Entertainment Essentials
All-
I'm moving to a model where all Music/Video/Karaoke is stored in a portable rack with a Netgear ReadyNas-1100. Within the rack is a Netgear Gigabit Switch, which will be up-linked to both the NAS and my HP Laptop. I've got the latest NIC driver installed on my laptop with jumbo frame mode enabled on both devices. I'm using Vista Ultimate as an OS.
In an effort to receive the fastest transfer speeds, I've been testing Jumbo frame sizes, NIC settings and transfer protocols. So far, SMB/CIFS proves to be the faster of the two protocols, however, makes for a choppy GUI experience (especially during searching/adding the drive to database/etc) NFS is a tad bit slower, but does not cause any issues within VirtualDJ. Under each scenario I'm running 1GB Full Speed/Duplex, 9k Jumbo Frame Sizes and mapped drives within Vista.
Obviously, I prefer to use SMB/CIFS since it is able to load the actual Music/Video/Karaoke files within a quicker time frame. I need to alleviate the slowness I'm experiencing in VDJ since quick song selection and load are generally a necessity. Are there any settings I can tweak that would improve the SMB protocol within Vista? I'm still checking on NFS. All I can find is that it may be operating in UDP, which can sometimes be a limiting factor.
Any feedback is appreciated!
-Woody
I'm moving to a model where all Music/Video/Karaoke is stored in a portable rack with a Netgear ReadyNas-1100. Within the rack is a Netgear Gigabit Switch, which will be up-linked to both the NAS and my HP Laptop. I've got the latest NIC driver installed on my laptop with jumbo frame mode enabled on both devices. I'm using Vista Ultimate as an OS.
In an effort to receive the fastest transfer speeds, I've been testing Jumbo frame sizes, NIC settings and transfer protocols. So far, SMB/CIFS proves to be the faster of the two protocols, however, makes for a choppy GUI experience (especially during searching/adding the drive to database/etc) NFS is a tad bit slower, but does not cause any issues within VirtualDJ. Under each scenario I'm running 1GB Full Speed/Duplex, 9k Jumbo Frame Sizes and mapped drives within Vista.
Obviously, I prefer to use SMB/CIFS since it is able to load the actual Music/Video/Karaoke files within a quicker time frame. I need to alleviate the slowness I'm experiencing in VDJ since quick song selection and load are generally a necessity. Are there any settings I can tweak that would improve the SMB protocol within Vista? I'm still checking on NFS. All I can find is that it may be operating in UDP, which can sometimes be a limiting factor.
Any feedback is appreciated!
-Woody
Mensajes Mon 13 Apr 09 @ 1:19 pm
cstoll
Sometimes trying to break the speed limit only gets you a ticket or in worse trouble!
My point behind that is consider what you are actually loading. And the 'speed' that you are trying to achieve may be too fast - and there is such thing as 'too fast'. First with your databases and 'searching' - the databases are fundamentally loaded into RAM at application, then all basic searching is done there - only retrieving the results from the database files to populate the browser window is there 'data access'. Then again your are only pulling back maybe a couple megabytes of data.
If you are loading a typical audio track you are only pulling a few Mb in size file. Karaoke tracks are a bit more but typically only 2x's the size of an audio file -- so roughly 10Mbs of data? Then video files now this can greatly vary in file sizes depending on how you rip your videos. But even at a RAW VOB you are only talking a couple hundred Mbs (175-250Mb) in size.
So trying to achieve anything greater than your maximum file size per second is really obscured considering you don't really gain anything. And then you are still restricted to the RAM speed because VirtualDJ can only shove it into memory as fast as the RAM will take it.
** Personally anything about the transfer functionality of USB 2.0 (400Mb/s) is more than plenty of speed with least headaches. I have done a simple test in the past of 2 identical drives hooked up via USB 2.0 vs FireWire 800, and there was nothing significant achieved with the Firewire. This just help validate for me my theory. **
So though you think you are getting better speed with reduced GUI performance (which is most likely caused from the faster speed and the system dedicating more CPU instructions to get the data into memory.) When you slow the transfer down the system is able to maintain a better balance on overall performance. So sure, bit slower (true balanced transfer speed) but cleaner and better overall performance.
My point behind that is consider what you are actually loading. And the 'speed' that you are trying to achieve may be too fast - and there is such thing as 'too fast'. First with your databases and 'searching' - the databases are fundamentally loaded into RAM at application, then all basic searching is done there - only retrieving the results from the database files to populate the browser window is there 'data access'. Then again your are only pulling back maybe a couple megabytes of data.
If you are loading a typical audio track you are only pulling a few Mb in size file. Karaoke tracks are a bit more but typically only 2x's the size of an audio file -- so roughly 10Mbs of data? Then video files now this can greatly vary in file sizes depending on how you rip your videos. But even at a RAW VOB you are only talking a couple hundred Mbs (175-250Mb) in size.
So trying to achieve anything greater than your maximum file size per second is really obscured considering you don't really gain anything. And then you are still restricted to the RAM speed because VirtualDJ can only shove it into memory as fast as the RAM will take it.
** Personally anything about the transfer functionality of USB 2.0 (400Mb/s) is more than plenty of speed with least headaches. I have done a simple test in the past of 2 identical drives hooked up via USB 2.0 vs FireWire 800, and there was nothing significant achieved with the Firewire. This just help validate for me my theory. **
So though you think you are getting better speed with reduced GUI performance (which is most likely caused from the faster speed and the system dedicating more CPU instructions to get the data into memory.) When you slow the transfer down the system is able to maintain a better balance on overall performance. So sure, bit slower (true balanced transfer speed) but cleaner and better overall performance.
Mensajes Mon 13 Apr 09 @ 2:10 pm
Entertainment Essentials
CStoll-
Thank you for the prompt response, it's one of the primary reasons I've stuck with VDJ throughout the years.
I'm sorry you perceived my thread as trying to exceed the limits of a normally configured system. Promise, I'm really not working that angle!
For the past several years, I've been a USB-connected user, never experiencing a single bandwith-related issue loading any medium. However, I'm an IT jockey at heart and know how often hard disks can fail. That being said; I'm making the move to a network-attached storage device employing RAID technology and really just trying to ensure the gigabit connection is as fast and reliable as USB 2.0.
Operating over SMB/CIFS, VDJ has not a single issue when it comes to loading the actual VOB/MPG/MP3/ZIP. In fact, the transfer is ~1-2 mbps faster out the gate. The 'hit' is only while I am in the stages of searching for say 'Eminem'. While typing or scrolling thru the results returned, the interface nears a crawl.
If I mount the exact same share under NFS (NAS supports both), search/select performance within the GUI is optimal. Load times are slightly less than the former, but are consistent.
What gets me is that if SMB/CIFS is able to load media faster than NFS, why would VirtualDJ have any problems accessing/displaying the data in a slower fashion? I understand what you're indicating about pushing the limits, but can't explain why only the search functions slows if the network medium clearly is able to sustain the speed/transfers elsewhere in the program. As you indicated, searching makes reference to a file, but does not actually touch the data until the operator loads the file.
If you have the hardware/software available, I encourage you to test the situation I'm describing. Hopefully I'm not alone in this matter!
PS: My system is running the following:
HP Pavilion tx2500z customizable Notebook PC:
• Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate, Service Pack 1 (32-bit)
• AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-80 (2.1 GHz)
• 4GB DDR2 System Memory
• ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3200 Graphics
• 250GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
-Woody
Thank you for the prompt response, it's one of the primary reasons I've stuck with VDJ throughout the years.
I'm sorry you perceived my thread as trying to exceed the limits of a normally configured system. Promise, I'm really not working that angle!
For the past several years, I've been a USB-connected user, never experiencing a single bandwith-related issue loading any medium. However, I'm an IT jockey at heart and know how often hard disks can fail. That being said; I'm making the move to a network-attached storage device employing RAID technology and really just trying to ensure the gigabit connection is as fast and reliable as USB 2.0.
Operating over SMB/CIFS, VDJ has not a single issue when it comes to loading the actual VOB/MPG/MP3/ZIP. In fact, the transfer is ~1-2 mbps faster out the gate. The 'hit' is only while I am in the stages of searching for say 'Eminem'. While typing or scrolling thru the results returned, the interface nears a crawl.
If I mount the exact same share under NFS (NAS supports both), search/select performance within the GUI is optimal. Load times are slightly less than the former, but are consistent.
What gets me is that if SMB/CIFS is able to load media faster than NFS, why would VirtualDJ have any problems accessing/displaying the data in a slower fashion? I understand what you're indicating about pushing the limits, but can't explain why only the search functions slows if the network medium clearly is able to sustain the speed/transfers elsewhere in the program. As you indicated, searching makes reference to a file, but does not actually touch the data until the operator loads the file.
If you have the hardware/software available, I encourage you to test the situation I'm describing. Hopefully I'm not alone in this matter!
PS: My system is running the following:
HP Pavilion tx2500z customizable Notebook PC:
• Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate, Service Pack 1 (32-bit)
• AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-80 (2.1 GHz)
• 4GB DDR2 System Memory
• ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3200 Graphics
• 250GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
-Woody
Mensajes Mon 13 Apr 09 @ 3:22 pm
Entertainment Essentials
Update:
I've chosen to use NFS as my networked drive protocol.
For whatever reason, file searches are still sluggish within VDJ when using SMB. The only difference I have found with VDJ and a local vs networked drive is the database. Apparently it is stored locally on C: instead of having a separate .xml in the root of each network drive. I suppose this ensures the database is available in the event a network drive is disconnected? Anywho- The database being local apparently has to make calls to the network drive for every file returned in a search. Something which SMB just doesn't appear to handle very well.
Side note: Anyone using NFS within XP/Vista will need to disable the usage of UDP within the protocol. Using both TCP/UDP concurrently seems to draw some speed from the overall connection.
Transferring audio/video files over SMB/NFS outside the VirtualDJ application are rolling at 200+ mbps. As CStoll stated, files loaded within the program are immediately stored into memory. This means unless you are running a crazy machine, you probably not see load speeds above 80-100 mbps, simply because your machine cannot stuff the data into memory any faster!
-Woody
I've chosen to use NFS as my networked drive protocol.
For whatever reason, file searches are still sluggish within VDJ when using SMB. The only difference I have found with VDJ and a local vs networked drive is the database. Apparently it is stored locally on C: instead of having a separate .xml in the root of each network drive. I suppose this ensures the database is available in the event a network drive is disconnected? Anywho- The database being local apparently has to make calls to the network drive for every file returned in a search. Something which SMB just doesn't appear to handle very well.
Side note: Anyone using NFS within XP/Vista will need to disable the usage of UDP within the protocol. Using both TCP/UDP concurrently seems to draw some speed from the overall connection.
Transferring audio/video files over SMB/NFS outside the VirtualDJ application are rolling at 200+ mbps. As CStoll stated, files loaded within the program are immediately stored into memory. This means unless you are running a crazy machine, you probably not see load speeds above 80-100 mbps, simply because your machine cannot stuff the data into memory any faster!
-Woody
Mensajes Thu 16 Apr 09 @ 2:30 pm
cstoll
Hey Woody,
Depending on the columns being displayed in the browser VirtualDJ has to reference the stored file location.
So what columns are you displaying?
Chris
Depending on the columns being displayed in the browser VirtualDJ has to reference the stored file location.
So what columns are you displaying?
Chris
Mensajes Thu 16 Apr 09 @ 2:48 pm
Entertainment Essentials
Chris-
I'm using the defaults... Title, Artist, Album, Genre, BPM, Year, Comment.
Thoughts?
-Woody
I'm using the defaults... Title, Artist, Album, Genre, BPM, Year, Comment.
Thoughts?
-Woody
Mensajes Tue 21 Apr 09 @ 2:29 pm
cstoll
Hmmm .. shouldn't have issues with those columns .. so no don't have any thoughts
Mensajes Tue 21 Apr 09 @ 2:40 pm