8 ms·

Filesystem likely doesn’t have anything to do with it. What’s more likely, is Apple’s notoriously unreliable implementation of SMB causing the problem (and tha

Filesystem likely doesn’t have anything to do with it. What’s more likely, is Apple’s notoriously unreliable implementation of SMB causing the problem (and that’s the only option now that AFP support on Mac is dead) I have a Synology DS220+ and connecting to it from a Windows machine vs a MacOS machine is like night and day. On Windows, it literally feels like the NAS is an extension of my local hard drive. Browsing huge directories of thumbnails is snappy, file and folder names appear instantly. It’s a dream. On MacOS, connecting to anything over SMB is a total nightmare. Aside from the constant mounting and unmounting (fun!), it’s just plain unreliable and slow. And people have been complaining about this for years. What’s even more funny, I have a friend who works for Apple and apparently they use NAS storage in some teams and deal with the exact same annoyances! If Apple’s own employees have this problem, it’s hopeless they'll ever fix it for customers. I’d put my money on Apple’s SMB implementation being the root cause of this file corruption issue that has been all over the Reddit Synology user forums lately.

dystopiabreaker 5y ago
Unfortunately, despite being a nightmare, SMB seems to be still be the best option for networked filesystems on macOS. AFP is now officially deprecated/unsupported, and the NFS client seems to be even worse than Samba/SMB. One last hope was macFUSE/sshfs, however this seemed also to be more or less broken when I tried it (extremely slow speeds, issues with disconnecting, etc).
- chromatin 5y ago
  There’s also NFS but it seems to be just as slow as SMB on MacOS.
- tyingq 5y ago
  There's also the option of rsync, though obviously not helpful for live access.
elzbardico 5y ago
Well. SMB is a Microsoft's proprietary protocol. Of course, the windows implementation will be better.
- parasubvert 5y ago
  Eh, Samba has been fine in the Linux world for many years.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    It works. and it is impressive work what they've done, but let's face it, it is not even close to being as ergonomically and plug and play as it is on a windows only environment. It is a shame that microsoft still haven't truly make SMB an open protocol.
    - ygra 5y ago
      https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-smb2/5606ad47-5ee0-437a-817e-70c366052962 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols... Specifications seem to be available, though.
      - Someone 5y ago
        That was done because the EU demanded it (I think as an outcome of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission)
  - jsymolon 5y ago
    Agreed, and many thanks to the developers. My pain is browsing over VPN is extremely slow. Probably my fault as getting Desktop (Debian) happy with all the certificates is painful.
  - Macha 5y ago
    Windows client -> Linux server has worked great for a long time. Linux client -> Windows server has been less so
wukerplank 5y ago
Why not enable AFP on your Synology additionally to SMB?
- pembrook 5y ago
  AFP support is gone in MacOS. Apple doesn’t recommend it. SMB is all we have left unfortunately.
  - lloydatkinson 5y ago
    I mean you chose the walled garden ecosystem…
  - simondotau 5y ago
    The AFP client is not gone from Big Sur, which is what's required to connect to a Synology device using AFP.
atombender 5y ago
I have a media server I keep movies and TV shows on, and connect to Samba from my Mac. I agree, the performance is ridiculously bad. Part of it, I suspect, is Finder. I wonder if NFS works any better? Or maybe Apple's old AFS/AFP, which I think used to be more solid than SMB on Macs? Though I read something about Apple deprecating (or removing?) AFP support recently. Are there any other options?
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Yes, you can use iscsi. I used iscsi initiator on macOS to make time machine backups on an exported volume from an opensolaris zfs tank. Worked fine for many years, although I no longer use that approach. You have to install iscsi initiator on the Mac, since macOS doesn’t come with it.
  - atombender 5y ago
    Isn't that a block-level protocol? My server has a bunch of XFS volumes, which macOS does not understand.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Yeah it’s not really for sharing files around, but it fits the use cases of time machine.
      - atombender 5y ago
        Right, that's a different use than mine.
- wazoox 5y ago
  From my long experience building high-end NAS servers and struggling with Macs, generally using 10GigE connections: Using SMB, the typical Mac pro can't do much better than 150/200MB/s to/from the NAS. The very same Mac booted on Windows via Boot Camp reads/writes at 1GB/s on the same NAS. Back to MacOS, using either NFS or AFP the Mac easily reads/writes at 1GB/s on the NAS. The SMB implementation of MacOS is utterly broken, and has been for ages. NFS works fine generally, but some programs such as Quicktime pro and more annoyingly, the Finder sometimes have trouble with it. Unfortunately, the fastest and most reliable option by a large margin still is AFP, using Netatalk. If you take care of cleaning regularly the CNID database, it works like a charm. I have many customers using servers with hundreds of TB of storage with AFP and it just works.
riobard 5y ago
The Time Machine over NAS situation is very frustrating. It used to be over Apple's proprietary AFP protocol. With the exception of Apple's now-discontinued Time Capsule product line, all NAS implement AFP using the open-source Netatalk, presumably with reverse-engineered AFP protocol. And it's unreliable. With recent versions of macOS, Time Machine switches to SMB protocol. Apple has a custom SMB implementation, and all NAS use Samba. And it's still unreliable! I guess the only reliable solution to use Time Machine over network is to use a Mac with File Sharing over SMB enabled. At least both ends run Apple's SMB implementation.
- kowlo 5y ago
  I use a Mac server via File Sharing for my macOs machines. It is still unreliable. Mounting/unmounting is a gamble.
  - riobard 5y ago
    Why mounting? Last time I tried there's no manual mounting procedure required.
    - Spooky23 5y ago
      In my experience, if you use a file share consistently, it becomes stale over time and has to be remounted. One thing that I’ve noticed with Apple is that there is a “happy path” they they design and test. If you happen upon the magic combo, you’re good, if you’re off the path, you are on untested ground. My guess is that Apple tests against a specific Windows or samba smb version/config, and doesn’t look for any regressions outside of that.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  I had a Time Capsule. It had the same issue with Time Machine rejecting the backup and requiring a re-do every year or so. (the Time Capsule ran NetBSD, I wonder what they used for a AFB/SMB stack. Did they port the macOS one over or use Netatalk/Samba?) Time Machine over a network has always been unreliable.
userbinator 5y ago
I only rarely need to work with Macs, but Apple rewrote its SMB implementation sometime in the 10.12 or 10.13 timeframe (to avoid GPL licensing of the existing open-source one, I believe) and it's been terrible ever since. Even the OSS one wasn't great but I remember reliability was much improved when forced to CIFSv1 (the original simple-but-insecure protocol) than when using any of the newer versions. ...I suppose anyone who has the time to work on this problem could find the last open-source release that Apple used, and port it to the newer versions of macOS.
Asmod4n 5y ago
Just use NFS, it’s also way faster on cheaper NAS devices.
drexlspivey 5y ago
> What’s more likely, is Apple’s notoriously unreliable implementation of SMB causing the problem (and that’s the only option now that AFP support on Mac is dead) How is AFP support on Mac dead? I’m doing Time Machine backups to synology via AFP
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
berberous 5y ago
DSM 7, which was just released, finally implements vfs_fruit, which makes SMB browsing via a Mac much better and faster.
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  I will have to check this out. Do you believe that this will help iOS? I have a Synology, which I tend to run a little behind updates, since it is not directly connected to the internet. Trying to look through files on an iPad or iPhone is ... painful. The search does not work in the slightest. It loses the connection. Scanning a directory takes forever and is not cached ...
  - berberous 5y ago
    Yes it should help massively. You can’t downgrade and there are some issues with upgrading (eg takes some work to properly migrate some packages like Plex over), so upgrade carefully and thoughtfully, but it’s been fine for me.
teekert 5y ago
WebDAV is also really crappy on MacOS, I was sitting next to my father and my Ubuntu laptop with Gnome Files literally got 4x his MacOS performance connecting to my Nextcloud box.
CharlesW 5y ago
> What’s more likely, is Apple’s notoriously unreliable implementation of SMB causing the problem (and that’s the only option now that AFP support on Mac is dead) Are we sure this isn't a Synology issue? I'm all-SMB for both shares and Time Machine/CCC backups on a QNAP NAS and have never had an issue. (Caveat: I moved from Lightroom to Photos this year, and am now using iSCSI APFS volume for that.)
ksec 5y ago
>And people have been complaining about this for years. And we are now coming to 2022, let me say this has been the cases for decades. Their SMB implementation has gotten better in the past 5-6 years but it is still far from the fit and finish on windows and linux.

dystopiabreaker 5y ago

Unfortunately, despite being a nightmare, SMB seems to be still be the best option for networked filesystems on macOS. AFP is now officially deprecated/unsupported, and the NFS client seems to be even worse than Samba/SMB. One last hope was macFUSE/sshfs, however this seemed also to be more or less broken when I tried it (extremely slow speeds, issues with disconnecting, etc).

chromatin 5y ago
There’s also NFS but it seems to be just as slow as SMB on MacOS.
tyingq 5y ago
There's also the option of rsync, though obviously not helpful for live access.

elzbardico 5y ago

Well. SMB is a Microsoft's proprietary protocol. Of course, the windows implementation will be better.

parasubvert 5y ago
Eh, Samba has been fine in the Linux world for many years.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  It works. and it is impressive work what they've done, but let's face it, it is not even close to being as ergonomically and plug and play as it is on a windows only environment. It is a shame that microsoft still haven't truly make SMB an open protocol.
  - ygra 5y ago
    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-smb2/5606ad47-5ee0-437a-817e-70c366052962 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols... Specifications seem to be available, though.
    - Someone 5y ago
      That was done because the EU demanded it (I think as an outcome of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission)
- jsymolon 5y ago
  Agreed, and many thanks to the developers. My pain is browsing over VPN is extremely slow. Probably my fault as getting Desktop (Debian) happy with all the certificates is painful.
- Macha 5y ago
  Windows client -> Linux server has worked great for a long time. Linux client -> Windows server has been less so

wukerplank 5y ago

Why not enable AFP on your Synology additionally to SMB?

pembrook 5y ago
AFP support is gone in MacOS. Apple doesn’t recommend it. SMB is all we have left unfortunately.
- lloydatkinson 5y ago
  I mean you chose the walled garden ecosystem…
- simondotau 5y ago
  The AFP client is not gone from Big Sur, which is what's required to connect to a Synology device using AFP.

atombender 5y ago

I have a media server I keep movies and TV shows on, and connect to Samba from my Mac. I agree, the performance is ridiculously bad. Part of it, I suspect, is Finder. I wonder if NFS works any better? Or maybe Apple's old AFS/AFP, which I think used to be more solid than SMB on Macs? Though I read something about Apple deprecating (or removing?) AFP support recently. Are there any other options?

jeffbee 5y ago
Yes, you can use iscsi. I used iscsi initiator on macOS to make time machine backups on an exported volume from an opensolaris zfs tank. Worked fine for many years, although I no longer use that approach. You have to install iscsi initiator on the Mac, since macOS doesn’t come with it.
- atombender 5y ago
  Isn't that a block-level protocol? My server has a bunch of XFS volumes, which macOS does not understand.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Yeah it’s not really for sharing files around, but it fits the use cases of time machine.
    - atombender 5y ago
      Right, that's a different use than mine.
wazoox 5y ago
From my long experience building high-end NAS servers and struggling with Macs, generally using 10GigE connections: Using SMB, the typical Mac pro can't do much better than 150/200MB/s to/from the NAS. The very same Mac booted on Windows via Boot Camp reads/writes at 1GB/s on the same NAS. Back to MacOS, using either NFS or AFP the Mac easily reads/writes at 1GB/s on the NAS. The SMB implementation of MacOS is utterly broken, and has been for ages. NFS works fine generally, but some programs such as Quicktime pro and more annoyingly, the Finder sometimes have trouble with it. Unfortunately, the fastest and most reliable option by a large margin still is AFP, using Netatalk. If you take care of cleaning regularly the CNID database, it works like a charm. I have many customers using servers with hundreds of TB of storage with AFP and it just works.

riobard 5y ago

The Time Machine over NAS situation is very frustrating. It used to be over Apple's proprietary AFP protocol. With the exception of Apple's now-discontinued Time Capsule product line, all NAS implement AFP using the open-source Netatalk, presumably with reverse-engineered AFP protocol. And it's unreliable. With recent versions of macOS, Time Machine switches to SMB protocol. Apple has a custom SMB implementation, and all NAS use Samba. And it's still unreliable! I guess the only reliable solution to use Time Machine over network is to use a Mac with File Sharing over SMB enabled. At least both ends run Apple's SMB implementation.

kowlo 5y ago
I use a Mac server via File Sharing for my macOs machines. It is still unreliable. Mounting/unmounting is a gamble.
- riobard 5y ago
  Why mounting? Last time I tried there's no manual mounting procedure required.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    In my experience, if you use a file share consistently, it becomes stale over time and has to be remounted. One thing that I’ve noticed with Apple is that there is a “happy path” they they design and test. If you happen upon the magic combo, you’re good, if you’re off the path, you are on untested ground. My guess is that Apple tests against a specific Windows or samba smb version/config, and doesn’t look for any regressions outside of that.
kalleboo 5y ago
I had a Time Capsule. It had the same issue with Time Machine rejecting the backup and requiring a re-do every year or so. (the Time Capsule ran NetBSD, I wonder what they used for a AFB/SMB stack. Did they port the macOS one over or use Netatalk/Samba?) Time Machine over a network has always been unreliable.

userbinator 5y ago

I only rarely need to work with Macs, but Apple rewrote its SMB implementation sometime in the 10.12 or 10.13 timeframe (to avoid GPL licensing of the existing open-source one, I believe) and it's been terrible ever since. Even the OSS one wasn't great but I remember reliability was much improved when forced to CIFSv1 (the original simple-but-insecure protocol) than when using any of the newer versions. ...I suppose anyone who has the time to work on this problem could find the last open-source release that Apple used, and port it to the newer versions of macOS.

Asmod4n 5y ago

Just use NFS, it’s also way faster on cheaper NAS devices.

drexlspivey 5y ago

> What’s more likely, is Apple’s notoriously unreliable implementation of SMB causing the problem (and that’s the only option now that AFP support on Mac is dead) How is AFP support on Mac dead? I’m doing Time Machine backups to synology via AFP

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

berberous 5y ago

DSM 7, which was just released, finally implements vfs_fruit, which makes SMB browsing via a Mac much better and faster.

at_a_remove 5y ago
I will have to check this out. Do you believe that this will help iOS? I have a Synology, which I tend to run a little behind updates, since it is not directly connected to the internet. Trying to look through files on an iPad or iPhone is ... painful. The search does not work in the slightest. It loses the connection. Scanning a directory takes forever and is not cached ...
- berberous 5y ago
  Yes it should help massively. You can’t downgrade and there are some issues with upgrading (eg takes some work to properly migrate some packages like Plex over), so upgrade carefully and thoughtfully, but it’s been fine for me.

teekert 5y ago

WebDAV is also really crappy on MacOS, I was sitting next to my father and my Ubuntu laptop with Gnome Files literally got 4x his MacOS performance connecting to my Nextcloud box.

CharlesW 5y ago

> What’s more likely, is Apple’s notoriously unreliable implementation of SMB causing the problem (and that’s the only option now that AFP support on Mac is dead) Are we sure this isn't a Synology issue? I'm all-SMB for both shares and Time Machine/CCC backups on a QNAP NAS and have never had an issue. (Caveat: I moved from Lightroom to Photos this year, and am now using iSCSI APFS volume for that.)

ksec 5y ago

>And people have been complaining about this for years. And we are now coming to 2022, let me say this has been the cases for decades. Their SMB implementation has gotten better in the past 5-6 years but it is still far from the fit and finish on windows and linux.