Issues with File Explorer hanging and slow searching from Windows Machines

[PIXeL_92]

Hi All,

I have recently implemented a freeNAS solution for our data storage for general share files within the office (approx 120 users.)

So far we haven't had any issues in the main office but the accounts department have been having problems, we thought they may have been network related but after checking switch configs, cable testing and replacing some kit we have ruled that out.

The issues are;
Slow search results
When browsing in large folders it will cause any any instance of File Explorer to hang or crash and it can hang anywhere from a few minutes to an hour

They are intermittent issues they don't happen all the time, they can happen randomly and not every users is effected, ie if one person has the issue and asks another to try get into the folder they will be able to with no problems, then later in the day the user that was able to access it with no issues would then start seeing the hanging file explorer.

I have updated the users to the latest build of Windows 10 to see if that would help and it seemed to for reduce how often it happens but the issue is still present.

What should I be looking at to try and resolve this, this is the first time I have set up FreeNas and I fear I may have missed something.

Regards

 

[anodos]

Hi All,

I have recently implemented a freeNAS solution for our data storage for general share files within the office (approx 120 users.)

So far we haven't had any issues in the main office but the accounts department have been having problems, we thought they may have been network related but after checking switch configs, cable testing and replacing some kit we have ruled that out.

The issues are;
Slow search results
When browsing in large folders it will cause any any instance of File Explorer to hang or crash and it can hang anywhere from a few minutes to an hour

They are intermittent issues they don't happen all the time, they can happen randomly and not every users is effected, ie if one person has the issue and asks another to try get into the folder they will be able to with no problems, then later in the day the user that was able to access it with no issues would then start seeing the hanging file explorer.

I have updated the users to the latest build of Windows 10 to see if that would help and it seemed to for reduce how often it happens but the issue is still present.

What should I be looking at to try and resolve this, this is the first time I have set up FreeNas and I fear I may have missed something.

Regards

One option to improve overall directory listing performance is to remove the "zfsacl" and "zfs_space" vfs modules for the SMB share and replace them with "ixnas". This may require an SMB service restart, and will affect the on-disk format for legacy DOS attributes (system|readonly|hidden|archive). I'm not saying this is what your problem is, but it's just generic low-hanging fruit for improving performance of metadata operations.

Slow search results will probably remain because we don't speak WSP. This may change in 12.0+ (around the same time that we add spotlight search support).

 

[PIXeL_92]

One option to improve overall directory listing performance is to remove the "zfsacl" and "zfs_space" vfs modules for the SMB share and replace them with "ixnas". This may require an SMB service restart, and will affect the on-disk format for legacy DOS attributes (system|readonly|hidden|archive). I'm not saying this is what your problem is, but it's just generic low-hanging fruit for improving performance of metadata operations.

Slow search results will probably remain because we don't speak WSP. This may change in 12.0+ (around the same time that we add spotlight search support).

Thanks for the reply, doing the above will it won't interfere with the existing Windows security permissions ?

Regards

 

[anodos]

Thanks for the reply, doing the above will it won't interfere with the existing Windows security permissions ?

Regards

No, it won't as long as you don't check the box "apply default permissions" in the webui.