Experiencing Slow Data Copy on Drobo5N

Forum History General Discussion
1

I own an old Drobo Gen2 (USB 2) and just bought a Drobo5N (plugged into an Ethernet port on a router switch). I set the 5N up with 4TB Enterprise drives and a 512GB mSATA drive in the accelerator bay underneath the unit. The 5N spun up without issue and is recognized across my home network.

The issue is with the 5N’s speed in writing large data content copied to it. It took almost all weekend to copy a 1.3TB folder of photographs from my Drobo Gen2 to the 5N. After that completed, I decided to test the speed between the two Drobos. I had a 289GB folder on by computer’s C: drive (Windows 7) so I initiated a drag-and-drop copy of that folder content to both my Drobo5N and the older Gen2. The Gen2 completed the copy job in about 4 hours. The 5N took just over 7 hours.

I’m not a tech, so I’m not sure what to think of this or if it’s an issue I need to resolve. The 5N seems to function okay in reading and writing of a single file. I opened a large image file from the 5N in Photoshop, worked the photo, then saved it. I didn’t notice any issues with speed. It seemed to function at a rate similar to working an image from my internal hard drive. Still, I’m confused/concerned about the slow data copy rate of large block content. With all the muscle in the 5N, I expected it to truly smoke the older Gen2; but, it doesn’t.

Any thoughts on this condition? Should I be concerned?

2

Support suggested I run LAN Speed Test. Here are the logs for both the new Drobo5N and the old Drobo Gen2 . . .

Version 1.3.1
OS Version: Windows 7
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU E6850 @ 3.00GHz
Date: 12/10/2014
Time: 21:15:45
Program Parameters: 0
High Performance Timer: 0.0000003413

Test File: \DROBO5N\Public\Db\Root\NW_SpeedTest.dat
Write Time = 6.1453414 Seconds
Write Speed = 26.0359840 Mbps
Read Time = 1.9702236 Seconds
Read Speed = 81.2090560 Mbps

Version 1.3.1
OS Version: Windows 7
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU E6850 @ 3.00GHz
Date: 12/10/2014
Time: 21:20:11
Program Parameters: 0
High Performance Timer: 0.0000003413

Test File: \F-25\Y_Drobo-USB\NW_SpeedTest.dat
Write Time = 3.1811324 Seconds
Write Speed = 50.2965520 Mbps
Read Time = 3.3008100 Seconds
Read Speed = 48.4729520 Mbps

3

Almost certainly your network runs at Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) instead of the Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps) speeds. Does your router support Gigabit Ethernet?

4

I’m thinking you may be right. My router is 6’ish years old. One of the IT guys at work said the same thing. He suggested I upgrade to a Gigabit router. So, I’ll give that a try. Thanks for your response.

5

Yep. I think Y’all are on track. Your wifi is slower than USB 2, apparently. If you can wait a bit, isn’t there another wifi standard being set right about now?