Homemade NAS "lagging"

[Kittil]

I've put together my own "NAS server".

 

i5 - 2500k (running at 4.2ghz)

16gb 1600mhz DDR3 ram

HDD 6Gb/s 3000GB

 

it's running Windows 10 

 

My issue is that when I connect from my laptop in the living room or the bedroom, I connect through a mapped network drive, and start up a video with VLC, 
The movie will start within a second, but at random times, the video will freeze, and after 2-3 seconds resume but the video will be grey for a second or two.

 

Anyone got any good ideas to fix this? Or a way I can improve my "NAS"

[AresKrieger]

Don't use windows 10 for a nas, the force updates and other issues are not ideal for a nas, also your hardrive is likely stopping its spin causing the delay (which is while it spins up to speed) you can change the settings in the advanced power options for your computer

[Kittil]

1 minute ago, AresKrieger said:

Don't use windows 10 for a nas, the force updates and other issues are not ideal for a nas, also your hardrive is likely stopping its spin causing the delay (which is while it spins up to speed) you can change the settings in the advanced power options for your computer

 

Windows 10 is all I really had available as it was "free"  Any suggestions as to what I could replace it with? Keeping in mind I also run a teamspeak 3 server and sometimes games like Minecraft and Rust on it (I think rust server only works on windows atm).

And I will look into the advanced power settings, thanks for the tip.

[AresKrieger]

4 minutes ago, Kittil said:

 

Windows 10 is all I really had available as it was "free"  Any suggestions as to what I could replace it with? Keeping in mind I also run a teamspeak 3 server and sometimes games like Minecraft and Rust on it (I think rust server only works on windows atm).

And I will look into the advanced power settings, thanks for the tip.

Most people use something like Unbuntu for nas stuff since it uses very little in terms of resources however you can keep windows 10 if you wish just make sure the computer runs fine (block unnecessary programs and such) on it's own and block updates if it is allowed to connect to the internet since they may cause you issues in the future.

[Kittil]

19 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

 your hardrive is likely stopping its spin causing the delay (which is while it spins up to speed) you can change the settings in the advanced power options for your computer

I checked the advanced power settings and the only Hard disk option is "turn off hard disk after: x min". I set it to 0 to get never. 
Is that all, or did I miss something?

 

Can I change any network settings to improve performance? 

[AresKrieger]

Just now, Kittil said:

I checked the advanced power settings and the only Hard disk option is "turn off hard disk after: x min". I set it to 0 to get never. 
Is that all, or did I miss something?

 

Can I change any network settings to improve performance? 

Should work (I think) though I usually don't set it to zero generally I just set it to something like a couple hours, but yes that is all I was talking about

 

As for networking that Isn't really my expertise, however see if it still has issues if so then you'll need to mess with the setting as things like firewalls can sometimes mess with local networking if the settings are strict.

[scottyseng]

22 hours ago, Kittil said:

-snip-

Also, have you tried using another video player? (Like K-Lite Codec with Media Player Classic just to try)

 

And what is your network usage when you play the video? Do note that 1GB/s is only 125MB/s in real life. If your video is too large in bit rate, that would explain the lag. Oh, does the OS live on the hard drive as well? I would recommend putting on a small SSD and letting the hard drive be data only. Windows might be restricting drive speed for the OS.

 

For example on my NAS, which runs Windows server, if I try to benchmark the OS Drive SSD, it'll cripple the speeds to 100MB/s and reserve the rest for the OS. If I take the SSD out and test it on my main PC running Windows 10, I get the full expected benchmark speed.

 

Yeah, the hard drive does power off after some time, fixing the setting above should fix the drive loading time (Though the video should still play fine if the drive is active to begin with)

[AshleyAshes]

On ‎8‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 10:10 AM, AresKrieger said:

Don't use windows 10 for a nas, the force updates and other issues are not ideal for a nas, also your hardrive is likely stopping its spin causing the delay (which is while it spins up to speed) you can change the settings in the advanced power options for your computer

This could not be the cause of the issue.  Windows or any other OS would not spin down an drive that is currently being read, a drive would have to be IDLE before the drive spun down.  Streaming a file off a drive would leave it active for the entire duration of streaming.  If spundown was the problem, the problem would be a wait of 5-25 seconds while the drive spun up when playback BEGAN, not in the MIDDLE of playback.

[Scheer]

If you are going wireless to the laptop try plugging the laptop into Ethernet, if it works then your issue is with your wireless network being slower than the bitrate of the video.

 

Other than upgrading your wireless gear, one option is to use Plex and transcode the video to a lower bitrate.

[Kittil]

On 27.8.2016 at 10:17 PM, Scheer said:

If you are going wireless to the laptop try plugging the laptop into Ethernet, if it works then your issue is with your wireless network being slower than the bitrate of the video.

 

Other than upgrading your wireless gear, one option is to use Plex and transcode the video to a lower bitrate.

The issue persists over Ethernet :-/ 

But Plex sounds like the way to go. 

[Kittil]

On 27.8.2016 at 2:22 PM, scottyseng said:

Also, have you tried using another video player? (Like K-Lite Codec with Media Player Classic just to try)

 

And what is your network usage when you play the video? Do note that 1GB/s is only 125MB/s in real life. If your video is too large in bit rate, that would explain the lag. Oh, does the OS live on the hard drive as well? I would recommend putting on a small SSD and letting the hard drive be data only. Windows might be restricting drive speed for the OS.

 

For example on my NAS, which runs Windows server, if I try to benchmark the OS Drive SSD, it'll cripple the speeds to 100MB/s and reserve the rest for the OS. If I take the SSD out and test it on my main PC running Windows 10, I get the full expected benchmark speed.

 

Yeah, the hard drive does power off after some time, fixing the setting above should fix the drive loading time (Though the video should still play fine if the drive is active to begin with)

System disk is a 500gb Seagate HDD

Media disk is a 3000gb Seagate HDD 

 

Network usage while streaming is jumping up and down from as low as 250kbs ish up to 30Mbs ish (on upload ofc) down is 10-80kpbs.

 

I have a ASUS RT-AC66U router, I was under the impression this router would be more then enough ^^

[scottyseng]

3 minutes ago, Kittil said:

System disk is a 500gb Seagate HDD

Media disk is a 3000gb Seagate HDD 

 

Network usage while streaming is jumping up and down from as low as 250kbs ish up to 30Mbs ish (on upload ofc) down is 10-80kpbs.

 

I have a ASUS RT-AC66U router, I was under the impression this router would be more then enough ^^

Hmm, just to double check, have you checked both drive's SMART data with Crystal Disk Info to make sure the drives aren't bad?

 

Also, I would double check o see if you're on all of the latest drivers for your motherboard.

 

Yeah, the router should be fine. I find it strange your speed is that bad.

[Kittil]

2 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Hmm, just to double check, have you checked both drive's SMART data with Crystal Disk Info to make sure the drives aren't bad?

 

Also, I would double check o see if you're on all of the latest drivers for your motherboard.

 

Yeah, the router should be fine. I find it strange your speed is that bad.

Speeds aren't bad, task manager shows a "30% percent" usage of network, so plenty to go on. 

But checking the drives might not be a bad idea. 

[Tachibana Ochiba]

1 Check the integrity of your hard Drive using tools such as WD diagnose tool. It is strongly recommend that you run it in a Pre installation environment.

 

 

2 Switch off power saving functions.

 

If you use the PC exclusively for NAS, you can use windows server, or try bespoke linux(BSD) dists such as FreeNAS, though you may have to wipe your disks before using these bespoke distributions.