Lacie EdMini V2 - noob review - speed question

[swamswam_h]

Hi All,

First let me say: Thanks for developing this new firmware. Where Lacie dropped support many years ago you show that 'old' hardware has a lot of life left in it.
The guide did exactly what it promised and guided me through the procedure with great ease (except that I had to 'sudo' all commands and my FDISK command uses blocks as a default unit. Using the 'x' option (if I remember it correctly) changed this to cyllinders).
I installed V10-hdd version of the firmware and upgraded via the web interface to V12. Works like a charm, no problems encountered whatsoever.

Things missing from the original software in comparison to plugout.net firmware:
Jumbo frame support (not sure if it worked well with the lacie firmware)
Apple Filing Protocol support
Speed -> only 8 MBps (samba) versus maximum of 15MBps (over AFP) with Lacie firmware. Something wrong on my end or is this a known issue / logical consequence of using SMB?

Things 'not working':
The power led is not lit or showing disk activity. The 'power led' option in the firmware does nothing on (my) EdMini V2?
Fan is always on. Exactly like the original firmware I believe, so the fan is (/may be) simply attached to power without any control from the CPU??? (someone in some faq wrote about the fan that might not be properly working with this firmware -> the fan is not present in the Internet Space device).

Thanks

[fvdw]

Hi All,

First let me say: Thanks for developing this new firmware. Where Lacie dropped support many years ago you show that 'old' hardware has a lot of life left in it.
The guide did exactly what it promised and guided me through the procedure with great ease (except that I had to 'sudo' all commands and my FDISK command uses blocks as a default unit. Using the 'x' option (if I remember it correctly) changed this to cyllinders).
I installed V10-hdd version of the firmware and upgraded via the web interface to V12. Works like a charm, no problems encountered whatsoever.

Things missing from the original software in comparison to plugout.net firmware:
Jumbo frame support (not sure if it worked well with the lacie firmware)
Apple Filing Protocol support
Speed -> only 8 MBps (samba) versus maximum of 15MBps (over AFP) with Lacie firmware. Something wrong on my end or is this a known issue / logical consequence of using SMB?

Things 'not working':
The power led is not lit or showing disk activity. The 'power led' option in the firmware does nothing on (my) EdMini V2?
Fan is always on. Exactly like the original firmware I believe, so the fan is (/may be) simply attached to power without any control from the CPU??? (someone in some faq wrote about the fan that might not be properly working with this firmware -> the fan is not present in the Internet Space device).

Thanks

thanks for your feedback , much appreciated, nice to see that as expected the internet space 1 version also works for edmini_v2. :thumbup
About your questions.
jumbo frame support, thtas a setting for the ethernet card, it can be set but if it will help to speed up transfers I don't know. I tried it in the past on the sp8020 but there it was not an impovement.

Speed, if you get only 8 MB/s it seems your ethernet card is using 100 Mbit/s and not gigabit setting. This can be because your network doesn't support gigabit
On my nwsp2 I reach speeds using the same samba server of 25-30 MB/s for large files.

Power led. probably the edmini_v2 has different GPIO setup for leds then the Internet space 1. To solve this kernel modifications are necessary.
Same for the fan. And yes i wrote in the guide that probably the fan will continuously run.

It is a little strange that the power led is off as we use the edmini_v2 setup file in linux vanilla kernel (mach-orion) to compile the kernel you are using. (assuming you use the one in our firmware). You would expect that this should be implemented ok.
For sure the power led and switching of the fan could be made working when time and effort are put in but a for the moment I have no time to look at this.

[swamswam_h]

Thanks for your quick reply. I understand that your time is limited and kernel modifications sound like a really time consuming proces (but an interesting proces). I know nothing of building kernels (yet), so I do not know 'what kernel' i am running. I just downloaded the 'fvdw-sl-10-1-isp1-HDD-install-package' from the site and updated it through the web-interface to 'xfvdw-sl-12-1-isp1-9jun2012'.

Speed
Well.. apparently there was something wrong with the cable. After switching it for a known good cat5e cable transfer speed is close to 18MB/sec which is close to the maximum for this CPU i guess. Perfect!

Shutdown
Does the Internet Space vs1 shutdown when 'shutdown' from the web-interface is chosen? My Edmini v2 issues the command and then the shares get disconnected from my computer. It does not reply to pings anymore after a while. How long does a shutdown usually take? The original firmware took close to 20 seconds to shutdown. But after it is 'shutdown', the ethernet has both lights lit (speed and connection) and the fan keeps running. I can't hear the hard disk, it's currently a 2.5" laptop drive that is actually too silent to hear. Is it actually shutdown or in some kind of sleep mode? The original firmware does not keep the fan running or the network active. Does the firmware keep some sort of log? I have enabled SSH and looked in the /var/ directory for logs. There are several symbolic links to logs, but I could not find a log that shows what the system does/did? Looking for Logs in the wrong places? A 'logs' menu to show or download logs in the next firmware version could be usefull? Is that possible?

NTP
The time is updated through a NTP server (IP only, not the DNS name), my time zone is set to central european time (GMT +1), but the Daylight Savings time is not enabled correctly?

Thanks!

[fvdw]

Thanks for your quick reply. I understand that your time is limited and kernel modifications sound like a really time consuming proces (but an interesting proces). I know nothing of building kernels (yet), so I do not know 'what kernel' i am running. I just downloaded the 'fvdw-sl-10-1-isp1-HDD-install-package' from the site and updated it through the web-interface to 'xfvdw-sl-12-1-isp1-9jun2012'.

Then you also installed our kernel on sda6 I assume

Speed
Well.. apparently there was something wrong with the cable. After switching it for a known good cat5e cable transfer speed is close to 18MB/sec which is close to the maximum for this CPU i guess. Perfect!

yes this will probably the best you can get with this CPU

Shutdown
Does the Internet Space vs1 shutdown when 'shutdown' from the web-interface is chosen? My Edmini v2 issues the command and then the shares get disconnected from my computer. It does not reply to pings anymore after a while. How long does a shutdown usually take? The original firmware took close to 20 seconds to shutdown. But after it is 'shutdown', the ethernet has both lights lit (speed and connection) and the fan keeps running. I can't hear the hard disk, it's currently a 2.5" laptop drive that is actually too silent to hear. Is it actually shutdown or in some kind of sleep mode? The original firmware does not keep the fan running or the network active. Does the firmware keep some sort of log? I have enabled SSH and looked in the /var/ directory for logs. There are several symbolic links to logs, but I could not find a log that shows what the system does/did? Looking for Logs in the wrong places? A 'logs' menu to show or download logs in the next firmware version could be usefull? Is that possible?

The shutdown button executes the script /sbin/standbyd-spd, a copy of the content below

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
# set isp1 to standby (poweroff)
#
/usr/bin/killall udevd
/usr/bin/killall smbd
/usr/bin/killall nmbd
/bin/kill -SIGTSTP `/bin/cat /var/run/noflushd.pid`
sync
/sbin/poweroff

Apparently the standard Linux command for poweroff doesn't work on the edmini_v2 and it might need a special poweroff function. But I don't know as I don't have a edmini myself. Typically the poweroff (standby) should be completed in a few seconds.
Does the reboot function works ok ?

The syslog is in /var/log/messages but you have to enable it to get messages in there, to do that you need to edit the file /etc/inc/globals.inc and change the line 54 by setting "debug" from false to true

NTP
The time is updated through a NTP server (IP only, not the DNS name), my time zone is set to central european time (GMT +1), but the Daylight Savings time is not enabled correctly?

yes correct daylight savings is not supported

[fvdw]

I found this on the internet regarding powering off and edmini_v2 running on a vanilla kernel

http://forum.nas-central.org/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=2092

and this notice is prsent in the vanilla kernel

pr_notice("edmini_v2: USB device port, flash write and power-off are not yet supported.\n");


so its known issue

[swamswam_h]

Thanks! That's a great link and apparently people have been busy with this problem. Unfortunately the proposed solution never made it into kernels or distributions (how that should work I wouldn't know).
It is mentioned that in order to shut down the EdMini V2 a value (0) has to be written to a EEPROM memory location. One of the authors in the thread does this succesfully using:

i2cset 0 0x50 6 0

Then issues the shutdown command and after which the system correctly switches off.
Are the 'ic2cset' / 'ic2detect' commands in the 'plugout' distribution?
Is there some sort of shutdown script where this 'ic2set' command can be inserted? Can I test this command (safely) from a shell?

Lacie has the source for the EdMini V2 kernel/distribution online. Is there any location where I could find a clue for the GPIO line for the led?

greetings and thanks

[swamswam_h]

Oh and today I noticed a 'bug' (if you could call it that) in the miniDLNA server: there are spaces preceding the default values in the fields which cause errors when trying to enable the server. To enable it these have to be removed. No biggie of course, but I had to sratch my head as to why '8200' wasn't an integer (' 8200' isn't of course).

thanks and greetings

[fvdw]

Oh and today I noticed a 'bug' (if you could call it that) in the miniDLNA server: there are spaces preceding the default values in the fields which cause errors when trying to enable the server. To enable it these have to be removed. No biggie of course, but I had to sratch my head as to why '8200' wasn't an integer (' 8200' isn't of course).

thanks and greetings

these spaces are not present on my system :scratch and miniDLNA just starts fine

[fvdw]

Thanks! That's a great link and apparently people have been busy with this problem. Unfortunately the proposed solution never made it into kernels or distributions (how that should work I wouldn't know).
It is mentioned that in order to shut down the EdMini V2 a value (0) has to be written to a EEPROM memory location. One of the authors in the thread does this succesfully using:

i2cset 0 0x50 6 0

Then issues the shutdown command and after which the system correctly switches off.
Are the 'ic2cset' / 'ic2detect' commands in the 'plugout' distribution?
Is there some sort of shutdown script where this 'ic2set' command can be inserted? Can I test this command (safely) from a shell?

Lacie has the source for the EdMini V2 kernel/distribution online. Is there any location where I could find a clue for the GPIO line for the led?

greetings and thanks

Its a little more complicated then that, this eeprom settings just influences how the shutdown is done, as I read it it sets a flag that U-boot checks when connecting AC power. if it is et it continues boot, if not then it waits for someone pushing the power button.
You can write to to eeprom from user space but I don't recommend it might your edmini_v2 not booting anymore if you make an error. Only do it if you know what you are doing.
How the poweroff must be done in the kernel setup is difficult to find out otherwise the people making the vanilla kernel would have implemented it. Probably just a gpio pin enabling or disabling will not be enough.
Indeed studying the source code of Lacie could bring a solution thats the way i figured it out for the other systems.
Sorry that i can't help you better right now

[fvdw]

ps

assuming that the eeprom is similar as on othe lacie devices I think you can access it in directory
/sys/bus/i2c/devices/0-0050

It has as file name eeprom and is r/w

The content is on my nwsp2 as follow, see screenshot (hex editor I just copied eeprom to my windows PC)
The first byte contains 00 the second 02 then 6 bytes follow with the mac address

byte nr 15 contains 01 which means that when connection AC power the NAS will boot automatically without need to press power button
if i change that to 00 then I need to press the power button after connecting AC

please note this is on my nwsp2 , maybe edmini_v2 is different.
In any case changing that byte will not make linux poweroff command work if it doesn't work already right now. It Only changes the behavior how the device will boot after restoring AC power