Server...moving files and watching TV

[hedly]

So I just built a new server that I am prepping for use as a SageTV server.

Last night my boy was watching a movie on our HTPC with Sage, Milo & Otis if you must know, and I decided to move a DVD from the server to my computer. Milo & Otis and the movie I was moving are both in the same root folder.

When I moved it over the video on the HTPS started stuttering severely. As near as I can tell moving the file took all the bandwidth and didn't leave anything for the HTPC feed.

The server is a HP wx4400, it has an Intel Core2Duo 6600 (2.4Gz) with 4GB of ram. While the NIC is gigabit capable, the whole network is only 100MB/s.

I was going to have opened up some smaller files (word docs, excel, etc.) and that doesn't cause a problem. This server is also going to be a file share for the family, but there won't be a lot of huge file transfers.

Anyway, does any one else experience this issue. System specs for the HPTC are below.

-----Just a quick update. So I just made my first AVCHD from our new camcorder and I decided to try to move it to the server. The folder was moved into a home video folder that resides on the same physical hard drive as all our DVDs. My boy is watching Monsters -vs- Aliens and it only stuttered until I backed the movie up one click of 15 seconds. Still wondering if others experience stutters when moving large files.

Thanks,

[PiX64]

I have succussfully many time been watching a bluray on an extender which is being streamed from my unraid server, and been uploading mutliple blurays to the server without having any issues.

entire house is gigabit, hd200(s) obviously are only 100 mb.
My sage server has only 1 gigabit card in it, and the unraid box is a completely seperate machine also connected via gigabit.

Is your movie stored directly on the Sage Server? if so maybe run some tests of the same scenario and watch the network traffic to see if your throughput is truly the problem.

i suspect it is probably not...

[Nelbert]

I'd suspect this is your problem more than network speed issues.

Originally Posted by hedly

The folder was moved into a home video folder that resides on the same physical hard drive as all our DVDs

DVD playback will take no more than 10 megabit and file copying at the same time should just take longer. Skipping back 15 secs will give some read buffer space on the server so the hard drive is able to keep up.

On a 100Mbps network from the same server we've had no problems streaming a DVD to the main TV, different flac albums on 2 Sonos boxes and be ripping from a PC back to the server simultaneously.

The server wasn't trying to do it all from a single hard disk and was using a ZFS pool spread across 4 disks.

I've still to find out at what point the WHS we have for SageTV will break, but if it's with a simultaneous network file copy and dvd playback it'll be getting re-installed.

[SteveD]

You sure it is not the input/output of the sata controller, you may have been requesting to much data. The bandwidth utilization for the network is usually very low.

[KeithAbbott]

There is a freeware utility called FastCopy (http://ipmsg.org/tools/fastcopy.html.en), which allows you to control the speed of the copy. The copy process takes a little longer, but should eliminate the stuttering problem.