Message "Running (FdMvFI4)" and slow Samba files copy between Syncovery Synology and Windows 10

[LETRA]

Hi. I have two problems making a copy from a Synology NAS folder to a folder on a LaCie external drive. The first one is either of the two ways I am going to explain now: the start of the process takes almost an hour and the following message appears: “Running (FdMvFI4)”. This message appears after having downloaded the remote index and after having counted all the files to be copied. What is this message? I have not found any information searching in Google.

The second thing that happens to me is that the same copy process with Syncovery from Synology via Samba is twice as fast connecting the LaCie external drive to macOS than to Windows 10. On macOS the transfer speed is 60 MB/s stable. On Windows 10 it is between 7 MB/s and 22 MB/s oscillating a lot. I have googled and applied several tips given to optimize the Samba connection. I have disabled Samba 1.0 with Powershell. I have excluded the LaCie disk from indexing. I disabled the signature request before each file copy, but everything must have been OK because the speed is still the same with those oscillations.

If anyone can help me I would appreciate it as it is a valuable copy for me of the music library and the LaCie must be finally connected to the computer with Windows 10, and that will have to make daily backups on the Synology NAS (hopefully at the maximum possible speed).

Best regards.

[tobias]

Hello,
FdMvFl4 means it's looking for moved files. This process is an in-memory comparison and search through the file list. It can take long only if there is a large number of files and folders that differs between source and destination. Detecting moved files can save bandwidth, because they don't have to be copied again - instead Syncovery will just move them to the new subfolder on the destination side, or rename a folder. If you never move files or rename or move folders, you can disable the detection of moved files under "Files" in the profile.

For your use case, I highly recommend using the Windows version of Syncovery. It will work much better. PCs usually have stronger CPUs and everything will just be smoother and faster.

If you must use the Synology version, first please make sure you have the latest one (currently 10.16.11). To optimize SMB performance, please do not use the integrated SMB protocol in Syncovery. Instead, mount the network path in the Synology DSM File Station using Tools->Mount Remote Folder. Then, use the local mount point in Syncovery. The mount points can be seen in the Mount List. You may need to give Syncovery permissions to the mount point, as described on our DSM 7 page.

A setting that influences copying speed is the number of files to copy in parallel. The number can be set on the "Files" tab sheet.

[LETRA]

Thank you very much Tobias. I will follow your advice about remotely mounting on the NAS the Windows external drive. The computer with the LaCie disk will not always be available, I hope this will not cause errors in Syncovery. I still have a question about the difference in Samba performance between macOS and Windows 10. Is this speed difference normal? Is Windows 10 so slow or is there some other parameter I can change?

All the best.

[tobias]

Hi,
thanks for your reply! Unfortunately I do not know why the performance differs.

SMB in Windows was created by Microsoft, and in macOS it is the open source Samba. So they are two entirely different programs, which may perform differently as well.

The main limitation of the integrated SMB in Syncovery is being limited to a single thread. So while it may appear to be copying files in parallel, the atomic file operations like opening, writing blocks, and closing, are actually serialized inside Syncovery.

When the remote PC is not available, you will see an error message in Syncovery, but that's OK.

I just hope that the Synology DSM auto-mounts the PC when it goes online. If not, it may not be so great.

[tobias]

Hello,
some additional information: when working with mount points, it is important to choose the following checkmark on the "Job" tab sheet in the profile:
- Run Only If Neither Side Is Empty

Otherwise Syncovery might be copying to the mount point when the drive is not mounted, and then the files would possibly be copied to the root drive or main data volume inside the Synology NAS.

To speed up building the file list, you can increase the scanning threads and use the Syncovery Remote Service to generate the listing. The Remote Service would have to be installed on the Windows machine and configured properly.

See also
https://www.syncovery.com/documentation/faq/fastlist/
https://www.syncovery.com/remoteservice/

[LETRA]

Thank you very much. I'll get into it all tomorrow and if I have any more questions, if it's no bother, I'll ask again.

Best regards.