Slow Transfer Speed over USB

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
41

i have explained it a couple of times in this post already, not sure how else to make the point

It is how PCs operate, nothing to do with the mycloud

I suspect the Android and probably ios mycloud apps will do the copy direct on the mycloud, they do from one location to another on the internal drive, I don’t have a USB drive attached to test it

42

OK but then why does WD put this usb on there? Don’t really see the point if it goes so slow :frowning:

IS there absolutely no way to get this to go faster? :smiley:

43

for 2 purposes

  1. safepoint backups which is a snapshot from the mycloud drive.

  2. to increase the storage capacity of the mycloud

see page 123 of the user manual, connect the USB drive to your computer for large transfers

44

I now understand that this is occurring because Windows and Linux don’t play nice.  This is effectively a relay transfer limited by the up-and-down bandwith of the network connection.

However, it indeed has EVERYTHING to do with the MyCloud.  If I can do this with a shell command, then it’s a SMOP (Simple Matter Of Programming) to write a dedicated Windows app to bypass the standard Windows copy function and command the drive directly.  All you need is a limited-function graphical adaptation of puTTY that looks like File Manager.  Simply tell people they can use Windows Explorer for casual operations and can enable SSH and use the gee-whiz turbocharged WD application for speed.

Secondarily, there is the minor issue of consumer perception and expectation.  We’ve all gotten used to the transfer rates between USB drives and know what to expect.  So when someone sees a USB 3.0 port on a drive, it’s natural to expect USB 3.0 performance from that drive.  I wonder how many of these have been returned because most people wouldn’t show up here to investigate.

I don’t work with mobile devices and don’t own one.  I do my work on various networked Windows boxes of various flavors, so I can’t make the suggested test.

However, I do have one Linux box I can try (wireless).  Would it make sense to run it, map the drives and see what sorts of performance I get?

45

any mapped drive will have the same issue. you could probably use rsh from Linux

They do have a windows mycloud app that you could try, I have never used it but if it is like the mobil apps it should work by sending commands to the mycloud insttead of mapped drives.

46

There are two comments I would like to make to this thread:

  1. the USB port is intended to be an expansion slot.  When Windows is used to copy files, the traffic is routed through the computer first, and then back to the WD MyCloud.  So, by that logic, it is always faster to use the USB drive on the computer to transfer directly to the NAS since the WD MyCloud does not feature a naitive file/folder manager.  

SSH users could also initiate the file transfer.

  1.  We have released an update today that improves the performance of many things on the device. I would suggest that you update:

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdfmycloud_s 

47

@daytradr:

Thanks for replying.  Understood (now).  Initially I was unclear about how the MyCloud handled files, and the expectation that the MyCloud should in fact do this natively sent me down the path.  I still think it should, and would like to see that implemented in some way, or as an alternative, a file-manager graphical app for Windows implemented via SSH would work great.  Most folks don’t want to get into command lines.

I do understand why using the expansion port on the MC is slower than plugging the drive into a PC, because we have two network hops instead of one.

Will go and look at the new FW announcement right now and see what nice things you folks have added for us!

48

I am also having awful performance creating a Safepoint.  I got the 4TB MyCloud and connected a 4TB MyBook to the USB 3.0 plug in the back of the MyCloud.  I’m trying to make a Safepoint of the source (MyCloud) on the directly connected destination (MyBook).  So why is it so slow?  It has been trying to copy one 5GB media file for several hours.  

I did an ssh into the MyCloud from a terminal and tested a Linux copy from the MyCloud to the MyBook.  It copied a 4GB file in 2 min 22 sec.  So why does the Safepoint creation software not copy files in a similar fashion?  I suppose the Safepoint software is disregarding the fact that the destination is a local connected drive and is somehow copying across the network?

I guess I will just abondon the idea of using the Safepoint interface and write my own Linux/rsync backup utility.  Other than this glaring problem with the MyCloud Safepoint feature I love everything else about this device. 

49

I let my Safepoint create task run overnight.  It’s now at 88% complete after about 10 hours for a 320GB backup.  When I get up close to the 4TB capacity I expect it will take about 2 weeks to do a backup.  Also I found out that while this Safepoint is running I can’t update the source drive.  The reality of this situation is that the Safepoint functionality is simply unusable for anyone who has any amount of data to backup.  I can’t even imagine what a restore operation would entail.  If the backup takes 2 weeks to run and the drive is unusable for the entire time then how is that even a consideration.

This is a direct wired Safepoint backup to a connected USB 3.0 WD MyBook 4TB.

50

I get 3-4 mb/s from my 3.0 USB dock hooked with a 3.0 USB cable… I don’t think this is a “normal” transfer speed. Even my 2.0 USB flash memory is much faster.

And I know it’s a WD EX4 problem because the USB 3.0 works just fine on my PC.

1 Like
51

WOW… in any case, the USB 3.0 transfer should be the fastest possible but itsn’t. Weird, hmm?

52

I’m not that patient… Frustrating, of course. I suppose it’s a EX4 motherboard issue, my USB 3.0 works fine (120mb/s) on my PC.

53

Wow, I wish I had found this thread before I decided to buy  WD My Cloud. Because one of the things I wanted was an ability to plug in a fast USB drive and backup My Cloud to that USB drive every now and then. The key being fast. 

Well, I bought WD My Cloud 4TB, and I also bought WD My Book 4TB as my USB drive. I plugged My Book directly to My Cloud using USB and decided to do my first Safepoint backup via USB. I really didn’t expect that slow transfer speeds! After 8 minutes only 3,4 Gigabytes had been copied! So, I cancelled the Safepoint operation and tried to plug in My Book to my HTPC and decided to try normal drag-and-drop copy over gigabit network from My Cloud to My Book. Windows shows transfer speeds of 80MB/s, and after same 8 minutes, I had already copied 40 Gigabytes. My gigabit network is working almost at full speed that is realisticly possible, so at least copying this way works.

Really, it shouldn’t be impossible nowadays to copy files from one device to another if they are directly connected with USB3 cables, utilizing maximum speeds of those two devices, so I am disappointed that I cannot just plug my My Book to My Cloud for backups. That being said, at least I can manually do the copying (if not nearly the speeds USB3.0 device should be capable of)  if I plug My Book to my HTPC.

54

What is the best format to use on a hard drive connected to the My Cloud via USB 3? The User Guide lists a number of compatible formats but surely their performance differs. My Passport and My Book drives seem to come formatted for NTFS by default but it might be that using a Linux format like ext3 would be a better choice, especially if the external drive is dedicated as an expansion/safepoint drive that’s permanently connected to the My Cloud. Comments?

55

I should add that my reason for asking is that my initial safepoint backup of around 700 GB has taken over 24 hours so far and it isn’t finished yet. I’m using a 2 TB My Passport attached to my 4 TB My Cloud. The format of the external drive is as supplied by WD, i.e. NTFS. While the safepoint is being created the My Cloud is as good as unusable as a NAS. I’ve turned off the media and iTunes servers in the dashboard because I have no need of the former and the latter doesn’t work with the current version of iTunes, but I haven’t yet disabled the indexing and thumbnail creation services (via ssh ). However by logging into the command line with ssh and running top , I see that the cpu is completely bogged down wth a load average of over 14. Two rsync processes (presumably responsible for creating the ongoing safepoint backup) are the cpu hogs. I don’t recall seeing a warning anywhere that creating a safepoint will effectively take the My Cloud out of service for the duration.

56

i bought my cloud specifically over the seagate option i was looking at mainly because of the usb 3.0 port.  

Feel like i have been lied to.  The hardware doesnt do what its labelled to do…  thinking WD should be offering full refund and return on a product that doesnt meet the needs of the users, nor does what is advertised…  

and i should state that ive given up on the USB port, i had wanted to use it as another external drive, but as soon as i plug in a 1tb drive which is relatively full ( with the ssh services trick performed so no indexing etc ) the whole my cloud pretty much stops responding, even after 8 hours of waiting… so even if i wanted to accept the slow speeds of transfering files i cant because the unit doesnt support plugging in my drive… pile of *$#*&#$

57

Well, I fully expect my My Cloud to become responsive again once the initial safepoint has completed. It’s at 93% now, so it should only be a few more hours. I don’t think the USB 3 port is a bottleneck, as others have pointed out. I think it’s simply trying to do too much for its processing power. The load average is now over 17.

58

 Feel like i have been lied to.  The hardware doesnt do what its labelled to do…

I get that feeling too.  It’s at best disingenuous to claim USB3.0 compliance when you you can only achieve sustained rates of ~3MB/s over the interface*, compared with the 400MB/s the USB spec suggests should be achievable; maybe the burst data rate is the 5Gb/s of USB3, but, if so, there’s one heck of a lot of bus idling.

* http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud/USB-drive-transfer-speeds/m-p/861091#M31062

59

the USB backup is USELESS.  I tries to restore from a FRESH backup and i received an error code.  I wasted 375$ on this thing with the cost of the external seagate 4tb drive.  Why is this thing labled USB3.0 its more like usb 1.0 

  I was able to transfer files to the mycloud over WiFi at 45mb’s … The restore festure is very UNRELIABLE.   western digital I hope you get better hardware or software if you make another Mycloud… 

60

My first safepoint creation from a 3 TB My Cloud to a 4 TB my book studio …

safepoint backup which took 33 minutes (2,959 items, totaling 24.5 GB)