We need HDD defragmentation in the WDTVLiveHub firmware!

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Hub Discussions
#1

Firstly, for the record I just want to say, I LOVE MY WDTVLiveHub!  

My WDTVLiveHub is two years old so out of warranty so please don’t tell me off for taking a ‘peek under the hood’.

When my WDTVLiveHub HDD gets full I delete stuff I longer want to make room for more…  I am sure most WDTVLiveHub users are doing the same as me. I often put 50GB .iso files or 25GB .mkv files on the machine and later delete them.  I can assure you these files perform much better when arranged contiguously on the HDD. 

Recently, I had a problem with the filesystem becoming corrupted and while trying to fix this I discovered that the disk was 88% fragmented!  I defragmented the drive and received a dramatic improvement in performance.  However be warned it took 24hrs to defraggle 250GB!

So please may we have a deframentation function added to the next firmware update!  I suggest that it could run when the screensaver is up…

2 Likes
#2

LeBiz wrote:

I can assure you these files perform much better when arranged contiguously on the HDD.  I defragmented the drive and received a dramatic improvement in performance.  However be warned it took 24hrs to defraggle 250GB!

You had a dramatic improvement in WHAT performance?

#3

The boot up time is shorter.

I also noticed on a 25GB bluray a surprisingly faster “skip to desired time.”

The unit is not forever compiling the media library.

Until you have filled the disk up for the first time everything is contiguous…  From the moment you start deleting stuff to make space things become more complicated.  Imagine if you wanted a book and the librarian had to go to the four opposite corners of the building to find it because it was not stored in a single place…  If the book was stored in one place the librarians performance would dramatically improve.  This is why a defragmentation utility in the WDTVLiveHub would be a big improvement.

#4

Can the hub not format the internal drive in ext3 file system? If so there will never be a need for worrying about fragmentation. I also remember reading that fragmentation was a big concern with fat file systems but not so important with ntfs.

#5

betamaxman wrote:

Can the hub not format the internal drive in ext3 file system? If so there will never be a need for worrying about fragmentation.

That’s a long-standing myth.   EXT3/EXT4 has no immunity to filesystem fragmentation…

BIGNAS3:~# e2fsck -n -f /dev/md3
e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

/dev/md3: 164959/45565440 files (6.7% non-contiguous), 43605653/45714527 blocks

 My NAS, which is using EX3 filesystem has 6.7% fragmentation right now…

Even WD’s own NAS, the My Book Live, uses EXT4, and it has 14.5% fragmentation:

MyBookLive:~# e2fsck -f -n /dev/sda4
e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

/dev/sda4: 16197/15144960 files (14.5% non-contiguous), 937667/15191344 blocks
#6

LeBiz wrote:

Firstly, for the record I just want to say, I LOVE MY WDTVLiveHub!  

My WDTVLiveHub is two years old so out of warranty so please don’t tell me off for taking a ‘peek under the hood’.

When my WDTVLiveHub HDD gets full I delete stuff I longer want to make room for more…  I am sure most WDTVLiveHub users are doing the same as me. I often put 50GB .iso files or 25GB .mkv files on the machine and later delete them.  I can assure you these files perform much better when arranged contiguously on the HDD. 

Recently, I had a problem with the filesystem becoming corrupted and while trying to fix this I discovered that the disk was 88% fragmented!  I defragmented the drive and received a dramatic improvement in performance.  However be warned it took 24hrs to defraggle 250GB!

So please may we have a deframentation function added to the next firmware update!  I suggest that it could run when the screensaver is up…

Did you remove the drive from the Hub and connect it to a PC to accomplish this? 

#7

Yes, I took the HDD out of the WDTVLiveHub and put it in my netbook and booted from into Mini-Xp from a usb stick.

I did this because the WDTVLiveHub stopped recognising the HDD.  I tried running HDD diagnostic software on the disk but could not find the cause of the problem.  I eventually ran chkdsk x: /f from the command line (x corresponds to the drive letter assigned to the WDTVLiveHub directory). I put the HDD back into the WDTV Live Hub and everything worked fine.

So while trying to diagnose what was wrong with the WDTVLiveHub I looked at the state of fragmentation and disc and was horrified to find 88% fragmentation! I slimmed my film archive from 860GB to 250GB and defragmented the drive (it took 24 hours).

#8

It may have been quicker to move the files to another drive, format the hub drive and then move the files back.

#9

I’ve wondered if any of this could be done…I just got a NAS and am moving my video to it now. Once that’s completed I’m wondering if I can just delete the 3 partitions and without re-partitioning the drive put it back in the Hub and tell the Hub to format it. Isn’t that about the same thing that would happen if I bought a new replacement drive?

#10

flhthemi wrote:

I’ve wondered if any of this could be done…I just got a NAS and am moving my video to it now. Once that’s completed I’m wondering if I can just delete the 3 partitions and without re-partitioning the drive put it back in the Hub and tell the Hub to format it. Isn’t that about the same thing that would happen if I bought a new replacement drive?

 

 

Are you talking about the hub drive? Why do you want to delete partitions? Are you moving files from the hub to the nas?

#11

richUK wrote:

flhthemi wrote:

I’ve wondered if any of this could be done…I just got a NAS and am moving my video to it now. Once that’s completed I’m wondering if I can just delete the 3 partitions and without re-partitioning the drive put it back in the Hub and tell the Hub to format it. Isn’t that about the same thing that would happen if I bought a new replacement drive?

 

 

Are you talking about the hub drive? Why do you want to delete partitions? Are you moving files from the hub to the nas?

Yes the drive from the Hub is on my desk connected to USB to my PC. I’m moving all the video from it to the NAS. It will be empty. But I notice the “Private” partition has a lot of chkdsk found.xxx files in it, 35 to be exact. So I was thinking it might just be as easy to delete ALL the partitions and shove it back in the Hub and let it do it’s thing. It must re-write all the partitions and stuff inside them as what else would happen if a brand new drive was to be installed…

#12

Well I put a new drive in my hub and just used the hub format so I assume that it does everything that is needed.

#13

It worked like a charm! Now I know :slight_smile:

#14

Do you happen to know of any app that will defrag the hdd without removing the hdd and voiding your warranty ? Maybe via network ?

#15

djweevil wrote:

Do you happen to know of any app that will defrag the hdd without removing the hdd and voiding your warranty ? Maybe via network ?

No, I do not. Doesn’t mean there isn’t one tho.

#16

This absolutly a vitally needed function. Call it “optimization” or something like that.

I’m getting problems that are increasingly starting to add up that could probably be fixed with a defrag. I have the expierence to do so easily with my computer, but the wife will not let me because she loves the box and doesn’t want to risk anything happening to it. 

#17

You could move all your files to another drive, reformat the hub drive and then move everything back.

#18

:smiley:

1.Wife says I can’t open it up because she doesn’t want to risk it breaking, like I stated before

  1. You cannot format over the network

  2. I have 900GB of videos transfering at 12 KB/s (which is the ethernet speed of this **bleep** machien) =  24029 Hours of transfer time

#19

giveen wrote:

:smiley:

 

1.Wife says I can’t open it up because she doesn’t want to risk it breaking, like I stated before

  1. You cannot format over the network
  1. I have 900GB of videos transfering at 12 KB/s (which is the ethernet speed of this **bleep** machien) =  24029 Hours of transfer time

1- Yeah, Ok – I can understand that.

2- You don’t need to.  You can format from the UI.

3- Huh??  12 KB/s??   That’s about 1/1000th of what it should be.   *NO* amount of fragmentation would cause that – you’ve got network issues or something far more onerous happening.

#20

Wow, talk about my mistype, 12 MB/s, not KB/s, I needed to get myself straight there.

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