Hello-
Synopsis of my issue:
Anytime I try to access more than one file at a time, my linkstation freezes (well, the network stops responding on the linkstation). It seems to try and recover at 60 second intervals. Sometimes it will start going again at 60 sec or at 120, 180... sometimes you can see that it only gets 5 or 10 MB copied before its stalled again.
Any ideas? I can't see any way to change the way the linkstation network operates other than basic IP settings.
Anyone having this issue? Or heard of this? I would think I should be able to copy lots of stuff, to and from simultaneously.
ENVIRONMENT:
I have a LS-Q4.0TL/R4 (4 GB) Linkstation configured in the default RAID 5 configuration. I still have the default share settings and even use the default "share" name as the directory I connect to. One item that is not the default: I did have to replace the silly flat cable it came with as I was only showing a 100Mbps connection to my switch. I do have jumbo frames enabled as I wanted to get things "working" before trying to squeeze more performance out of it.
My primary PC is a quad core HP Pavillion Elite w/a Gb NIC running Vista Home Premium 64. I have tried setting my PC to auto-negotiate, to 1 Gbps Full Duplex, 100 Mbps full, and 100 Mbps half, all to no avail (other than slowing things down). All configurations exhibit the same "stop" condition.
I have my Linkstation plugged into a Netgear 8 port 10/100/1000 Mbps switch, the same switch that my home PC is plugged into. My Wife has a Compaq tablet PC also plugged into the Netgear switch. She is running Vista Home Premium 32.
For reference, I also have 2 Linux boxes running MythDora (MythTV) that are not connected to the linkstation as well as one Linux "server" that I originally planned to connect to and leverage the linkstation. I have temporarily abandoned that plan until I can get the linkstation to maintain more than one file copy at a time.
PROBLEM DETAILS and EXAMPLES:
I can copy a single file from the "share" (mapped as drive s on Windows) at around 15-18 MB/s. However, if I try to copy a second file before the first one finishes (or if my outlook decides to access its pst, or any other file access) everything "freezes." My copy stops. I can't access the linkstation, any share, or even the web interface. After a while (60 seconds, 120 seconds??), things start working again.
Below are a few scenarios I've tried. Note that my wife does not have anything accessing her linkstation share... but in transparency, it is connected to the link station and mapped as drive "s."
As part of my testing, I took a 1GB mpg file and a 2 GB mpg file off my MythTV system to use as test files in my diagnostics.
Scenario 1. -- Simple file copy from linkstation to my PC: Start file1 copying to my local myPC. (all going well) Start file2 copying to my PC. file1 copy stops, file2 copy fails to start. After about 60 seconds, the copies will resume. Sometimes they complete, sometimes they will stop again (or multiple times). Sometimes Windows times out and sometimes the copies work.
Scenario 2. -- Copy files from linkstation AND Home Linux Samba Share to Home PC: Start file1 copying from linkstation. Start file3 copying from Home Linux Samba ShareA to Home PC. All going well. Start file4 copying from Home Linux Samba ShareA to Home PC. All still going well (though the throughput of file3 and file4 are now slower, as expected). When I start a copy of file2 from the linkstation to the home PC, file1 and file2 both stop. File3 and file4 continue uninterrupted and complete just fine. I can watch the network view in my Windows Vista and confirm the increase in throughput when I start file3 in network throughput, I can also see it drop when I start file2. This makes me think it is NOT my local PC.
Scenario 3. -- Copy files from linkstation to my PC and my wife's PC: Start file1 copying from linkstation to my PC. My wife starts file1 copying from linkstation to her PC. All file copy proceeding nicely. I start to copy file2. Both file copies stop on my PC and the one copy stops on my wife's PC. After about 60 seconds, all file copies resume. After a minute or two (in the example I ran tonight), the copies stop again... hers times out, mine eventually start back and complete.