Jumbo Frames?

[Alex31]

Hello,

I'm using a Shuttle pc with an Amd dualcore Athlon ( 4450E ) and 2 GB DDR 2 memory
The internal drive is a 64 GB SSD

Everything here is On a Gigabit network,
My router i a Asus RT-AC68U

On my shuttle is have a external HDD box with 2 drives in JBOD a 2 TB and a 3 Tb drive.
Connected with e-Sata
My write speed from my pc to my Shuttle is 104 Mbit

I stream media from the shuttle to my mediaplayer Dune Smart D1
I configured my dune and my Shuttle with Nfs Share

When i play hd content 15 gb or so i have no problem when i play bigger hd content 30 gb, 40 gb or so i get short freezes when i check the info the data speed is around 38 till 45 Mbit.

Hope someone could tell me what the problem is?
My dune is fast enough, i used to stream directly from my pc over the asus router to my dune and framerates 60 or 70 Mbit where no problem at all.

 

[Yatti420]

Well with 2gb ram your running ufs.. jumbo frames need be supported by everything

Sent from my SGH-I257M using Tapatalk 2

 

[cyberjock]

Are you using ZFS?

 

[Alex31]

Yes i'm using ZFS
And i'm planning to put 4 Gb in the shuttle in stead of 2 Gb now

 

[cyberjock]

Uhh, you should have 8GB minimum... just like the hardware requirements dictate. ;)

Yes, I do realize this probably means your going to say you need a new motherboard. But with <8GB of RAM you can lose your pool. That's why I have those warnings in the manual.

 

[Alex31]

Thanks,

Is that's wy i have short freezes when streaming blu-ray files 30 Gb and higher ?
But why does for example a synology with a smaler processor and the same 2 Gb memory, playes those files without any freezes?
Has it anything to do with Jumbo frames or not?

 

[SmallGuy]

I use Zappiti player mini (equivalent to DUNE HD TV 301, SoC Sigma Designs SMP8672).
It works flawlessly with my crappy NIC, with a simple CIFS share, without jumbo-jet frame or turbo-LACP or something sophisticated. Your trouble is probably on your FreeNAS and/or network set-up.
Think simple, and try to match the minimum hardware requirements first.

 

[c32767a]

Thanks,

Is that's wy i have short freezes when streaming blu-ray files 30 Gb and higher ?
But why does for example a synology with a smaler processor and the same 2 Gb memory, playes those files without any freezes?
Has it anything to do with Jumbo frames or not?

In your environment, Jumbo frames will add no value and could be causing the intermittent performance.
It would be best for you to turn them off.
Once they're off, if you still have problems, you can start to look at other parts of your setup.

I've run FreeNAS on Qnap TS-459p devices with 2G of ram and an Intel Atom and they perform well, so I doubt it's a hardware performance issue.
It's far more likely to be a configuration issue.

 

[Alex31]

How can i check if jumbo frames are turned on or off ?
Other setting that may cause this problem ?

 

[cyberjock]

In your environment, Jumbo frames will add no value and could be causing the intermittent performance.
It would be best for you to turn them off.
Once they're off, if you still have problems, you can start to look at other parts of your setup.

I've run FreeNAS on Qnap TS-459p devices with 2G of ram and an Intel Atom and they perform well, so I doubt it's a hardware performance issue.
It's far more likely to be a configuration issue.

Good idea. Let's just ignore the hardware requirements that the manual has because you've used it before. Nevermind the fact that we've had dozens and dozens of users lose their pools because of <8GB of RAM.

 

[Alex31]

Any way,

How can i check if jumbo frames are turned on or off ?
Other setting that may cause this problem ?
Except the amount of memory I upgrade it to the hardware requirments

 

[SmallGuy]

Why are you worrying about it?
You can check the MTU size defined on your NIC using ifconfig command. If you don't have modify it, it should be 1500, as defined by the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard.
Keep in mind that all your network equipements should and has to be configure to support it.
My advice: forget it!

 

[joeschmuck]

Thought I'd jump in here with my advice and you may not like it...

It looks like you are having a bandwidth issue for which you will probably not like... I'd convert all videos into a lower quality video. I have ripped a few BluRay DVDs and the size is enormous, just too large to be honest. I have converted those into a 4 to 7 GB HD (720p) or 7-10 GB (1080p) video. I can't tell the quality difference from the original 30GB file and the 1080p video at all and odds are you won't be able to either. The 720p video is pretty close to the original as well. Once you have converted the files you want to watch then you have reduced the bandwidth problem. Now I don't rip media anymore, that stuff is on NetFlix and those other online streaming sources.

One other comment... I don't know if the device you are streaming to accepts DLNA but you could try that if you haven't already.

As for your system... you never mentions (or I missed it) what version of freeNAS you are running. If you are going to use 4GB RAM then I'd recommend any 8.x version, not the 9.x because they need more RAM to operate stable.

 

[Alex31]

I'm running version 9.2.1.4.1
Can i downgrade tot a 8xxx version without data los on my hard drives?

 

[SmallGuy]

Ok I have assume that Alex got the knowledge to estimate the situation properly. Let me go deeply.
A Full HD 3D video (2x1080p, like an original BD 3D rip) represent approximatively 80Mbit/s of bandwidth (this the maximum for World War Z 3D ;) , I have check before posting as an example), far, far lower of the theoretical gigabit network bandwidth (something like 800 to 900Mbit/s in practice I think), and even far lower the FreeNAS capacity with a crappy NIC like mine. :p
That why I insist to say you got a problem with your FreeNAS and/or network set-up.
You have to check step by step what's going wrong, and listen to the advices given to you on this topic.
@Joeschmuck, Samba share works like a charm for this kind of devices.

 

[solarisguy]

If you had created your storage on any FreeNAS 9.x, then you cannot go to 8.x. Sorry.

As usual, there is an exception, but if it were applicable to you, then you would not be asking the question.

P.S. You did not mention being on 8.x earlier, but just to clarify: If you had created your storage on any FreeNAS 8.x, and then upgraded your pool when running FreeNAS 9.x (a recommended procedure), then you cannot go back to 8.x. Sorry.

 

[joeschmuck]

But lets temper the going backwards thing a bit here with the fact that you are using a 64GB SSD, not a group of 4TB drives. All your data can easily fit on some other hard drive, or if you have it already on some other device, it's not an issue. If you did create your ZFS drive using FreeNAS 9.x or created it with 8.x and upgraded the pool, I'd just remove and erase your pool, then start from scratch and install 8.2.x (can't recall the latest version) and run with 4GB RAM providing you are only running a simple file server. You can also add the MiniDLNA plugin, it has very low requirements if you are looking for DLNA support. If you created your pool with 8.x and never upgraded your pool, you could simply reinstall 8.2.x as a clean install and then auto-import your pool.

EDIT: Crap, I just re-read your first post. I guess the 64GB SSD is the boot drive? And yo have a 2+3TB JOB. Well still it will depend on how much data you have stored.

 

[Alex31]

Your right, i'm using the 64 gb ssd only as boot drive.
The 2 and 3 Tb in JBOD these are installed in a external HD Raid device that's connected to the shuttle pc with eSata
The 2 tb has close to 1 tb on it
The 3 tb has 1,2 Tb on it
And yes i'm only using it as a simple file server.

 

[joeschmuck]

Well because you have such a small amount of data I recommend that if you are going to stick with your current platform that you backup your data and recreate your drives but I'd recommend using FreeNAS 8.3.2-Release found here http://download.freenas.org/8.3.2/RELEASE/ and use UFS formatted drives vice ZFS since you are not using ECC RAM and don't have a real RAIDZ configuration, AND because it should improve your throughput since you have a lot less overhead not handling the ZFS portion. Using UFS will work a lot better with such a small amount of RAM as well. You for course don't need the SSD as a boot drive, a cheap thumb drive will do nicely but that is up to you.

If you ever want to entertain using ZFS, I recommend you create a proper RAIDZ1 or RAIDZ2, do not use JBOD or other RAID controllers.

I hope this information helps.

 

[Alex31]

Thanks for the information
I'm running now FreeNas 8.3.2
The problems with bigger Hd files above 15 Gb are solved :)
I formatted my 2 Tb and 3 Tb in UFS format.
But still one question, how can i check that my drives r in Jbod?