Streaming pausing when accessing the server via other computers

[crowdx42]

Hi all,

 so I have been wrestling with an issue with UNRAID, basically when I am watching streaming shows I get brief pauses in playback. It seems that this happens when the server is accessed by another machine or other network activity occurs. The machine runs a Haswell i5 with 16gb of memory, 1tb Samsung EVO SSD and a 4 port Intel Pro NIC. The network runs over gigabit cat6 for 90% of the network which is routed via a dedicated Pfsense router and a CISCO SG-200 26 port managed switch which is being used as a dumb switch.

I have attached my logs and at 4:20 server time I did experience a brief pause in playback.

I use an i5 NUC with 16gb of memory for media playback and it connects via cat6 back to the CISCO switch and the Pfsense router is located on top of the switch, so a short patch cable is used between the switch to the router.
I have tried using one of the other ports on the NIC card with no success.
Thoughts? I would believe that this setup should not even break a sweat with most tasks that Unraid would perform?
Thank you all for any help you can provide.
Patrick

unraid_6-diagnostics-20170816-1650.zip

[Squid]

Its going to be caused by the hard drive controllers pausing while they're waiting for another disk to spin up (caused by the other computer requiring info on the other disk)

 

You can play around with spinup groups (ie: so that all disks with movies on them are spun up when any of them are spun up), or put all the disks into the same spin up group so that any access causes all disks to spin up concurrently, or just deal with it.

 

Purely a hardware thing, and not much unRaid can do about it beyond those workarounds.

[kizer]

I'd run Cache_dir to keep drives from spinning up unless they are really being read across your network. 

Dynamix Cache Directories is pretty much the same thing. 

[crowdx42]

Thanks for the replies, so if this is correct then I could set my drives to not spin down as a test to see if that cures the problem. If this solves the issue, is there any app out there that I can schedule the drive to spin down at night/early morning and so they would never interfere when we are streaming tv shows?