Network speed issue ?

[mattD]

Hello again

Using 2 ways to download files for a microSD card or SD card, I do not get giggabit speeds.
Using the web interface I get some minutes at only Kilobits speeds ( displayed in the web browser ).
I used ssh copy (scp program) and it gave me 4 MB/s, ssh is taking almost 5 sec to display the password prompt.
Searching in the system logs I get displayed that the ethernet connexion is 1000Mbits /s as advised.
Ethernet switch is a working gigabit and cables are CAT6 with short distances.



Any thought ?

 

[hummingbirdography]

Kinda sounds like an issue with your connection. Are you using ethernet tethered or through a LAN? Have you tried connecting through USB? The SSH login prompt should be responding in much less time than 5 seconds.

 

[mattD]

Hi thanks for your answer,
The camera is on switch LAN with very little elements on it. The camera, a raspberry pi and some ESP32 sensors. It's a close LAN, no internet access.

Strange !

 

[hummingbirdography]

Strange indeed! I still think connecting through USB or tethered ethernet might be worth a try. If you use USB, the Chronos IP address is fixed to 192.168.12.1

 

[mattD]

Will try and keep you updated thank you

 

[PabloC]

I’m also not getting gigabit speeds, and for the most part I’ve observed the same behavior as @mattD when copying either individual TIFF files or a large MP4 video. Theoretically, 1 Gbps corresponds to 125 MB/s. In practice, one would expect transfer rates in the range of 50–100 MB/s, so 4 MB/s is indeed far too slow — off by roughly a factor of ten.

For reference, I’m using a Chronos 2.1 camera (purchased about a month ago), running software version 0.7.2. The camera holds an SD card ^(1), and a SSD^(2) is also connected to it — both were purchased from Kron Technologies together with the camera.

Specifically, using scp to transfer files from the camera (either from the SD card or the SSD) results in speeds of approximately 4 MB/s. In this setup, the camera is connected to the same switch as the computer issuing the scp command. I tested this both with the switch connected to my institution's LAN, and with the switch disconnected from the LAN after IP addresses had been assigned — in order to rule out background traffic or packet collisions as possible causes of the low speeds. Both configurations gave the same results (as described above).

The switch is rated at 1 Gbps, and all Ethernet cables used are CAT 5E.

Moreover, when logged into the camera via SSH, running:

cat /sys/class/net/eth0/speed

returns "1000", which —unless I'm mistaken— indicates that the negotiated link speed is indeed 1 Gbps (with eth0 being the Ethernet interface that has the assigned IP address and is used for both SSH and SCP connections).

I also tested file transfers via scp over the micro-USB port on the camera, using IP address 192.168.12.1. While the connection was successful, the transfer rate remained in the same range: around 4–5 MB/s.

I would greatly appreciate any help or guidance toward achieving higher transfer speeds over scp, or advice on how to further debug the source of this limitation.

---

Notes:

• (1) SanDisk Ultra 32 GB, SDHC UHS-I card. For your reference: manufacturer specs list “up to 100 MB/s”.
• (2) SanDisk 240 GB SSD, purchased with the camera. Manufacturer specs state “up to 530 MB/s sequential read speed”.

 

[hummingbirdography]

You got me curious so I did some tests here. The ethernet interface is indeed 1 Gbps as reported by 'lshw' but I'm not aware of anything we can do to get faster speeds out of it. I'm guessing the slow speeds are inherited from the over 10 years old embedded hardware the Chronos 1.4 & 2.1 have.

Running dd & hdparm from Chronos 2.1 via SSH:

SanDisk Ultra 120MB/s 32GB SDHC I Class 10
dd if=/dev/zero of=/media/mmcblk1p1/test bs=100M count=1 oflag=direct
104857600 bytes (105 MB) copied, 10.1255 s, 10.4 MB/s
hdparm -t /dev/mmcblk1p1
Timing buffered disk reads: 60 MB in 3.10 seconds = 19.38 MB/sec

TeamGroup GX2 eSATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Drive
dd if=/dev/zero of=/media/sda1/test bs=100M count=1 oflag=direct
104857600 bytes (105 MB) copied, 1.93568 s, 54.2 MB/s
hdparm -t /dev/sda1
Timing buffered disk reads: 150 MB in 3.03 seconds = 49.46 MB/sec


Running "LAN Speed Test" from Mac connected via Ethernet to SMB server running on the Chronos 2.1, 100MB fixed packet size tests:

SanDisk Ultra 120MB/s 32GB SDHC I Class 10
Folder or Server IP: /Volumes/media/mmcblk1p1
Packet Size: 100 MB to 100 MB
Packet Size Avg: 100,000,000 Bytes
Packets: 1
Total Test Time: 15.78048 sec
Throughput: Average
Write: 9.4665 (84,508,557)
Read: 5.5786 (143,404,796)
Write Speed: 10.56 MBps
Read Speed: 17.93 MBps
Write Cache: Enabled
Read Cache: Disabled

TeamGroup GX2 eSATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Drive
Folder or Server IP: /Volumes/media/sda1
Packet Size: 100 MB to 100 MB
Packet Size Avg: 100,000,000 Bytes
Packets: 1
Total Test Time: 17.67102 sec
Throughput: Average
Write: 5.8461 (136,843,553)
Read: 5.6351 (141,968,446)
Write Speed: 17.11 MBps
Read Speed: 17.75 MBps
Write Cache: Enabled
Read Cache: Disabled


Running "LAN Speed Test" from Mac connected via Micro USB to SMB server running on the Chronos 2.1, 100MB fixed packet size tests:

SanDisk Ultra 120MB/s 32GB SDHC I Class 10
Folder or Server IP: /Volumes/media/mmcblk1p1
Packet Size: 100 MB to 100 MB
Packet Size Avg: 100,000,000 Bytes
Packets: 1
Total Test Time: 19.6528 sec
Throughput: Average
Write: 10.8343 (73,839,361)
Read: 7.5464 (106,010,687)
Write Speed: 9.23 MBps
Read Speed: 13.25 MBps
Write Cache: Enabled
Read Cache: Disabled

TeamGroup GX2 eSATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Drive
Folder or Server IP: /Volumes/media/sda1
Packet Size: 100 MB to 100 MB
Packet Size Avg: 100,000,000 Bytes
Packets: 1
Total Test Time: 17.29409 sec
Throughput: Average
Write: 8.6443 (92,546,416)
Read: 7.3872 (108,295,489)
Write Speed: 11.57 MBps
Read Speed: 13.54 MBps
Write Cache: Enabled
Read Cache: Disabled

 

[PabloC]

Thanks @hummingbirdography for your quick reply and for the tests you ran — those figures are really valuable and informative. Let me briefly summarize:

1. Local dd and hdparm tests on the Chronos camera:
   • The SD card writes at ~10 MB/s, reads at ~19 MB/s.
   • The SSD (TeamGroup GX2) writes at ~54 MB/s, reads at ~49 MB/s.
   • So the storage itself, especially the SSD, is not the bottleneck.
2. "LAN Speed Test" over Ethernet:
   • SSD shows write speeds around 17.1 MB/s and read speeds around 17.75 MB/s.
   • This matches reasonably (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) with what one would expect from the camera's hardware + 1 Gbps Ethernet + SMB + filesystem overhead.
3. Micro-USB connection performs worse, which is probably to be expected due to protocol and bandwidth limits.

Based on what you found, I believe there’s still some room for improvement (with the current hardware and software) — namely, going from ~4–5 MB/s to something in the 10–15 MB/s range. Would you agree?

And if so, do you have any recommendations on how to achieve those speeds?

Related question: would rsync installed in the camera make a difference in transfer speeds over scp?

Thanks again for all your help.