Networking performance with NFS

[Jens]

Hi,
I am trying to us the Bubba as a storage centrol for TV recordings from my dreambox set-top box.
At first I installed samba and tried to connect that way. The recordings were very blocky, and to my experience this is due to bad networking throughput. As the next step I installed NFS server on the bubba and connected that way. This time the recordings are much better, but now and then there are problems anyway.
I never had any problems with my PC/XP/smb setup.
Now to my question:
Can I enhance the NFS performance on the bubba in any way? Perhaps disabling something else that i do not need?
I ony use the Bubba for storage and as torrent client.
By the way, I'm not a Linux wiz, so keep it simple...
BR Jens

[Cheeseboy]

Hello Jens,

Your PC will ALWAYS have more CPU and network performance than the little bubba. Mine works just fine as a host of videos, UNLESS something happens to be going on at the same time. Say a friend is downloading something via FTP, a torrent is downloading/uploading or something similar... Then it is hopeless...
You can disable all services you do not need in the web interface, and then try again.

If you do want to get a bit adventurous and fiddle a little with linux, there are a bunch of commands that you can use to find out where the processing power or the network bandwdith is going. Simple things to check from the command prompt:

Code: Select all

top

This is like the process view in the Task Manager in windows, it will let you know what consumes what resources. Exit by pressing 'q'.

Are there hundreds of people connected to your little server, downloading torrents etc?

Code: Select all

netstat -a | grep ESTABLISH

To summarize:
The bubba should be able to serve up a DVD over a 100mb/s network if there is nothing else taking it's resources, like indexing a lot of music, serving someone elses up/downloads etc.

Cheers,

Cheeseboy

[pelle]

Some experience with Bubba hosting videos etc when using a 100mbps (wired), a 54 Mbps (802.11g wireless) and a 200 Mbps Powerline Ehernet adapter in my home LAN network.

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CASE 1. Using PS3 as mediaplayer

The PS3 can only use UPnP (mediatomb) which I understand is slower than SMB and NFS.

-- With 54 Mpbs wireless LAN
The PS3 cannot play DVD-files and AVI-files is sometimes stutttering. Compared with using a PC-laptop in a wireless setup the PC works better (This is among other things due to the PC using SMB and not UPnP I guess)

-- With 100 Mbps LAN
The PS3 plays DVD and AVI-files in UPnP mode without any stuttering (even with active torrents being up/downloaded).

-----------------------------------------------------------
CASE 2. Using Popcorn Hour (PCH) as a mediaplayer.

The PCH cannot without further ado use the wireless setup. Using SMB caused some stuttering on the PCH when playing DVD so I changed to NFS instead which works better.

-- With 200 Mbps Powerline adapter
The PCH plays AVI-files in NFS mode without any stuttering (even with active torrents being up/downloaded). When it comes to DVD-files they sometimes stutter. I am guessing this is mainly due to the Powerline not providing enough video throughput. (See wired setup below).

-- With 100 Mbps wired LAN
The PCH plays DVD and AVI-files in NFS mode without any stuttering (even with active torrents being up/downloaded).

-----------------------------------------------------------
CASE 3. Using PC as a Mediaplayer

-- With 100 Mbps wireless LAN
The PC plays DVD and AVI-files in SMB mode without any stuttering (even with active torrents being up/downloaded). When writing this I am running three mediaplayers on a single PC all playing DVD-files simultaneous without any stuttering.


-----------------------------------------------------------
ALL IN ALL
Using a wired 100 Mbps LAN the Bubba works well as a video/file server.

You should not have a problem as long as you want to play DVD/AVI files in a normal fashion (normal activity on the Bubba and normal n:o of players/clients). The main thing is to use a wired LAN setup.

-----------------------------------------------------------

note 1: I am not a LAN/IP expert so please read my "conclusions" with this in mind.

note 2: I have not tested HD video (only WMV9) and I am guessing this requires a lot from the Bubba CPU...

note 3: If anybody knows which streaming speeds I should expect from Bubba in the various network connection modes, please let me know. Is it as follows?
UPnP: ~10Mbps
SMB: ~25Mbps
NFS: ~33Mbps

[Jens]

Thanks for your reply.
The Dreambox is notorius for it's demands on the server at video recording. Only a perfect wired connection is good enough.
I have tried smb & NFS but the Bubba is just to slow (for the Dreambox)
Not even Samba on a full size modern Linux PC is fast enough.
I'm going back to the XP smb share model, even as this means i have to keep the big power consuming PC-box on all the time.

[habrys]

note 2: I have not tested HD video (only WMV9) and I am guessing this requires a lot from the Bubba CPU...

I use Tvix / Bubba combo for watching HD movies (720p and sometimes 1080p) over wired network (100 Mbps) all the time without any stuttering or other problems. Torrent downloads in the background (typically just one download, but I tried as much as 10 simultaneously once) don't make any difference - not noticeable during watching at all.

Perhaps I should add, that these are highly compressed mkv/x264 files, which are 4-8 GB per typical 120 min or so movie (video about 5-10 Mbps, audio 640 kbps). So perhaps not so demanding as an 1:1 BluRay rip, which could be encoded with even 30 Mbps and need accordingly more bandwidth than these.

I use NFS now, but Samba worked pretty well too if I remember correctly. Bubba is truly amazing

[niklinds]

Hi

Can you please explain to me in detail how you gotten the SAMBA to work on the Bubba2 with the Tvix 6500 mediaplayer?

I have tried everything but still now folder to show? PING works from mediaplayer.