MyQNAPCloud Smart Share Link Slowness

English Cloud
1

So following the discussion with @HanzSung in a separate thread, I am starting a new thread to talk about the general slowness of SmartShare links in MyQNAPCloud.

SmartShare is a great way to securely send files to others, but honestly, it is slow. I was told that the reason for this slowness is that the data has to go through the QNAP servers in Taiwan. However, according to @HanzSung the is a global network that is used for the SmartShare links but it has some speed restrictions.

So I wanted to see what the latest speeds were. For reference I have a 2 Gbit/sec download that generally runs pretty close to that and a 350 Mb/sec uplink. Since I have to upload the file through the QNAP infrastructure, my uplink speed should be the limiting factor. However, that is not the case.

I just tried using a SmartShare link to transfer a 15 GB video file. During the transfer (while I had it running), the maximum speed was about 11 Mb/sec. That’s Megabits not MegaBytes. Honestly that’s really bad. A couple years ago, I had shared a video that I had done for a client over SmartShare and it took them hours if not days to transfer it. I think I ended up putting it on a thumb drive and taking it to them.

I’m not certain why QNAP would put a limit on download speeds. Frankly, the faster you can have someone transfer a file through your system the better. Get it over with. I understand infrastructure like AWS likely charges for the number of bytes transferred but if you transfer 15 GB at 300 Mb/s or 10 Mb/s, it’s still the same number of bytes! And if QNAP has not established a regionally localized CDN to handle this sort of thing, well - they should!

Now, I have a MyQNAPCloud storage space and I just uploaded this file to that storage space (the storage space is located in Texas). My speeds uploading are on average well over 100 Mb/sec - I’m seeing speeds as high as like 360 Mb/sec. Generally it’s around 200 Mbps or higher. The entire file is transferred to the cloud space in minutes as opposed to hours - it’s 20x faster. Here’s a couple minutes of transfer speeds. So the infrastructure is there.

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So file is uploaded. Now I am downloading it via a SmartShare link. It’s strange - supposedly it transferred in Safari around 100 Mb/sec. But it didn’t show up in Safari’s download screen and I can’t find the file. Sounds like an error in the MyQNAPCloud website. Anyhow, I am transferring it via Chrome now and getting about 8 Mb/s. So very, very slow - similar to the speeds directly from my NAS.

Now if I download it directly from my MyQNAPCloud storage space (still using Chrome), I get a download speed of around 100 Mb/sec with peaks close to 200 Mb/sec.

So, while the download of 100 Mb/sec directly from QNAP’s storage space is half of my upload speed, it is still 10x that of the SmartShare download.

There’s no conceivable reason that I can understand why SmartShare should be limited so much. It makes for a very poor user experience. This is one reason why people expose their NAS to the WAN (which is very unsafe), so they can reliably and quickly share large files.

We do we need to do to improve SmarShare speeds?

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Thanks for sharing the test results! We’ll look into the SmartShare link transfer speeds internally.

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Hi @NA9D,

Thank you for the detailed testing and for sharing your results. They’re very helpful. Here is some background on how these services work, which should help explain the differences you’re seeing.

1. SmartShare/SmartURL and myQNAPcloud Storage use different architectures

These two services run on completely separate infrastructure and data centers.

  • myQNAPcloud Storage: Your data is uploaded directly to the cloud data center, and downloads come straight from it.
  • SmartShare/SmartURL: The service acts as a relay between your NAS and the recipient. Even if the recipient is in the same physical location as your NAS, traffic may still travel out to a relay data center and back if the two networks can’t reach each other directly.

Traffic does not necessarily go through Taiwan. We have deployed more than 20 relay nodes worldwide, and myQNAPcloud Link automatically connects to the relay node that is closest to your NAS and offers the best speed.

2. Bandwidth limits and the speeds you observed

To keep the service fair for everyone, SmartShare/SmartURL does have a maximum speed limit per NAS. This limit is shared across all active transfers, so sending several files at once will make each individual transfer slower.

The limit exists mainly to make sure we can serve every user at the same time and that everyone gets reliable access. Cost is not the main reason.

That said, the 8–11 Mbps you’re seeing is not expected. Could you please:

  • Open a Support Ticket and attach your myQNAPcloud Debug Log so our team can investigate.
  • Check whether any other connections on your NAS are using myQNAPcloud Link bandwidth at the same time.

3. On our side

We will check the bandwidth and system status of our relay servers for any anomalies. So far we haven’t received other tickets reporting similar issues, so your logs will be especially valuable in tracking down the cause.

Thanks again for the feedback. We’ll keep you updated in this thread.

Regarding the Safari download issue

Since the download worked in Chrome, the problem is most likely on the Safari side. Safari has a per-website download permission, and if it is set to “Deny,” downloads are blocked without any error message. Could you please check the following?

  1. Open the SmartShare link page in Safari and keep it open.
  2. In the menu bar, go to Safari > Settings (on older versions of macOS, Safari > Preferences).
  3. Select the Websites tab, then click Downloads in the left sidebar.
  4. Find the myQNAPcloud website in the list and make sure it is set to Allow (or Ask). Also check the When visiting other websites option at the bottom of the window.
  5. Return to the SmartShare page and try the download again. You can check progress in the Downloads list (Option + Command + L).

If the download still doesn’t start in Safari after this, could you also try another browser, such as Firefox or Edge? That will help us confirm whether the issue is specific to Safari. When you open the Support Ticket, please include your macOS and Safari versions so we can try to reproduce the issue.

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@Andy2 - Thank you for your response. I am glad to hear that the SmarShare/SmartURL function should be faster.

I will open a ticket, however, I have found that there is generally an extremely large disconnect between the ticket system and this forum. The engineers there have no idea what goes on here and it does not appear there is an easy way for them to connect to this. I will post the ticket number here so please be sure to get involved once I post this otherwise, I am afraid it will go nowhere.

I will check my Safari settings and report back on that too.

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@Andy2 - One other question…

I uploaded the file in question to my MyQNAPCloud storage space and did the smart share link from there. So since that is not my NAS but a cloud storage provided by QNAP, what good are my log files going to do?

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@Andy2 - Please refer to ticket number Q-202610-60545

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@Andy2 - Here is an update. This is similar to what I put in the ticket just now:

OK. An update here. The slowness of the download from the cloud space was due to a network setting being incorrect on my Mac. With that corrected, I am seeing 300 Mbps to 500 Mpbs downloads. However, there is extreme slowness if I try to share from my NAS itself.

In the ticket I shared a video file link from my NAS. That file is transferring around 9 Mbps or less. That is the issue.

I have plenty of upload and download bandwidth…

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Hi @NA9D,

Thanks for opening ticket Q-202610-60545 and for keeping this thread updated.

After receiving your ticket, I reviewed your information on our backend and ran connection tests on our side. Based on that, we have identified a likely root cause of the slow SmartShare transfers from your NAS.

We are preparing a new release that addresses it, and it will be rolled out gradually to our relay nodes worldwide in the near future. Since the deployment happens in stages, it will take some time to reach every node. Once the rollout is complete, I’ll post an update here so you can re-test and let us know how the speeds look.

I’m also glad to hear the myQNAPcloud Storage transfer issue is resolved, and thanks for tracking it down to the network setting on your Mac and sharing what you found. Your detailed test results made a real difference in narrowing this down.

Thanks again for your patience in the meantime.

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This is great news! I am looking forward to seeing the results.