CPU running 100% & transfer speed

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud EX2
1

Hi,

1- I have installed my wd my cloud ex2 since now 3 weeks and since then I have my CPU running 100% all the time. The main processes I see are always the same : “convert” & “wdphotodbmerger”. I have seen a lot of threads on this topic but no fix. I don’t have tons of movies & pictures. So how is it possible to still have theses processes running continuously since 3weeks ? Needless to say that the 2 lights in front of the device are blinking all the time.

I have contacted the support for this issue and I got an answer in my local language which was kind of stupid google translate and absolutely senseless (I wrote my email in english so I was expecting an answer in english too).

2- Anyway, the second problem I have is about the transfer speed. I have a gigabit network correcly set up and tested (it’s not my first NAS) and when I copy files from folders to folders (ie p2p to public) the maximum speed is around 10Mo/s which is very very low. Do you have the same issue? Oh, I have to mention that I bought the device with the 2 WD red hard drive of 4To.

Thx for your support,

Ciao

2

  1. I don’t have that problem at all - except during copying process when the CPU usage spikes to about 30-50%, rest of the time it stays at around 0%. I would suggest turning off the media streaming and rebooting after that. Does it help? I strongly suspect it would.

  2. That transfer speed is low indeed for copying from folder to folder. How exactly are you copying this?

BTW, I saw another of your post where you said you had issues with accessing the EX2 dashboard or something. Or setting up the device from the dashboard. So how did you manage to look at the CPU 100% usage, because you can see that info from the dashboard only?

3

Thx for your answer.

1- Turning off the media streaming is not an option as it is a basic feature I need. I’m just using the DNLA server, no other application.

Anyway I made a test, switching off the media streaming, reboot & the CPU is now running at around 30-40% all the time (process “wdmcserver”). As you can see, even after few minutes, it’s not going to 0.

  activite.jpg

2- I copy from folder to folder via the windows explorer. I didn’t reinvent the wheel :slight_smile:

I have absolulety no problem accessing the dashboard. My question was about the DDNS but I will answer to it in my second post :slight_smile:

4

After 30min still running 100%. Here are the processes which are running:

activity1.jpg

The 2 leds in front of the device are not blinking anymore.

5

Well, I don’t have the media streaming on…so I cannot say how much difference that makes but my hunch is, EX2’s weak processor and small memory is overwhelmed by the indexing job it takes to prep media files (pictures, movies, audio files) for DLNA streaming. There’s likely not going to be any relief on that front. IF DLNA is a must have and you don’t like to see the CPU spike like it does on EX2, I’d advise look for much pricier (more than double the price) but also more powerful CPU and more memory NAS-es from other vendors like Synology, QNAP, etc. There’s no way around it. I primarily am using my EX2 as a file server via ftp/sftp for my friends…but if DLNA is a critical requirement, then the single-core CPU of the My Cloud products probably isn’t going to be enough power. It’ll probably be okay after it takes a few days to index it but until then I think the CPU will be pushed to its limits. But then again you can’t have it all…a cheap NAS that can also double as an excellent DLNA server.

6

I can confirm that this happens.

Yesterday my EX2 started to build thumbnails for jpeg photos stored on EX2 I have disabled almost all features of EX2 (I do not use things like Cloud access, iTunes, DLNA etc) but Convert still build thumbnails for photos.

I also would like to disable it because I will never benefit from thumbnails, since I use EX2 only as a storage device.

I saw that someone submitted Idea to improve My Cloud:

http://community.wd.com/t5/Personal-Cloud-Ideas/Turn-off-Convert-Process/idi-p/712550

Maybe It is worth voting J

7

I would suggest, that at least those “secondary processes” have lower CPU priority than the ones handling primary functions, such as data transfers.

Personally, I understand a processor can be at 100% at high CPU demanding tasks for a long period, as it happens with a PC when transcoding/converting video, or when a photo library is prepared to be transfered from iTunes to an iPhone (thumbnails)… it is a matter of power consumption and heat dissapation… while they do not affect primary NAS functions.

This could be an interim solution in case not all the processes are disable.

Even though Linux is not a real time OS, it can handle prioties over threads (unfortunatally this NAS can not take advantage of CPU affinity with a single core).

8

Good idea, you got my vote ! :slight_smile:

9

@Cybernut1 : it’s nice to help but if you have no idea  what you’re talking about, maybe better not to write.

1- WD are not cheap NAS compared to Syno (and I have one, so I can compare apples with apples).

2- My last screen was without DLNA but still you get this convert process running

3- I don’t have pictures and very few videos. So how is it possible to have this process still running after 3 weeks to make the thumbmails?

4- The DLNA server is working fine since the beginning.

5- As written in others posts, I’m not the only one to have such problem even without nothing running on the NAS.

If you can’t recognize a bug, I don’t know what to say…

10

@Arkye - Okay…my error…I will refrain from commenting on your threads in future.

11

Hi,

I got two 8 TB ext units to replace myh previous WD NASes (so far I have an avareage satisfaction with WD products).

TOPIC 1:

After a couple of days using them, I also confirm the processes  “convert” & “wdphotodbmerger” are continuosly running and taking most of the CPU. Since My Cloud NAS introduction, ALL the NAS contents are reviewed continuesly and published to the WD photo application, so you can get access to every picture stored, even if it is part of an application… I find no sense on this approach, in My Book Live NAS this process only run on public my pictures folder.

I think WD should allo specifying, at least, which shares should be review by these processes and which not, even better, at folder level. Otherwise, I prefer previous approach (My Book Live) where I created links to the folders into the public and I got thumbnails and publish on just the ones I wanted.

TOPIC 2:

I am satisfied with speed so far, when transfering data from SSD through complete gigabit network I got 100 MB read transfers and 60-70 MB write transfers… but for big files such as movies, in case files size is a few MB transfer is not burst and then the speed decreases, worst case is on bunch of small file transfer, which takes very low transfers bandwith, but I find this normal, like any computer behaviour.

I’ve been really shocked seing during big files transfers peaks above 130 MBs!!! I guess due to compression, since that goes beyond gigabit bandwith :smiley:

I perceive a degradatation on the transfer rate since the  “convert” & “wdphotodbmerger” processess started taking CPU slots of around a 30% decrease… I find it ok as long they finish at a any time, but I don’t find it as dramatic to consider, so far, this NAS as not usefull.

I think if WD poolish the FW, we can get one of the best ones, so I prefer to be optimistic and help them in this task by giving good feedback.

By the way, I have one in RAID 0 and another one in RAID1.