Some questions about watching movies on my Pi 3+

Hi all,

I’ve been using Raspberry Pi’s for a few years now. Really love them.

Been using a 3 for a while and would transfer files to it from my Windows computer. 5Gb file would take about 6 minutes to transfer to the Pi. Onboard Intel gigabit Ethernet adapter on the PC. Direct connection with Cat6 Ethernet cable.

Thought the 3+ would give me faster transfer but still getting around 11Mb/s.

Also should I transfer to the external hard drive connected to the Pi, or directly to the Pi or watch them from my online OneDrive?

Watching from the external hard drive on the 3 would give the occasional stutter.

Any thoughts or comments appreciated.

Transferring via ethernet with the hard drive connected to the Pi will be slow because the USB bus is shared between ethernet and the USB ports. Using WiFi (if possible) instead of ethernet or transferring the file to the Pi’s SD card should be faster. Watching the movie from OneDrive depends on your internet connection.

Do you mean megabytes per second? If so, that would be the expected speed for a 100 Mbit/sec network – or some part of the network, such as a router or switch, is running at 100 Mbits/sec.

Thanks for your help. You’re right. I’m running through a Cisco E2500 router which is only 10/100. Also have it connected with a CAT5 cable from the router to the Pi.

Well, I bought a Linksys EA3500 wifi router. Connected the cable modem to the router (which has gigabit ports). Went from the router through a gigabit switch. Both my computers have gigabit ethernet and all cables are CAT6. Still only getting around 12 MiB/s transfers. Any thoughts? Thanks.

It looks like something along the network path is still running at 100 Mbits/sec.

Could you post full logs (grab-logs -A) and run an iperf3 test between your server and the Pi3+?

I appreciate your help on this.

Log is at https://paste.osmc.tv/bohamubive

Unfortunately, I don’t have a Pi3+ to run any tests myself but it might be as @ConfuSomu suggests: that you’re constrained by the USB 2.0 bus of the Pi3+ (theoretical maximum 480 Mbps), with incoming network traffic and outgoing disk I/O traffic vying for the limited bus bandwidth. Add to that the fact that your external disk is running NTFS, which is relatively inefficient on OSMC, and it might just about explain your slow transfer speeds, though they still seem a bit slow to me.

Two other things:

AFAICT you didn’t mention how you are copying the files over. There’s nothing in the log showing a source defined either in Kodi or in the fstab.

It will still be useful to see iperf3 figures between the server and the Pi, so we can rule out (or in) the possibility of a network issue.

I have transferred via Filezilla and Windows 10 File Manager both to the osmc folder on the Pi and also an external USB hard drive. Transfers no matter what seem to be about 16 MiB/s maximum. I also enabled the wifi and get almost the same speed.

Should iperf3 figures be obtained while I’m doing a transfer between my PC and the Pi?

Thanks!

No. Do it on a quiet network.

Hi,

SFTP or FTP?

SFTP will be slow.

Thanks Tom.

Wasn’t that the log I posted? Thanks.

SFTP. If I try FTP I get econnrefused. Checked for possible solutions but nothing worked.

Hi,

Have you installed the FTP server, from the MyOsmc; App store?

Thanks Tom.

Installed the FTP server. Also got FTP to work from Filezilla. Seems a little faster, still only around 16 MiB/s maximum. Interestingly, from the SD card on the Pi to my computer I get a stable 22.3 MiB/s.

Hi,

Whats results are getting with Iperf3?

Thanks Tom.

[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 2.45 MBytes 20.5 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 26.0 MBytes 218 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 22.8 MBytes 191 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 21.8 MBytes 183 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 24.9 MBytes 209 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 22.3 MBytes 187 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 21.9 MBytes 184 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 23.9 MBytes 201 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 22.7 MBytes 191 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 22.7 MBytes 191 Mbits/sec

And from the Pi to my PC:

[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Retr Cwnd
[ 4] 0.00-1.00 sec 35.0 MBytes 293 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes
[ 4] 1.00-2.00 sec 36.0 MBytes 302 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes
[ 4] 2.00-3.00 sec 35.9 MBytes 301 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes
[ 4] 3.00-4.00 sec 35.3 MBytes 296 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes
[ 4] 4.00-5.00 sec 35.7 MBytes 299 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes
[ 4] 5.00-6.00 sec 35.6 MBytes 299 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes
[ 4] 6.00-7.00 sec 35.6 MBytes 299 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes
[ 4] 7.00-8.00 sec 35.8 MBytes 301 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes
[ 4] 8.00-9.00 sec 35.4 MBytes 297 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes
[ 4] 9.00-10.00 sec 34.9 MBytes 292 Mbits/sec 0 221 KBytes

I see that speeds have evolved from 11 MB/s (post #1) to 12 MB/s (post #5) and you’re now talking about 16 MB/s (and 22.3 MB/s transmit). The first two speeds might have been a result of some step along the network path operating at 100 Mbits/sec, but that wouldn’t be the case at 16 MB/s, which is faster than a 100 Mbits/sec network can handle.

Your iperf3 figures are showing around 190 Mbits/sec to the Pi3+ and around 300 Mbits/sec from the Pi3+. Since this is iperf3, it’s measuring just the network speed, without any overheads for disk I/O, so it’s unclear why you’re getting this asymmetry in the network figures. However, I’m not surprised to see you getting 16 MB/s read speeds on a 190 Mbits/sec network once we take account of the overheads involved (disk writes, network, SFTP).

Bottom line: the receive speeds of the Pi seem to be broadly in line with the network (receive) speed. It’s not clear to me why the receive speed of the Pi is only 190 Mbits/sec but, unless it can be increased, you’re unlikely to better the current performance.

1 Like

Thanks for all your help. I’ve learned a lot.