USB HDD connected to N66U - Slow streaming problem

[katabatik]

I just connected a 2 TB USB 2.0 HDD to one of my RT-N66U's USB ports.

When I try to what one of the videos that is on the HDD, the video is constantly "Stuttering". It is not even an HD content. It happens it all videos. I'm connected to the router through ethernet. Is this supposed to happen? I can see no reason why the transmission rate should be this slow. Am I missing something? Please help.

Running 3.0.0.4.220.18 (Merlin build)

 

[CaptainSTX]

The bottle neck is the USB drive. Run a LAN speed test using a utility and you will see how slow the drive/interface is. I get about 27Mbps read and 12Mbps write on my USB drive connected to my router. USB standard just wasn't designed for high speed data transfers.

What you want and need to reliably stream video is a NAS. NAS drives are connected to your network using Ethernet connections. Your throughput should be much higher particularly if your PC is also network connected using Ethernet connections .

 

[SxM]

it's not true

i have a gigabit lan and my mkv 1080p or iso bluray plays perfectly on my popcorn hour or my desktop pc

in my lan there is also a gigabit switch , HP J9560

 

[katabatik]

The bottle neck is the USB drive. Run a LAN speed test using a utility and you will see how slow the drive/interface is. I get about 27Mbps read and 12Mbps write on my USB drive connected to my router. USB standard just wasn't designed for high speed data transfers.

What you want and need to reliably stream video is a NAS. NAS drives are connected to your network using Ethernet connections. Your throughput should be much higher particularly if your PC is also network connected using Ethernet connections .

If the bottleneck is my USB drive, how come I don't have any problems whatsoever watching videos, even 1080p ones with the drive connected directly to the pc?

 

[RMerlin]

If the bottleneck is my USB drive, how come I don't have any problems whatsoever watching videos, even 1080p ones with the drive connected directly to the pc?

The USB port on the 600 MHz router isn't as fast as the one on your multi-gigahertz PC. The router will cap at about 12-15 MB/s, while a PC can easily push USB to 30 MB/s. Add to that the fact that the Linux NTFS driver the router uses is not as efficient as native NTFS support under Windows.

 

[katabatik]

The USB port on the 600 MHz router isn't as fast as the one on your multi-gigahertz PC. The router will cap at about 12-15 MB/s, while a PC can easily push USB to 30 MB/s. Add to that the fact that the Linux NTFS driver the router uses is not as efficient as native NTFS support under Windows.

Thanks Merlin. So, that means that streaming audio and video from the USB HDD connect to my router is a no go, even if I use ethernet instead of wireless? Are there any other solutions?

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks Merlin. So, that means that streaming audio and video from the USB HDD connect to my router is a no go, even if I use ethernet instead of wireless? Are there any other solutions?

That depends on the bitrate of what you are trying to stream. 10 MB/s should be able to stream most videos. I suspect that a straight bd-r dump might be more troublesome however - I don't know what bitrate these typically use.

 

[SxM]

Strange i have no problem, i checked also the bitrate of some film like Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole and it was about 50/60/70 MB/S (megabit obviously)

 

[RMerlin]

Strange i have no problem, i checked also the bitrate of some film like Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole and it was about 50/60/70 MB/S (megabit obviously)

I'm talking Megabytes/s (MB/s). Mb = Megabits. So in your case, you are streaming a 50 Mbits/s video from a disk that can feed 100 Mbits/s, so it's fine.

 

[SxM]

Yeah i know the difference, with teracopy i get 16 MB/s during copy over ethernet

 

[xrecar]

Never had any problems here- even 40gb bluray isos play on my wdtv, wired or over my 5ghz connection. Maybe your hdd is having issues.

 

[katabatik]

I just ran Totusoft's Lan Speed Test v2 and I got read speeds of 5 MBps (Mega Bytes, to make matters clear). I ran the test several times, using different packet sizes and the always got 5 MBps both write/read. Is it supposed to be this slow?

Can it be something on the router's configuration that is slowing down the connection that I'm missing? I'm new to routers, so bear in mind that what may seem obvious to you guys may not be obvious to me.

 

[SxM]

Is too slow also for a 100mbit

I transfert from pc to usb disk attached to n66 at 16 megabytes / s

For a gigabit lan is not a great result, but enough for n66

 

[katabatik]

I just re-ran the test (restarted my pc and router in the meantime) and now I get 15/16 MBps write and 12 MBps read. I haven't changed anything Go figure...

Videos are fine now.

 

[escape2]

The USB port on the 600 MHz router isn't as fast as the one on your multi-gigahertz PC. The router will cap at about 12-15 MB/s, while a PC can easily push USB to 30 MB/s. Add to that the fact that the Linux NTFS driver the router uses is not as efficient as native NTFS support under Windows.

This is my experience as well. When I have a flash USB drive plugged into RT-N66U, it doesn't copy large files faster than about 11 MB/s. This is with the router hardwired to a PC (gigabit ethernet). When I stick the same flash drive directly into the PC, I get around 30 MB/s.

Still, 11 MB/s should be sufficient to stream even HD videos although I have not tried it. Maybe it's a buffering issue that can be solved by adjusting buffer settings on the video player.