USB via SMB.

Sun Jul 22 07:06:28 2018 daemon.notice ntfs-3g[1779]: ntfs_mst_post_read_fixup_warn: magic: 0x00000000  size: 1024   usa_ofs: 0  usa_count: 65535: Invalid argument

Copying from the USB -> to my PC is correct 10-11MB/s. Ofcourse USB is capable to write more than 10-11MB/s :).

Any tips? THanks

I normally take the USB stick out of the router, and into a Windows PC, run a 'check the drive for errors', for me this normally fixes that up.

Thanks, there was no error anyway, but it seems that error is gone now, but the speed is still the same ... 3,5MB+- (Write) :(... please help

As I mentioned above, USB-stick transfers are slow.

If you were to use a portable USB3 hard-drive/SSD you'll see faster NTFS write and read speeds.

I just connected an old computer (with 1Gbps network card) to my OpenWrt router (Archer c2600), and run a quick test writing to a SATA3 hard-drive in a USB3 enclosure and I'm getting ~70Mbps NTFS writes, ~335Mbps NTFS read speeds.

Probably did not understand correctly what is going on.

In previous ROM/FIRMWARE (Pandorabox) i have normal write speed. 100Mbit (10-11MB/s), doesn´t matter what i was doing.

The problem here isn´t the USB flashdrive itself, but this is some SW issue i guess. Previous USB was also NTFS.

Yeah my expectations where also high. I also tried researching faster NTFS speeds but couldn't find anything I could work with.

Hopefully others can pitch in with advice?

This ntfs-3g driver is slower than native linux filesystems, I don't believe there are any fast open drivers for ntfs on linux. Your previous firmware probably had a proprietary driver and hence the better performance.

If your planning to leave this usb-stick attached permanently consider reformatting as ext4, samba won't care.

If you are going to be moving it around between windows and linux devices then a better option would be

as that has better support under linux.

At least experiment and see for your self.

PS
Even on windows NTFS is not the best choice for a usb-stick

Ok guys, thanks for your replies anyway. i found this: (btw i have no idea what this commands mean..)

ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 -o noatime,async,big_writes

And here is my result:
Sn%C3%ADmka%20obrazovky%20(181)

Not bad... But still could be better, what do you think? Any tips?

Prevents the filesystem from updating the the timestamp the last time the file was read so that will speed things up, but you lose that feature to know when a file was last touched.

Is what it says, writes are done by using a large block of data for example 128k instead of 4k when writing to disk which is more efficient.

https://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-manual/#6

Good for you @Misho !

I don't know how you managed to obtain higher and consistent transfer speeds. I tried your command (-o noatime,async,big_writes) and my USB-stick transfers start off at ~10MB/s then slowly die off, then pause then comes back up to ~4MB/s then pauses, then the same in a loop!

I have no idea apart from the USB-stick I'm using playing some part?, as the speeds I got in my post above (using a USB enclosure with hard-drive) seem OK.

Nevermind guys... Thank you anyway for your replies. It helped me a lot, but i am back in PandoraBox.

3 main reasons:

  1. Stability
  2. Better Wi-Fi (Not range, i don´t care about range.) - better speed in 2.4G
    i have just 18-20Mbit with Lede, on PandoraBox i have almost 40-50Mbit in 2.4G
  3. Better, BEST samba performance. On PandoraBox 11MB/s write...

I am not expert in wrt, but i am disappointed from Lede :(((... I tried last 2 last stable versions, but i don´t like to be testing like a testing "rat". I need stable and good performing ROM in my AP,

Thanks , bye

Forgive me for the links...just google them and google will correct them for you. It is stupid thing that I can only have 2 links =/ ) [edit - I can now post full links and update the post]

Pandora box (check www.github.com/yjhjstz/pandorabox/blob/master/openwrt_version ) is based on a version of Sep 2013 (v12) (check dev.archive.openwrt.org/changeset/38121.html )
At this point it has MAJOR vulnerabilities. If you put the router on the Internet, it will be hacked pretty quickly.

As far as I know, the original mi wifi mini firmware is also based on Openwrt v12. So pandorabox can use the original drivers developed and optimized by MI for the router. That is why it is so good.

As far as I know, when Openwrt switched from the Linux kernel v3 to v4 the driver for the MT7620A had to be rewritten.
Looking at the forum and on Google, the MT7620A has a very bad track of records. People report slow performances on a wIfi and speed dramatically dropping when the USB is being used. See for example: Worse 2.4GHz and best 5GHz wireless performance after flashing LEDE

There has been a lot of work on that driver but it seems that it is still not in a good shape.

I remember also reading that once you install the latest version, and you try to go back to the original firmware, the performances are never going to be the same. Maybe there are tuning values stored somewhere that gets overridden?

I also saw this githubcom/chenhaiq/mt7610u_wifi_sta_v3002_dpo_20130916
It talks about USB fixes. I am not sure if anybody looked into it.

This seems going in the right direction: MT7620A Wifi very slow. Is there any driver issue?

And as far as I know, this is the tread with more updated info (and some drama): NEXX 3020 (MT7620) Wi-Fi issues

Has anybody tried to install the files here: https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/626#issuecomment-360844957 ?

Anyway, I would also like to install the latest v18 but I would also love to have the stability and the performance of the original firmware.

If somebody has questions or updates, please let me know.

-Camicia

In the meantime you advanced from "New User" to "Basic User", which means that the restrictions on the number of links do not exist anymore.

1 Like

Thanks @tmomas