[Solved] Constant buffering even with cache drive enabled


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I am constantly experiencing buffering when attempting to play videos from my unRAID server. The server has a 3.0 Ghz quad core and 8GB of RAM which I thought would be plenty being that my old setup was a single core with 2GB of ram and JBOD and that streamed content just fine.

 

Yes, I _am_ using a cache drive.

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I am constantly experiencing buffering when attempting to play videos from my unRAID server. The server has a 3.0 Ghz quad core and 8GB of RAM which I thought would be plenty being that my old setup was a single core with 2GB of ram and JBOD and that streamed content just fine.

 

Yes, I _am_ using a cache drive.

The "cache" drive has absolutely NOTHING to do with playback of media from your array.  It is involved in allowing "writes" to your array to occur faster then when written directly to the protected array. 

 

If you have issues with streaming media, you'll need to provide a lot more detail on your network configuration, add-on processes, and whatever else is going on on your server simultaneously.  Simply having a 3Ghz quad-core processor is completely useless unless being utilized by a CPU intensive process.  For most streaming, you are I/O bound by your PCI bus and network.

 

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Per your comment in another thread the CPU matters. That is why I called it out. Per other comments (not by you) adding the cache drive is what solved buffering issues for them.

 

I am confident that my network configuration is not the issue as I am using wired gigabit router with cat6 cables. I am willing to do additional testing/provide more detail if you believe it to be necessary.

 

I've disabled all plugins and am using the default go file to make sure nothing additional is going on. What additional information can I share in order to provide you with adequate details to assist?

 

Thanks!

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Per your comment in another thread the CPU matters. That is why I called it out. Per other comments (not by you) adding the cache drive is what solved buffering issues for them.

 

I am confident that my network configuration is not the issue as I am using wired gigabit router with cat6 cables. I am willing to do additional testing/provide more detail if you believe it to be necessary.

 

I've disabled all plugins and am using the default go file to make sure nothing additional is going on. What additional information can I share in order to provide you with adequate details to assist?

 

Thanks!

What do

ifconfig eth0

and

ethtool eth0

show??

 

Did you crimp the ends on the cat6 cables yourself?    If yes, what color-code did you use?  What specific make/model router?

 

How busy are your CPUs?  Is a parity calc/sync in progress?

 

(You can see the statistics in "htop" (if you installed it) or "top" (if using top, press "1" to toggle individual CPU stats)

 

What are you using to play media? 

 

What type of media are you playing?

 

Joe L.

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What do

ifconfig eth0

root@Tower:~# ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1c:c0:60:92:e2  
          inet addr:192.168.23.134  Bcast:192.168.23.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:69198745 errors:0 dropped:476075 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:47236942 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:98347285550 (91.5 GiB)  TX bytes:16430554304 (15.3 GiB)
          Interrupt:20 Memory:e4200000-e4220000

 

and

ethtool eth0

Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP ]
Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
                        1000baseT/Full 
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
                        1000baseT/Full 
Advertised pause frame use: No
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: Twisted Pair
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
MDI-X: off
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
Link detected: ye

show??

 

Did you crimp the ends on the cat6 cables yourself? No, purchased from Monoprice

If yes, what color-code did you use? N/A

What specific make/model router? Asus RT-N16 (w/Firmware: DD-WRT v24-sp2)

 

How busy are your CPUs? Does the `top` output below give you enough detail?

Is a parity calc/sync in progress? No

 

(You can see the statistics in "htop" (if you installed it) or "top" (if using top, press "1" to toggle individual CPU stats)

htop screenshot

 

What are you using to play media?  Apple TV w/XBMC

 

What type of media are you playing? MKV 720p

 

Joe L.

 

 

All of this was captured while attempting to stream 720p content and experiencing buffering.

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Your machine has been up 3 days and look at all the dropped packets.

RX packets:69198745 errors:0 dropped:476075 overruns:0 frame:0

 

Mine has been up 8days and look at my numbers

RX packets:64219396 errors:0 dropped:1225 overruns:0 frame:0

 

Unless I'm nuts that seems a bit odd

 

I can easily stream not transcode 5 720 streams without any buffering what so ever on my little AMD single core machine over my Gigabit network.

 

With both have transfered close to the same amount of data, but your dropped packets is a lot higher.

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What nic are you running and what build of unRAID are you running? I know there is/was some problems with people running certain builds of the Realtech onboard NIC on some of the RC5 releases. I have an older Realtec card and I don't appear to be suffering from it. Then I don't know for sure if the newer card simply do not work or if they are just buggy and drop data.

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UPDATE: Believe I have: Intel® 82566DC Gigabit Ethernet Controller

 

Original Message


 

Attempting to figure out which make it is from the Motherboard spec but for now here is what I have:

 

  *-core                  
       description: Motherboard
       product: DP35DP
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       version: AAD81073-209
       serial: USDP825002LZ
       slot: Base Board Chassis Location

*-network               
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 19
       bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 02
       serial: 00:1c:c0:60:92:e2
       size: 1GB/s
       capacity: 1GB/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=1.9.5-k duplex=full firmware=1.3-0 ip=192.168.23.134 latency=0 link=yes module=e1000e multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=1GB/s

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Thanks guys! Found the culprit, the switch. My configuration was Router + Switch now its just Router. But now I am thinking about getting a new switch and putting everything on it. What do people thing of TRENDnet TEG-S80G because currently the only thing in my media cabinet wired is my ATV (directly to router, in order to bypass crapped out switch). But I like having everything wired (within reason of course, no need to do that with laptops).

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Thanks guys! Found the culprit, the switch. My configuration was Router + Switch now its just Router.

Glad you found the issue, especially since you started with saying

    Quote: "I am confident that my network configuration is not the issue as I am using wired gigabit router with cat6 cables."

 

Right now, it is probably time go watch a few movies and enjoy your improved performance.... 

 

Joe L.

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