transferring via ethernet slows Plex use to buffering/crawl

[wildwolf]

Hi, maybe I just have higher expectations than reality, so I need to ask how this should work or if I potentially have something wrong. I have a pretty decent system, albeit a few years old (64GB RAM, i7-6500K. I have a 2 port 10G card via unifi 48-port Enterprise POE switch, managed by a Unifi Dream Machine Pro. I have 1 line wired to 10G switch for my LAN network (192.168.1.1/24), and the 2nd line wired to my switch for my WiFi network (192.168.30.1/24). 

If I transfer a large amount of data (currently, 1TB) via the 192.168.1.1/24 network, it does the typical SMB thing - runs at about 38-50 MB/sec speeds (unRAID is encrypted, so I assume this slows things down), then eventually runs out of buffer? slows down and catches back up for a few more minutes. The windows file transfer icon tells me about 4 hours to finish the transfer. 

 

In the mean time, my daughter is trying to watch some kids shows on Plex. Almost immediately, it buffers like crazy and can't keep up - in short, it is unplayable. I was hoping by upgrading both lines to the switch to 10G that I would be able to transfer files at max speed on 1 line (wired) and plex would still be able to feed the wifi clients a decent amount of speed on the 2nd 10G line. Is it because they're still on the same switch,  even though they're also on different lines and on different VLANs and the transfers over that switch are still the limiting factor?

Is the limiting factor the CPU and the power encrypting 1TB of data to store on a share and not network throughput?

 

Edited December 10, 2021 by wildwolf

[wildwolf]

Okay, a little more searching and I think I've learned this is known/expected (unfortunately) behavior. It's unRAID server that can't keep up with Plex streaming when file transfers occur. 

 

[opentoe]

13 hours ago, wildwolf said:

Okay, a little more searching and I think I've learned this is known/expected (unfortunately) behavior. It's unRAID server that can't keep up with Plex streaming when file transfers occur. 

 

Correct. If you are streaming from unraid and then even make a small copy on another workstation say goodbye to that original stream. When I want to get ready to watch a movie from Plex, I have to make sure there are no programs scheduled to run or processes going to kick off on unraid.

[JonathanM]

On 12/9/2021 at 11:10 PM, wildwolf said:

It's unRAID server that can't keep up with Plex streaming when file transfers occur. 

Emby doesn't seem to have that problem, at least I've never seen it.