2011-05-04, 01:25
So I just made the move from a HTPC with internal hard drives, to a Server + mini HTPC.
I built 2 new machines:
Server is a zotac nm10-b-e running WHS 2011
HTPC is an i3 sandy bridge build running Windows 7, with a nightly build from April 28th 2011.
Router is gigabit and has given me no issues up until now. All computers report "1gbps" as connection speed.
Issues:
SMB seems to just be too slow. library scanning was slow, then trying to watch a movie, it would just freeze up randomly. Had to stop the movie and exit (which seemed to take 2-3 minutes), then start again. Every 5-10 minutes, it was freezing.
So I tried NFS. That was a joy to get configured, but finally got all my shares setup and added into xbmc. Browsing and library update speeds greatly increased.
Optimistic, I loaded up a 1080p movie. It started buffering, skipping, and stuttering right off the get-go. It only made it about 5 seconds between buffering. Then I tried a 720p episode. It played for about 10 minutes, then dumped me back to the main menu.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't both SMB and NFS have plenty of bandwidth to stream 1080p over a gigabit wired connection? Why would I be having these types of issues?
MUSIC. I don't have all that much, but most of it is not mainstream. Its alot of mixed electronic, drumnbass, etc. Anytime I try to scan my music folder into the library, it gets stuck on certain albums for an insane amount of time. I left it overnight, and in the morning it was stuck on the exact same album. I looked up the album manually on allmusic.com, and got a result in 2 seconds. So what's going on here??
I had to give up on scanning the music, I don't really care, as long as I can browse and hit play. But it seems like every time the song advances to a different artist or album, XBMC freezes again. If I leave it, it will eventually start playing. It seems to be trying to load the album art, or something.
What am I doing wrong? I was under the assumption that a dedicated Server + HTPC was the preferred setup. My old combined system suffered none of these problems!
I built 2 new machines:
Server is a zotac nm10-b-e running WHS 2011
HTPC is an i3 sandy bridge build running Windows 7, with a nightly build from April 28th 2011.
Router is gigabit and has given me no issues up until now. All computers report "1gbps" as connection speed.
Issues:
SMB seems to just be too slow. library scanning was slow, then trying to watch a movie, it would just freeze up randomly. Had to stop the movie and exit (which seemed to take 2-3 minutes), then start again. Every 5-10 minutes, it was freezing.
So I tried NFS. That was a joy to get configured, but finally got all my shares setup and added into xbmc. Browsing and library update speeds greatly increased.
Optimistic, I loaded up a 1080p movie. It started buffering, skipping, and stuttering right off the get-go. It only made it about 5 seconds between buffering. Then I tried a 720p episode. It played for about 10 minutes, then dumped me back to the main menu.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't both SMB and NFS have plenty of bandwidth to stream 1080p over a gigabit wired connection? Why would I be having these types of issues?
MUSIC. I don't have all that much, but most of it is not mainstream. Its alot of mixed electronic, drumnbass, etc. Anytime I try to scan my music folder into the library, it gets stuck on certain albums for an insane amount of time. I left it overnight, and in the morning it was stuck on the exact same album. I looked up the album manually on allmusic.com, and got a result in 2 seconds. So what's going on here??
I had to give up on scanning the music, I don't really care, as long as I can browse and hit play. But it seems like every time the song advances to a different artist or album, XBMC freezes again. If I leave it, it will eventually start playing. It seems to be trying to load the album art, or something.
What am I doing wrong? I was under the assumption that a dedicated Server + HTPC was the preferred setup. My old combined system suffered none of these problems!
