My infrastructure has 3 locations. All IPSEC VPN’d together via site-to-site. All locations run pfSense and all locations have connectivity between each other for a Windows terminal server (RDS) that people use for a Windows desktop GUI. All servers run from the main location, including the TrueNAS server. I’m utilizing Active Directory on-site. TrueNAS server runs on bare-metal (Not a VM).
When I try to access the TrueNAS server over the VPN from either of the other two remote locations, It takes a few minutes to connect. For example, I have a folder mapped on my Windows laptop, and it takes a few minutes to populate the folder when I click into it. Once i’m in, my data speeds are at 100Mbps between all locations (Slowest internet speed is 100Mbps between all locations. When I access folders from the same location as the TrueNAS server, It populates my folders instantly. I have a Windows VM (Hyper-V) at the main location with a RAID array attached to the VM and I do not experice any latencey issues with it. Only TrueNAS.
Main location: 10.0.0.0/23 and DC + DNS
Remote location 1: 192.168.5.0/24 and DC + DNS
Remote location 2: 192.168.4.0/24 and DC + DNS
Any help would be appreciated and any extra info needed, I can provide.
Just want to make it a point that once i establish connection to the NAS over VPN, I transfer at 100Mbps either direction. All sites VPN’d together for printing needs, as well, for some older software we use.
There is a lot more overhead than you think. You first have the overhead of the VPN tunnel itself. It is dependent on what ciphers you decided to use and how well your hardware can decrypt the data. The second is the internet itself. There is added latency to get the data to its destinations. The third is the protocol being used. SMB was not designed to be used in the environments explained in 1 and 2.
SMB traffic over the VPN is close enough to 100Mbps to satisfy me. it’s all SMB3. Like I said, I have a Windows VM acting as a small NAS and do not see the delay whatsoever, no matter which location. Like I also said, Once I’m sending or receiving over the VPN with TrueNAS, It’s right around 100Mbps. The slowest internet pipe across locations is 100Mbps. This isnt an overhead issue. Once the connection is established, I’m close enough around 100Mbps
Main site is on 500/500
two remote sites are on 100/100
All fiber and Windows VM has no initial connection delay over VPN.
I’m seeing 80Mbps across the VPN with TrueNAS right now, after I wait about 3 minutes for the initial connection from across the VPN. SMB3 with a Windows VM has no delay from the initial connection.
Just taking a wild shot here. Any chance there’s a DNS hitch involved? The initial connection taking forever might make sense if you’re connecting by hostname and a name server is timing out.
Maybe a more important question would be should I move away from using SMB shares? It’s just convenient with all my workstations running Windows 11 across all locations.