Performance difference between single and dual core

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spike747
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Performance difference between single and dual core

Post by spike747 »

I currently have a TS-119P II with a single core and I find the performance to be slow. I have never owned a NAS drive before, but when streaming movies it can be choppy. My typical movie file size is about 3-4 gig in size. I only use the NAS for file storage and I will only access the files within my house. I basically just want to use it for media server. I have the latest apple airport extreme (setup to use a 5 gig channel that no one else in my neighbourhood uses), apple TV's and all the iOS devices in between. I currently only stream files from the internal HD on the NAS, but I do have an external esata drive which is really flaky (that's a whole other thread). Anyway, I thought about upgrading to a qnap with a dual core and was wondering if this would generally improve. I know there are a tonne of variables in a home network, but I just am curious if generally the dual core is better for throughput.

O, and by the way, most of the activity on the network is from me. So generally there is not multiple media streams coming from the NAS. But I'm curious if there was, would a dual core help.
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Toxic17
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Re: Performance difference between single and dual core

Post by Toxic17 »

What speed are you reportedly getting over wifi? remember Wifi throughput is exaggerated and Vendors give a max throughput of Send+receive together.

additional Wifi devices on the same wifi cell will lower the bandwidth again as the wifi is shared between devices, even if they are not pulling down anything.

Streaming large files should be done over Ethernet and at worst over Homeplugs.
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schumaku
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Re: Performance difference between single and dual core

Post by schumaku »

Just streaming, or also creating a huge NAS CPU load by transcoding?
spike747
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Re: Performance difference between single and dual core

Post by spike747 »

Just streaming.

My WiFi is not a problem. I can stream directly from my iMac with no problems. I just watch a 12 gig movie the other day streamed directly from my iMac to my apple TV. Not one problem. But movies I try to stream from NAS drive have buffering problems. I've seen it on iPad and when watching movies on my iMac that stream from the NAS drive.
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Re: Performance difference between single and dual core

Post by dolbyman »

I have a single core 419 P+ and never had any choppy playback, not even with multiple clients streaming

I use twonky and no transcoding.. my clients are lg tv, lg bluray, raspberry pi, galxay s4, all working like a charm (cpu of my nas is not very high when streaming)

last weekend I did a complete scrub of my raid10, was still able to stream 1080p video to my tv with no problems :'
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Re: Performance difference between single and dual core

Post by P3R »

I doubt CPU is the bottleneck and if it is, it is probably not only because of the streaming.

What CPU utilization do you see when having less than optimal streaming?

Also, it never hurts to reveal more information about the subject of the question.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
spike747
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Re: Performance difference between single and dual core

Post by spike747 »

schumaku wrote:Just streaming, or also creating a huge NAS CPU load by transcoding?
You were right. I've been watching the CPU utilization and looking at the settings in my NAS and I'm learned that the transcoding was causing the streaming problems. I didn't realize that I had automatic transcoding turned on and I have a huge library that has not been transcoded. So the CPU being at near 100% was causing problems with my streaming. After I turned the transcoding off, the background task stopped and I was able to stream a very large movies to 2 apples TVs and 1 iPad at the same time. And absolutely no problems on all three devices.

But now that I understand the transcoding features in the NAS I'm still thinking I should get a QNAP with a dual processor. And maybe one with a celeron processor too. I can see the NAS becoming the heart of my home network so I'm thinking investing in a good one is money well spent.

Thanks for the responses. I didn't know what transcoding was until I read your responses. It gave me something to look into which ultimately answered my question.
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