Optimizing Your UNAS for High-Speed Performance and Efficient Storage

UniFi makes it easy to maximize your UNAS performance with 10GbE high-speed connectivity and optimized storage configurations. This guide covers the best practices for configuring your UNAS system, ensuring seamless data management, faster file transfers, and optimal network and storage performance.

Optimizing Your Windows/macOS Device Connection

• Ensure your Windows/macOS device and UNAS are on the same local network (LAN).
• Mount your UniFi Drive to your Windows/macOS device using SMB.

Optimizing Your UNAS Configurations

Storage Optimization

• Install at least four HDDs for faster speed and fault tolerance.
• Use HDDs with 7200 RPM or higher for faster read/write speeds.
• Choose the right RAID configuration for optimal performance, speed, and redundancy.

Network Optimization

• Utilize the 10G SFP+ port to leverage UNAS's full high-speed potential.
• Avoid mixing 10GbE and 1GbE ports within the same subnet to prevent performance bottlenecks.

Choosing the Right Network Hardware for 10GbE Performance

Ensure your network hardware meets these requirements to achieve 10GbE speeds. 

• Windows/macOS device with 10G capability: Your device must have a 10GbE network port.
• Cables: Use Cat 6a or higher for reliable high-speed connections.
• Transceivers: If you don't have an SFP+ direct-attached cable for the UNAS Pro, use an SFP+ to RJ45 adapter with 10GbE support.
• Switches: Ensure your network switch has 10GbE ports and is correctly configured.

UNAS Pro Performance Benchmark

In lab tests, a UNAS Pro configured with:

• 6x 16TB, 7200 RPM HDDs (RAID 10)
• 10GbE network

achieved an average upload speed of 637 MB/s when transferring a 10GB file over SMB.

Diagnosing Transfer Speed Bottlenecks

Determine whether slow transfer speeds are caused by network limitations or storage performance with these tests.

Network Speed Test (Using iperf3)

Run the following commands to measure network performance:

iperf3 -s

iperf3 -c <unas_ip>

iperf3 -R -c <unas_ip>

Note: If the test fails, check your firewall settings to ensure iperf3 traffic is allowed.

Storage Speed Test

Run the following commands to measure storage read/write speeds on different devices:

fio --name=read_test --filename=Disk:/path/to/upload_files --size=1G --bs=1M --rw=read --direct=1 --ioengine=windowsaio

fio --name=write_test --filename=Disk:/path/to/upload_files --size=1G --bs=1M --rw=write --direct=1 --ioengine=windowsaio

dd if=/path/to/upload_files of=/dev/null bs=1M oflag=direct count=2048

dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/upload_files bs=1M oflag=direct count=2048

dd of=/srv/.unifi-drive/homes/user/.data/path/to/upload_files if=/dev/zero bs=1M oflag=direct count=2048

dd if=/dev/zero of=/srv/.unifi-drive/homes/user/.data/path/to/upload_files bs=1M oflag=direct count=2048

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