twig Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 Hi all, I recently purchased unraid 6 after being happy with what I saw when trialling it. The one thing I didn't test when trialling was my WDTV live player which, to be honest, is the main client for my media server. I assumed that testing raw throughput from my PC was sufficient. I previously was running a RAID6 array under Ubuntu 12 LTS. I had a simple samba setup sharing the content of the array. My WDTV Live worked just fine with this, streaming from the smb share without fault. The WD only does 100Mb ethernet but that should be enough. Under Unraid, I can't play any file (the same ones that worked before) without it pausing every 15 seconds to buffer. I get 100MB+/sec read on my PC for the same files I'm attempting to play. I thought maybe it was an incompatible NIC but some what I've read my onboard Atheros AR8121 is fully compatible. Server specs: Core2Duo E8500 8GB ASUS P5QL mobo http://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/P5QL_PRO/ The network hardware and topology has not changed. Server, PC and WDTV player are connected to a Netgear ProSafe 5 port giga switch. cat6 on everthing. I've tried Raspbmc on my pi and the same behaviour is exhibited (again a 100Mb device). I can't help but feel its the ethernet speed mismatch that is causing the problem. I forced the server NIC to 100Mb but it didn't help at all. Please help, I don't want to have wasted my money on a Plus license for nothing Link to comment
twig Posted March 11, 2015 Author Share Posted March 11, 2015 No ideas? I really don't wanna drop another $40AUD on an Intel NIC if it's not guaranteed to fix the problem. I've already spent $90AUD on the license. Regretting my move from Ubuntu Link to comment
kaiguy Posted March 12, 2015 Share Posted March 12, 2015 Hopefully someone else chimes in, but I wouldn't necessarily point the finger at the 100mbps adapter. That should still be plenty fast for even a high bitrate 1080p video. This one is a puzzler. You don't have a usb wifi adapter you can use in your Pi, can you? I'm wondering if your router doesn't like something about your setup... But you did mention no changes to networking. I take it you can play the video fine on a laptop or computer? Link to comment
twig Posted March 12, 2015 Author Share Posted March 12, 2015 I take it you can play the video fine on a laptop or computer? Yeah absolutely 100% fine on a PC with gigabit LAN and laptop with 100Mb (so you're right its not about the throughput). I'm stumped that's for sure Link to comment
kaiguy Posted March 12, 2015 Share Posted March 12, 2015 So its not the network specifically, nor is it unRAID specifically (since it works fine to a PC and laptop). It must be a combination of items... At this point, I'd just try anything different to see if it plays nicer with the WDTV. Have you tried using NFS instead of SMB? Is the WDTV firmware upgradable? How about your router? Can you update the firmware there? Link to comment
twig Posted March 12, 2015 Author Share Posted March 12, 2015 nor is it unRAID specifically (since it works fine to a PC and laptop). Well, for me it kind of is unraid specifically, it is the only thing that has changed in the whole setup. But yeah its some very specific combo of drivers, devices and network. Just checked and WD and Pi play the same files hosted on my Win7 PC just fine. I did try NFS but the WD doesnt seem to be able to see it, never used it before. Link to comment
earthworm Posted March 12, 2015 Share Posted March 12, 2015 I've tried this combination in the past with success. I no longer have the WDTV live but it worked for all but the highest bitrate files I threw at it even with my old unRAID server. It was my favourite media player. Link to comment
twig Posted April 9, 2015 Author Share Posted April 9, 2015 Installed an Intel MT1000 gigabit card and presto, works like a dream. Apparently something is up with my onboard Atheros adapter. To summarise: When sharing via samba with another gigabit device, everything is fine. When sharing via samba a 100Mb device, playback is broken, pauses every 10 seconds or so to buffer. Same thing happens even if I limit the server NIC to 100Mb. Exact same setup but with Intel gb card, everything works fine on 1000Mb and 100Mb devices. I guess I'll look into posting a bug report. Link to comment
garycase Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 Glad that resolved it. Intel NICs are definitely the best choice -- not only for UnRAID, but for just about every other OS. One would think that by this stage in the evolution of networking technology these would be pretty much commodity items that all worked pretty consistently, but that's simply not the case. My troubleshooting suggestions when folks have network speed issues are (a) thoroughly test the cables ... a discontinuity in any pair can cause speed issues where the LAN reverts to lower speeds; (b) ditto the switch ports ... ports DO fail, and not always totally -- they'll often just revert to lower speeds (100Mb or even 10Mb); and © try a new adapter -- preferably Intel. Link to comment
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