Slow transfer speed from PC to PBO via LAN connection

[token]

I just purchased PBO yesterday and updated the the firmware to the latest. Everything went well but when I tried to copy files from my PC to PBO, I can only get about 1.5MB/s (slightly faster than 10mbps) in a gb switching environment.

Is there a way to determine the link speed via telnet? Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this? I know I can stream directly via the network but I also purchased a 750G drive to be used with PBO and would like to play everything from PBO directly rather than streaming across the network.

Thanks,

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Additional information.

As an alternative, I tried to use an external USB drive to transport files to PBO. The external USB drive is powered its adapter.

The first couple times I tried to copy a file (~5GB) from USB to HDD1 (internal SATA 750G), it [soft] hung at 1% and the animated folder-copy-screen froze; I was able to use "RETURN" key to get out of it and returned back to the file copy menu.

The last time I tried to copy the same file, it froze completely - no ping reply, remote control didn't work either so I had to power cycled PBO.

I then telnet to PBO and tried to copy the file directly from USB to HDD1 which seemed fine for the first 1-2 min WHILE it was streaming a movie via eth0 (wired LAN). After about 1-2min, the movie play became unstable - it'd hang for 10-20sec before playing for another 1-5sec then hang for another 10-20sec and so on.

I then temporarily put the file copying into the background and try to roughly calculate the speed, and it turned out to be about 2.5MB/s which seemed very slow.

Can anyone offer an explanation for the slow USB->HDD1 transfer and why it would affect streaming via the network? The 2 processes, 'USB->HDD1' and 'network streaming', should not interfere with each other as far as the resource is concerned.

Can someone please help? I quite like the overall functionalities that PBO provides but these issues with transferring files severely impact how I want to use this devices.

Thanks all,

[Terrentius]

Well, bro, it is just not that fast. I, as well, tried it in the beginning and gave up pretty quickly on having an internal drive in the PBO. Now I just run a LAN with the PBO hooked it to NAS. Works like a charm. It also saves you from DL and then copying files to new hard drives, which takes up more time, which is pointless to me.

Anyhoo, you will find out quite quickly if you are downloading or ripping files that 750GB won't get ya much especially if you are looking for HD video quality. You should probably just figure out how you want to run a NAS, be done with it, and enjoy your PBO for what it is actually good at.

[token]

Well, bro, it is just not that fast. I, as well, tried it in the beginning and gave up pretty quickly on having an internal drive in the PBO. Now I just run a LAN with the PBO hooked it to NAS. Works like a charm. It also saves you from DL and then copying files to new hard drives, which takes up more time, which is pointless to me.

Anyhoo, you will find out quite quickly if you are downloading or ripping files that 750GB won't get ya much especially if you are looking for HD video quality. You should probably just figure out how you want to run a NAS, be done with it, and enjoy your PBO for what it is actually good at.

Hey Terrentius,

Appreciate the 'confirmation' - guess I should just be happy that I'm not the only one that's experiencing this issue, i.e. my unit isn't exactly malfunctioning albeit there is still the possibility that we both have wonky units ;p

Having said that, USB2 is capable of much faster speed than 2MB/s and based on that alone, it appears there is a defect for the current firmware that's preventing it from working properly. I'm hoping this (or better yet, the issue with slow LAN transfer) would be fixed soon.

Thanks again for the info, Terrentius.

So, nobody else has experienced slow LAN transfer speed? hmm...

Cheers,

[jamaroney]

Earlier firmwares such P05-IMS (or earlier), which is what I use, seem to have better LAN transfer speeds. They're still not speed demons, however - it takes around 60-75 minutes to rip a 25 GB BluRay MKV from my PC to my PBO. But I absolutely can't use later PBO, ACRBO or MedeBO firmwares because they took over 6 hours for the same task!

[snappy46]

Hey Terrentius,

Appreciate the 'confirmation' - guess I should just be happy that I'm not the only one that's experiencing this issue, i.e. my unit isn't exactly malfunctioning albeit there is still the possibility that we both have wonky units ;p

Having said that, USB2 is capable of much faster speed than 2MB/s and based on that alone, it appears there is a defect for the current firmware that's preventing it from working properly. I'm hoping this (or better yet, the issue with slow LAN transfer) would be fixed soon.

Thanks again for the info, Terrentius.

So, nobody else has experienced slow LAN transfer speed? hmm...

Cheers,

It is not your unit or Terrentius unit; all units behave this way. The PBO (Actually pretty much all players based on the 1073 chip) has a very poor network implementation and couple with the poor performance of the CPU this is as good as it gets. A quick search on this forum about slow network would have tell you that already. There are a few things here and there that you can do to help things but at the end of the day transfer rate thru Samba or otherwise (ftp slightly better) still sucks.

Cheers !!!!

[tourist]

I also have completely given up on using storage on PBO directly. Particularly since I have 2 PBO players at home. NAS is the way to go. I also removed the internal HD to reduce heat. The only issue is stuttering when watching high bit rate HD video streaming through the wireless bridge.

[token]

Earlier firmwares such P05-IMS (or earlier), which is what I use, seem to have better LAN transfer speeds. They're still not speed demons, however - it takes around 60-75 minutes to rip a 25 GB BluRay MKV from my PC to my PBO. But I absolutely can't use later PBO, ACRBO or MedeBO firmwares because they took over 6 hours for the same task!

That's a shame. If there is at least one firmware that's capable of achieving faster throughput, then it means later firmware releases simply 'broke' this portion of the code when attempting to either fix other bugs and/or providing enhancements for other aspects of the product.

In either case, I'd hope this can be addressed [soon] - one of the selling point for PBO is that it has a built-in space for internal SATA storage as opposed to other brands out there that requires external USB/eSATA, which is also the primary reason for which I bought this in the first place. If the internal 2.5" drive can be easily ejected/swapped out, then perhaps this would've been less of an issue.

However, the most frustrating part is that there seems to be an issue with USB transfer as well so I can't even effectively transfer files from externally attached USB to the internal 2.5" drive. ugh!

Hopefully, the folks at PM can address at least one of the speed issue for either USB or LAN. Aside from these 2 issues, I have to say that PBO is indeed the best player out there.

Cheers,

[token]

I also have completely given up on using storage on PBO directly. Particularly since I have 2 PBO players at home. NAS is the way to go. I also removed the internal HD to reduce heat. The only issue is stuttering when watching high bit rate HD video streaming through the wireless bridge.

Bummer! What make/model of NAS you currently have?

Performance/stuttering is the primary reason why I want to use an internal storage in the first place. I figure that if PBO can only 'download' files at reduced rate, wouldn't it also affect the 'streaming' speed as well since it's pretty much the same thing, unless it's only having problems downloading from SMB share and not NFS. Do you run NFS on your NAS? or if the issue is only the samba daemon on PBO but not the smbclient?

Cheers,

[tourist]

Bummer! What make/model of NAS you currently have?

Performance/stuttering is the primary reason why I want to use an internal storage in the first place. I figure that if PBO can only 'download' files at reduced rate, wouldn't it also affect the 'streaming' speed as well since it's pretty much the same thing, unless it's only having problems downloading from SMB share and not NFS. Do you run NFS on your NAS? or if the issue is only the samba daemon on PBO but not the smbclient?

Cheers,

I am just using SAMBA on a Patriot Valkyrie NAS. It actually stream 1080p fine even over a simple wireless N network. The stutter issue is only for high bit rate file and my second PBO which connected through a repeater bridge that reduced the network throughput. As I found the firmware corruption issue may be related to heat, I keep the PBO off when I am not watching video. It is also far more efficient to transfer files to the NAS than to PBO.
The internal drive works fine for its purpose if transfer files through USB connection to a PC. It is painfully slow if you transfer large file over the network to the internal drive. As for external drive connecting to PBO, the drive format would affect the transfer rate. If you search the forum, you will find ext3 format will give you better transfer rate but you will need to use the "Net" directory.

[token]

I am just using SAMBA on a PBO Valkyrie NAS. It actually stream 1080p fine even over a simple wireless N network. The stutter issue is only for high bit rate file and my second PBO which connected through a repeater bridge that reduced the network throughput. As I found the firmware corruption issue may be related to heat, I keep the PBO off when I am not watching video. It is also far more efficient to transfer files to the NAS than to PBO.
The internal drive works fine for its purpose if transfer files through USB connection to a PC. It is painfully slow if you transfer large file over the network to the internal drive. As for external drive connecting to PBO, the drive format would affect the transfer rate. If you search the forum, you will find ext3 format will give you better transfer rate but you will need to use the "Net" directory.

ahh.. Thanks for the info! One question (sorry I'm rather new to PBO) - what is "PBO Valkyrie NAS"? Is this PBO running 3rd party firmware turning it into NAS? Can you please elaborate?



Many thanks to all.

Cheers,