Streaming performance issues but fast transfers

[Wally]

Hey everyone,

I was hoping to have some light shed on my inability to stream. I can play 10 seconds of a video and wait 10 seconds to load another 10 seconds and so on. But if I transfer the same video to my desktop (109mb) the transfer is instant. No progress bar, just done. From that I can play it instantly and have no issues. At the moment I just do this and play from my pc or add to a memory stick and play on the xbox. Transfer speeds in general went down since I went from mirror to raidz2 (80-100 to 50-80) but this should still allow streaming I thought. I was going to try using plex media plugin but no plugins work on my FreeNAS anymore. Won't load the list of available plugins so I gave up on that dream. That issue happened when I switched from mirror of 2 drives to 4 in raidz2.

Anywho, any ideas?

 

[SweetAndLow]

Read the rules, hardware spec and freenas version.

How are you playing the video on your desktop? If everything hardwired or are some using WiFi?

Your transfer speeds should not have changed because of how you changed the pool. Maybe read performance will get better but probably not noticeable with your setup.

Your plugins aren't showing up because you have a networking problem. Make sure you have a default gateway and DNS configured on your system.

 

[gpsguy]

Wally,

While you have the hardware info in your signature, users on mobile devices and/or Tapatalk can't see it. If you request help, we ask that you put the information in the body of the message.

 

[Jailer]

Not trying to take a dig at you but I'm surprised you got FreeNAS to install and run on that hardware at all. Nforce chipsets are the bane of the alternative OS universe. They barely worked with Windows.

Also I understand that you have 2 CPU's but their passmark score is reletively low. If you want to run plex and/or other plugins you would be much better served with some newer hardware that is better suited to the task.

 

[Wally]

SweetAndLo
- I just meant transferring a copy of it to the computer, then playing it. Transfer is near instant and can be instantly play, uninterrupted. Then I will just delete the copy after.
- Everything is hardwired, except cell phone. Commercial Internet to PF Sense (Homemade) router, 16 Port switch, then everything else. Network traffic is usually non-exist at the moment.
- I believe I do have networking issues. I have had some big changes in my internet and went from dynamic to static. I am trying to get a networking technician to come in soon.
- I also believe that my DNS is incorrect. I am honestly not sure what to use here. I just started learning networking.

gpsguy
Sorry I did realize.
Corsair 700D case, ASUS K8N-DL Extended ATX Server Motherboard, Dual Socket 940, NVIDIA nForce4 Professional, 2x Opteron 285 (Dual Core, 2.6Ghz overclocked to 2.7Ghz), watercooled and fan cooled, 12GB Memory ECC 400mhz, 4x3TB WD Red, 1x60GB Corsair SSD, OnBoard Gigabit lan plus 2x Gigabit lan cards, 750 Watt PSU.

Jailer
It used to be my regular computer before quad cores were invented. I always loved the idea of two chefs in the kitchen. Its a very unstable system but if you don't touch it, its great.

I think I am just not going to even bother. It became useful having the file locally and I don't have to worry about losing anything. I do still want to figure out how to get owncloud and minecraft servers back. I'll leave plex for the new system that I am doing later with a HP Proliant 380 Q5 (2x Quad core Xeon 3.0GHZ, 32GB Ram).

 

[Jailer]

It's fun getting old hardware re purposed into something useful again but at some point old is just old and needs to be retired. My current socket 478 P4 pfsense rig is soon to be retired and replaced by something newer for that very reason.

I ran into the same thing with with a friend of mine trying to get pfsense running on an old nforce chipset based board. I finally convinced him after several hours of trying that it just wasn't going to work.

As far as DNS goes, check with your ISP and see what they use. Generally, not always, but generally they are local servers and you'll get a better response by using them. Otherwise just use google DNS servers if your not sure.

 

[Wally]

Yeah, I get rid of anything older than a dual-core at this point. But the method works great actually, just can't stream. My Pfsense router is a random dual-core rig but so far 100% reliability. Money is an issue at the moment. I'll try googles DNS to see if it works at least.

 

[Wally]

Googles DNS didn't work. The only other change I can think of that might of caused this is going from a single gigabit connection to 3 gigabit connections link aggregated.

 

[Steve Brown]

Are you streaming locally or are you trying to stream outside?

 

[gpsguy]

Please remove the aggregated link and put the single gigabit connection back in place.

That's likely the problem.


Sent from my phone

 

[Steve Brown]

I have a pFsense router and a FreeNAS box and my streaming is fantastic locally and externally (cell phone through cell service)

 

[Steve Brown]

I dont think he has an aggregated link... but maybe he does lol. He would need a switch that supported that... which in your case would be yes turn that feature off get rid of LAGG and just have 1 single GB connection.

 

[Wally]

Only streaming locally but always wanted to access it outside the network. It was hard getting the aggregated link to work but I think it is a good idea to try with one connection. My PFsense router is always 0% to a max of 1% cpu usage. It has gigabit lan for the network and another for the internet connection.

Going to try removing aggregated link now.

 

[Wally]

Removed the aggregated connection and restarted the system. Went to run some errands and just got back. I tried it and now I have plugins! Thanks for the suggestions. At the moment I do not need 3GB/s link but in the future I expected I would. Did not know that the switch needed to support it. It is a D-Link DGS-1024D.

Thanks everyone,

Matthew W.

 

[Wally]

Did a file transfer from the server, averaged about 67mb/s. File transfer to the server, averaged about 87mb/s.

Location that was sending/receiving is a raid0 array of 3x 850 Samsung EVO 250GB in my laptop. Laptop has a 2GB/s Link speed. Other Specs: i7 3.3ghz, 32GB HyperX memory.


Kind Regards,

Matthew W.

 

[Wally]

Haha! All my issues are solved. I disconnected one of my laptop connections just in case then I tried streaming a very high definition video on my laptop and it worked perfectly.

The issue is my switch does not support link aggregation and I need a managed switch. Thank you everyone for your time, sometimes just talking about it can solve problems.

Any recommendations on a switch? Not looking for anything crazy. 16 ports would be fine for a year but I rather get a 24 port for future expansion.

Thanks so much,

Matthew W.

 

[Steve Brown]

Netgear switches are pretty cheap and fairly easy to use but if you have experience I would look at Mikrotik pretty good switches/routers for cheap prices but they require some advanced level of knowledge.

I believe its the Netgear prosafe Gs108 or GS116 just google and you will find out. Make sure you read the details/specs.

 

[Wally]

I was looking at the D-Link 24-Port Gigabit Switch (DGS-1024A). It is a compatible, managed switch and it is very cheap. Currently on sale for $85 Canadian rubies through amazon. The net gears for me are $150+.

Kind Regards,

Matthew W.

 

[anodos]

I feel obligated to point out that for the majority of home users link aggregation provides no benefit but headache instead. You don't end up with a 3 gigabit link. You end up with a setup that helps load balance between multiple NICs when you have lots of clients, but at the cost of added complexity.

 

[Wally]

That is a good point. I am expecting around 25 clients at a time. Possibly more in the future. Server hardware will be upgraded by then but this is good practice for me. It is a headache though and I am going to leave it as gigabit connection for now. I am happy with the answers I got.