Networking problem iMac and Readynas

[bdpoop]

Hi Folks. Sorry if this is a bit long

Firstly ill introduce myself. My name is Barry and I have worked in IT for too long really but my Mac skills have gone awry over the last few years mainly due to lack of customers that were using them.

I work with a design company in the UK. Some time ago we installed a Netgear Readynas 102 6TB file server. The PC's on the network access the Readynas really quickly. The two Macs however are really really slow, often taking up to 3 minutes just to open a folder on a share. Both Macs are running 10.11.3 El Capitan and are an iMac (24inch, early 2008). Other one is a iMac (retina 5k 27 inch late 2014).

I have been trying at some length working with Netgear support to resolve this to no avail so far. We have even had a Netgear engineer remote into the Nas and make changes to the SMB settings and upgrade the firmware.

Nothing makes any difference. Tried a new switch, swapped the port over to the one the PC is running on and just the same.

I am out of ideas so I am hoping another Apple user may have had a similar problem as there must be a fair few using Readynas.

The problem has been there for sometime but I gather it got worse with the latest OS upgrade.

The only way I know to connect to other devices like the NAS is to use the GO menu in finder, put the IP address in using either smb for CIFS, afp, or nfs. Have tried them all. Same results. Is there another way of connecting or creating an alias?

Another thing that sprung to mind last night when I had a light bulb moment is I remember a similar issue on a PC years ago where it was trying to resolve a connection to a local network server but was going off into the internet first to find it before eventually finding it locally. Could this be the issue here and how can I force it to search just locally if it is.

I really hope someone can help as Ive been burning the midnight oil for days now trying to resolve this.


Any help really appreciated.

 

[satcomer]

I find is you connect using the new cifs instead of the smb to newer devices. You might would want to try that to see if it helps.

 

[bdpoop]

I find is you connect using the new cifs instead of the smb to newer devices. You might would want to try that to see if it helps.

Thanks for the reply. I think they tried AFP but not sure about cifs. Is this a new protocol? Is it just a case of going into Finder, GO and Connect to server and typing in cifs:192.168.1.23 (or the server IP address)?

Are there any other ways that I Can attempt to connect on the Mac? Just to try them all.

 

[bdpoop]

OK so I have accessed both macs remotely and tried all the different protocols. All the same. I even tried different DNS settings as I wondered if it was trying to resolve the folder on the internet but its not that.

What I have discovered is that it will take 1 to 2 minutes to open a folder in the main artwork folder but then next time you go into that same folder its instant, like it remembered what was in it. Click on the next one and its back to taking ages again.

It only seems to be the main artwork folder as well where there are hundreds of folders and sub folders.

I copied one folder into a new test folder and it opened that one straight away.

Any further ideas?

 

[satcomer]

Thanks for the reply. I think they tried AFP but not sure about cifs. Is this a new protocol? Is it just a case of going into Finder, GO and Connect to server and typing in cifs:192.168.1.23 (or the server IP address)?

Are there any other ways that I Can attempt to connect on the Mac? Just to try them all.

No. You would use the the same string you would use with SMB. So it would be cifs://192.168.1.23 . The Netgear ReadyNAS is an older device so it might work, it's worth a try.

 

[bdpoop]

Thanks. Doesnt make any difference but I did some research and found this very long thread http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/439085-smb-share-slow-to-load-in-finder-on-macs?page=1

There are a fair few like it but no real solutions. It seems since Yosomite there have been a lot of issues with Apple machines connecting to servers of all kinds. It seems their is a problem with the Apple Finder and Apple are (according to the threads I have found) aware of the issue but have not resolved it.

What I have discovered is that it is mostly with folders with a large amount of folders and files within it. If you double click a folder with just a few files it opens reasonably quickly but the main one on this site which has hundreds of folders can take minutes to open and the sub folders within that. Once its opened a folder though it seems to remember it and it opens quickly after that.