i am relatively new to NAS drives, but pretty computer literate. i have a wireless home network setup using a dlink DIR-655 router, 2 laptops (802.11n), a PS3 (802.11g) and a wireless printer (802.11g). i am using wpa2 encryption with my wireless network, and my laptops see a consistent and strong connection to the router (80% strength & up) of around 100Mbps.
i have setup the 2TB My Book Live as best i could, transferred movies and other media to it, but i am always getting choppy playback with HD movies in paricular cases. the HD movies i have are encoded with variable bitrates, but average bitrates are 4000kbps and 6000kbps. all this means is that my movies play with bitrates as low as 10kbps and as high as 25Mbps, depending on the complexity of the movie and frames being displayed.
with the PS3, i expected choppy playback because it’s a g connection, so at some point i may see choppy playback, but really shouldn’t especially when there is available bandwidth. i have done whatever i could to improve my speed and connection settings in the router configuration, but the connection issues still persist somewhat with the PS3, signal strength is not as good as with the laptops, so i understand.
what i don’t understand is this: when there is only one laptop connected to the network and i have a good bandwidth of at least 100Mbps, i play a movie using windows media player. then i pause the movie for a few minutes to do something, but when i get back and resume i get choppy playback to the point where the frames freeze and i cannot even watch the movie. i have to close out media player and do it all over again, but after this happens the first time, i will encounter it again througout the movie even if i restart wmp and try forwarding to the last point i left off.
in my situation, there is a max of 2 machines using the NAS with no external streaming via the internet. the problem can occur when only 1 machine is on the network and no other devices are hogging bandwidth.
the problem i would assume is with the drive. can someone explain why ?
also i want to note that when i first got the drive, my file copy speed was around 8MB/s from my laptop to the NAS. but lately i’ve only seen 3-4MB/s during file copy.
When you say your laptop has “100 Mbps”, is that just what the PC says you have? Or have you actually measured that?
The speed that’s indicated in network status is just the negotatied rate; that’s not intended to be an indication of actual network throughput.
Even 8 Megabytes per second is pretty low performance. I get around 30 megabytes per second to my MBL.
If you are using Mixed-Mode B/G/N on your WiFi (which you say you are), and you have *ANY* G-clients associated, then that will slow the WiFi down since a portion of the signal MUST be down-graded to G to allow the G-clients to participate… even if they’re not actively being used.
the rate i mentioned is based on what the router is telling me in my connections list. right now i have 2 connections active, one is g, the other is n. the g connection is 54Mbps, the n is 117Mbps.
i read in that post that if i have g clients then it forces the signal to be g throughout, but that doesn’t make sense because my router is distinguishing between n and g client connections. my mixed mode setting is only set to g/n, not a/b/g or b/g/n.
i tried to switch channels in the router to see if that improved things, but one of my laptops was unable to establish a connection, so i just reverted to the ‘auto’ preset.
it doesn’t make sense to me why i would be having this issue because the location of the router is not far in proximity to the clients (all of which are less than 50 feet), only a few walls to penetrate. there are other networks in the neighborhood, but i don’t know how to identify their broadcast channels to better enhance mine.
i do not think i have interference issues with this, and i tried turning off my antivirus and firewall suite, i also disabled remote differential compression and TCP auto tuning in windows, but still getting only 3-5 MB/s file transfers.
this is extremely frustrating. i have tried using a friend’s DIR-825 with the NAS, i still see the same file transfer speeds.
i don’t see any limitations so far in my wireless network. i doubt dlink or other vendors would put a speed cap on the ethernet ports of their routers to have users manually go in and remove such restrictions. so far i’ve tried with a 2.4GHz router with g and n, as well as a simultaneous dual-band 2.4/5GHz router and even with a 5GHz connection and 100-140Mbps speed established between the router and the NAS, i am still getting these slow file copy speeds.
over here i am being told it’s a network problem, in a networking forum i would be told it’s a NAS problem, i really don’t see what the issue is. why doesn’t WD go into detail about extra settings for networks and the drive to help people that experience this issue.
i read in that post that if i have g clients then it forces the signal to be g throughout, but that doesn’t make sense because my router is distinguishing between n and g client connections.
I deliberately oversimplified that statement.
If you run MIXED MODE, all of the Flow-control / DCE / RTS packets must be sent at the SLOWEST SPEED negotiated by all clients, because ALL CLIENTS must be able to receive those specific packets.
Once the access point grants permission to a specific client to transmit for a fixed window, then that client can transmit as fast as it can, but then has to slow down again after the window expires to look to see if there’s DCE / RTS / Flow Control packets from other clients.
Eliminate wireless as an issue by plugging in your laptop as a WIRED client on the same router and check the speeds then. If it’s STILL slow, then there’s obviously something else unrelated to wireless going on.
I’d also make sure that both devices are negotiating GIGABIT capabilities on their respective switch ports.
i have decided to upgrade my router to a dual band. i had the DIR-655 for years, so i didn’t mind. the new router (DIR-825) has gigabit ports and the NAS is connected to port 1. my wireless links to my computers are good/strong.
file copy speed still has not changed. WD’s suggested cause of the problems are gigabit switch or antivirus firewall that’s causing the issue. i tried disabiling my comodo suite completely, but that didn’t improve the situation.
in windows i tried to disable Remote DIfferential Compression, and disabled TCP Autotuning.
where is the source of the problem, i will never know.
i have decided to upgrade my router to a dual band. i had the DIR-655 for years, so i didn’t mind. the new router (DIR-825) has gigabit ports and the NAS is connected to port 1. my wireless links to my computers are good/strong.
file copy speed still has not changed. WD’s suggested cause of the problems are gigabit switch or antivirus firewall that’s causing the issue. i tried disabiling my comodo suite completely, but that didn’t improve the situation.
in windows i tried to disable Remote DIfferential Compression, and disabled TCP Autotuning.
where is the source of the problem, i will never know.
Try removing all other devices from your network besides the drive and your computer. See if that helps- if so, you know the issue is with another device - if not than the issue is likely with your computer (more likely) or the drive (less likely). At that point you can start narrowing down the specific cause.
not sure what that has to do with creating a bottleneck with file copy to the NAS. the only device connected to the router physically is the NAS. the rest of the network is connecting over wireless.
i can stream HD movies fine, both on 802.11g and n computers fine.
i tried looking into MTU settings being the cause, but i am unsure of changing them at this point. so far the default for computers and the router is 1500.
i logged into the drive and generated a log, but there are many files, which files would mention connection speed configuration or settings with regard to file transfers ?
not sure what that has to do with creating a bottleneck with file copy to the NAS. the only device connected to the router physically is the NAS. the rest of the network is connecting over wireless.
i can stream HD movies fine, both on 802.11g and n computers fine.
i tried looking into MTU settings being the cause, but i am unsure of changing them at this point. so far the default for computers and the router is 1500.
i logged into the drive and generated a log, but there are many files, which files would mention connection speed configuration or settings with regard to file transfers ?
It has everything to do with it- the other devices may be using bandwidth that you are unaware of, or could otherwise be causing conflicts. If the issue is not resolved by removing the other devices from the network, than you only have 2 possibilities (3 if you count the cable between the router and the MBL) that could be the problem. At that point I’d try to see if another computer had the same issue with the drive- if so, you know the issue is with the drive and I’d get it replaced. If a second computer didn’t have the same issue, I’d start going through running processes to see what was slowing things down.
HD movies don’t take a ton of bandwidth to stream- most of the time I had no issues over a regular G network as long as I had nothing else going on. I upgraded to N because I usually did have stuff happening- files downloading from the net, digital frames showing pictures, music playing in the living room, etc.
regarding bandwidth, i can see the connections on my router:
right now there are 4 devices using the wifi:
printer - g
54Mbps 100%
laptop - g
54Mbps 96%
android phone - g
48Mbps 92%
laptop - n
117Mbps 95%
i am not fond of my printer hogging full g bandwidth when it’s mostly asleep.
is the MTU something that is shared amongst devices on a network, or per device throughput ?
i’m having trouble getting over the matter because the drive can serve 2 computers simultaneously when it comes to movie stream without an issue, but when doing a file copy, there is a bottlneck. – just can’t understand that. there has to be some setting or feature in windows or on the router.
i also spotted something else that’s troubling me, when i log into the drive i see the red exclamation point with several errors listed as “Network Link Down”.
not warming up to this drive at all. i also see no where on WD’s web site where i can download an older firmware to test it out.
I’ve got a DIR-825 as well, with the MBL, LG tv, Samsung BD player all hardwired, and a wii, kindle, laptop (N) and desktop (G) all wireless.
Those ! notifications stick around, you have delete manually delete the notification. I’ve had that a few times when the router was acting up. when things get bad I shut down the MBL from the dashboard so it’s totally off and then powercycle the router and MBL.
Also, I’ve reserved an IP in the DCHP settings of the router. I don’t stream from the MBl so I can’t help you there. But I’ve not noticed bad lag when, say, smartware is copying files and I’m watching something on netflix.
i tried different things here to see if speed can be improved: reset the device via the reset button - no luck restored the device via the configuration page - no luck i now plugged the drive directly into my laptop, mapped it and i’m copying my files to it, the speed is around 40-45MB/sec. … so there must be a setting or something i didnt set right on the router or within windows … i never installed the software that came with the drive, i just configured it via the mybooklive page, then mapped it as a network drive in windows.
