I need advice on how to speed up my home server's network link

[MarvinL]

Hello!

I've been lurking around these forums for quite a while now, and I think it's about time I start my first thread. Networking is one the things that I find confusing at times, so I decided to ask here for help.

 

So here's what's going on:

 

In my home network, I have a D-Link DIR-825 running on DD-WRT. I've had it running for a while now, and it's been great.

Attached directly to the router is my DSL modem. No problems here.

 

The router is dual band, and all the devices at home connect via WiFi, whether 2.4GHz or 5Ghz. Desktops, laptops, phones, tablets, TVs, game consoles, Amazon Echos, etc No problems here. I am able to send files from one computer to the other, LAN games work well, streaming videos from computers to phones or TVs work well. No complaints from my family members.

 

I also have a home server, attached via LAN cable directly to the router. It's actually one of the old laptops I have lying around. Here are its specs:

 

Acer Travelmate 3270

Intel Core 2 Duo T5500

3GB DDR2 RAM

500GB SATA + 2TB external USB 3.0

3 USB 2.0 ports

100Mbps ethernet + 54Mbps abg WiFi

 

and here are its duties:

1. Print server (no problems here)

2. Google Photos uploader (my upload speed is not very fast, so travel photos could take days)

3. Downloading big files

4. Media server for movies, travel photos and videos (the problem lies here)

 

So I'm aware that the specs of my server arent great, but it does the job quite well enough. The problem arises when I stream movies from the server to any TV or laptop or phone. Sub-HD files work fine, 720p works fine, most 1080p movies work fine, but the larger 1080p movies keep on buffering. Also when 2 devices stream at the same time, there's just no hope.

 

It's quite obvious now that the problem is due to the (only) 100mbit connection from the server to the router. It also becomes apparent when I try to print a heavy 50-page PDF. It takes forever to spool.

 

So now here's what I need advice on. What's the best way for me to speed up this link between the home server and the router? The LAN port of the laptop is not Gigabit. I figured I could get a USB gigabit ethernet adapter but there are only USB 2.0 ports so I dont think it will work quite well. The laptop has one of those PCMCIA card slots but i doubt it'll be of any use.

 

I have a spare USB Wireless N adapter lying around. That's good for 300Mbps right? Would that be better?

 

What are your thoughts? Thanks in advance!

[Aelita Sophie]

14 minutes ago, MarvinL said:

-SNIP-

 

First thing that comes to mind is your Ethernet connection from your laptop/home server. It's only 100MBit. Well it does fit the spec of 1080P, it can be the culprit.

You are also using a USB3 Hard Drive on a USB 2.0 port (I assume). If I'm not mistaken that translates on a 460mbit maximum. Or 46mb/s roughly. But that is if the drive performs perfectly.  Then the harddrive of your laptop. Since the nature of laptops is to have low-power harddrive. It's most of the time not really fast at all. Where a typical harddrive could reach 100-120 mb/s yours might end at 50-60. Not taking in account the age. A gigabit USB adapter would work, but as you assumed it wont reach it full potential, as the 460Mbit bandwidth limitation of 2.0 will bottleneck the adapter. But it's still 4x as fast as your current wired connection. It wouldnt hurt to try. As goes for hardware specs. The dual core should be somewhat sufficient, but I recommend a newer budget build NAS. Maybe a Q1900ITX from ASRock or something?

But these are just my 2 cents. 

[olback]

I have nothing to add really.

That network-map looks amazing, what did you use to make it?

[harry4742]

Time for a decent nas, there is not much you can do about it

[MarvinL]

23 hours ago, Aelita Sophie said:

First thing that comes to mind is your Ethernet connection from your laptop/home server. It's only 100MBit. Well it does fit the spec of 1080P, it can be the culprit.

You are also using a USB3 Hard Drive on a USB 2.0 port (I assume). If I'm not mistaken that translates on a 460mbit maximum. Or 46mb/s roughly. But that is if the drive performs perfectly.  Then the harddrive of your laptop. Since the nature of laptops is to have low-power harddrive. It's most of the time not really fast at all. Where a typical harddrive could reach 100-120 mb/s yours might end at 50-60. Not taking in account the age. A gigabit USB adapter would work, but as you assumed it wont reach it full potential, as the 460Mbit bandwidth limitation of 2.0 will bottleneck the adapter. But it's still 4x as fast as your current wired connection. It wouldnt hurt to try. As goes for hardware specs. The dual core should be somewhat sufficient, but I recommend a newer budget build NAS. Maybe a Q1900ITX from ASRock or something?

But these are just my 2 cents. 

Yup. The 100MBit connection is the main problem here, and yes the external HDD is a USB 3.0 one running on USB 2.0. It doesnt seem to be bottlenecking just yet but you're right, i might start feeling once I am able to increase the 100Mbit connection. Maybe I'll just go ahead and try to use my Wireless N adapter and see if 300Mbit works well enough. It's still 3x my current wired connection anyway

I was wondering if there's any way to use the built in 100mbps ethernet adapter and have it bound somehow with the 300mbps USB WiFi adapter, and maybe the onboard 54mbps WiFi adapter, for a 454mbps(?) connection

23 hours ago, olback said:

I have nothing to add really.

That network-map looks amazing, what did you use to make it?

Gliffy. Try it out

18 hours ago, harry4742 said:

Time for a decent nas, there is not much you can do about it

Yup, I figured I'd be better off just getting a whole new NAS. I decided to use this laptop since it's not being used anymore and i figured it could be put to good use. It also uses less energy i suppose, and I also don't want to spend too much. I think I'll just try to use the 300Mbit Wifi adapter first and see how it goes.

[Aelita Sophie]

4 hours ago, MarvinL said:

Yup. The 100MBit connection is the main problem here, and yes the external HDD is a USB 3.0 one running on USB 2.0. It doesnt seem to be bottlenecking just yet but you're right, i might start feeling once I am able to increase the 100Mbit connection. Maybe I'll just go ahead and try to use my Wireless N adapter and see if 300Mbit works well enough. It's still 3x my current wired connection anyway

I was wondering if there's any way to use the built in 100mbps ethernet adapter and have it bound somehow with the 300mbps USB WiFi adapter, and maybe the onboard 54mbps WiFi adapter, for a 454mbps(?) connection

 

Do take in account that the Wireless N Adapter of 300mbit is only theoretical. It's very rare that you would actually reach those local speeds. WiFi is very unpredictable when it comes to connection speed. While your adapter settings might show a 300mbit connection towards your WiFi point, you might just only reach 100mbit actual network speed. This is due interference and saturation of the 2.4Ghz frequency. Of course you can use 5Ghz if your router and adapter supports it, but that has significant weaker signal and has a poor wall penetration. 

 

There is a way to "bound" the adapters. It's called network bonding. Sadly enough it only works as a redundancy. You cant magically combine them and let them arrogate the packages equally over the different networks. This is for many reasons not easily possible. Especially on a consumer level.

 

Your best bet is, not to invest more in the laptop and safe up for a NAS build. With just a solid 1GBe connection and better expansion options. If you want to go cheap, just go for a "CPU Onboard" solution. Asus N3050 (If im not mistaken) has decent horse power (more than your laptop), has quite the few options and is efficient in energy. Price is under $100 (atleast in my country) and is a solid choice for a budget build of any sorts. Just add 8GB or more ram to it, few TB of storage and install FreeNAS on it. And if you really want to get the most out of it, install the Plex plugin on FreeNAS. Which allows you to let the NAS do the hard work of encoding and streaming it towards your device. Saving network bandwidth and buffer times.

 

[MarvinL]

On 3/1/2017 at 3:51 AM, Aelita Sophie said:

Do take in account that the Wireless N Adapter of 300mbit is only theoretical. It's very rare that you would actually reach those local speeds. WiFi is very unpredictable when it comes to connection speed. While your adapter settings might show a 300mbit connection towards your WiFi point, you might just only reach 100mbit actual network speed. This is due interference and saturation of the 2.4Ghz frequency. Of course you can use 5Ghz if your router and adapter supports it, but that has significant weaker signal and has a poor wall penetration. 

 

There is a way to "bound" the adapters. It's called network bonding. Sadly enough it only works as a redundancy. You cant magically combine them and let them arrogate the packages equally over the different networks. This is for many reasons not easily possible. Especially on a consumer level.

 

Your best bet is, not to invest more in the laptop and safe up for a NAS build. With just a solid 1GBe connection and better expansion options. If you want to go cheap, just go for a "CPU Onboard" solution. Asus N3050 (If im not mistaken) has decent horse power (more than your laptop), has quite the few options and is efficient in energy. Price is under $100 (atleast in my country) and is a solid choice for a budget build of any sorts. Just add 8GB or more ram to it, few TB of storage and install FreeNAS on it. And if you really want to get the most out of it, install the Plex plugin on FreeNAS. Which allows you to let the NAS do the hard work of encoding and streaming it towards your device. Saving network bandwidth and buffer times.

 

Thanks for the advice! Will do that. I tried using the wireless adapter, and the speed improved quite a fair bit, especially since the laptop and the router are right beside each other. So i guess this would do for now. When the need arises, i might go ahead and invest in a new NAS. Thanks again!

[Falconevo]

They make 1Gbit PCMCIA network cards, they are pretty cheap too bout £15-20.

Used one in the past and got around 550Mbit/s from it which was a nice bump from a 100Mbit connection.

[MarvinL]

21 hours ago, Falconevo said:

They make 1Gbit PCMCIA network cards, they are pretty cheap too bout £15-20.

Used one in the past and got around 550Mbit/s from it which was a nice bump from a 100Mbit connection.

Really? I didnt think PCMCIA would have that much throughput. I'll definitely look into that!

[Falconevo]

2 hours ago, MarvinL said:

Really? I didnt think PCMCIA would have that much throughput. I'll definitely look into that!

Yea, some examples here;

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/MCL-Gigabit-Ethernet-1000-Expresscard/dp/B003QRJW80/ref=sr_1_18?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1488538571&sr=1-18

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Technologies-GE1000LAB-E34-Gigabit-Ethernet-Express/dp/B00I8MMWTY/ref=sr_1_9?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1488538571&sr=1-9

[wilamu]

Hi @MarvinL

 

100MBps should be plenty to stream a 1080p video file. I'd hazard a guess it's the CPU that can't cope with transcoding of the file.

[Aelita Sophie]

On 3/4/2017 at 1:08 AM, wilamu said:

Hi @MarvinL

 

100MBps should be plenty to stream a 1080p video file. I'd hazard a guess it's the CPU that can't cope with transcoding of the file.

Depending how he "streams" it really. If I understood it correctly it's used as just a File Server. So his TV or media streamer supposedly supports SMB or something like that. In that case CPU shouldnt be a bottleneck due there is no transcoding done by the laptop.

[wilamu]

At the end of the day @MarvinL is trying to serve media over multiple streams from a low-spec laptop that doesn't have a gigabit NIC.

 

Different hardware is what you need, and rather than serving the files directly use something like Plex as a Media Server. 

[MarvinL]

Yup. It's basically just a media server. The TV does all the media decoding. Not all files work well though. But while streaming 1080p, the CPU usage is fairly low.

BTW i had to go back to the 100Mbps LAN. The 300Mbps WLAN connection just wasn't stable enough. Even if it's right beside the router, the actual throughput fluctuates so bad.