The NAS now takes a backseat!

I think you'll find the app access issue was down to the nas connecting via wifi rather than Ethernet cable, I know I found that before hardwiring my set up using cat 6 Ethernet cable.

Sorry, I meant to say, originally the NAS was wired, and the iMac was connected by WiFi.

D

Hi Davina,   you have been hankering after this in a previous thread,  so I guess it has bought on a   .... but whatever the improvement is, whatever the new speed,  if its done "it" for you,  great .  

I think the difficulty for us readers is understanding the speed of your NAS vs the Mac in your set up. Obviously it was a concern for you,  but is your description of slow & instant the same as we all understand - I doubt it.

My iPad speed seems OK to me, I touch the screen & up pops the artist, then album, then open & touch the three dots & play - maybe half a second for the % number scrolling up to 100% as the HD loads & away we go. I can't image, based on the speed that it preforms for me,  what a faster response would do as its almost instantaneous as far as iPad screen changes go, no faster or slower than say changing around screens on the News.  The only thing I do find slow (but not a problem) is the speed the art loads when opening the Play Queue screen first time, but as Minimserver is faster than the Synology Media Server I normally use, I put that down to the UPnP program, not the NAS.     

FYI - my NAS-NDX is all ethernet via a switch & the NAS CPU is a Marvell Armada XP MV78230 Dual Core 1.066GHz & system memory is 512MB DDR3 - pretty ordinary run of the mill 

It’s not due to the 1.2 processor, probably due to the streamer and the server software not working very well together.

I use a squeezebox touch with squeezebox server on a QNAP112, when I touch artists, the list appears instantly, when I select an artist, a list of albums appears instantly, when I select an album the track list appears instantly, when I select a track it plays instantly.

The reason? I’m using squeezebox software and squeezebox server, which are guaranteed to work well together.

The speed of the server is essential, its essential in every other server duty and music is no different. The lower grade Nases are serllloooowwww, anyone that thinks otherwise knows no better!

Crazy thing is, if you can put that server away from the hifi, the world is literally your oyster. You can pick up second hand dell precisions for peanuts, stick 6 drives in them and watch it fly. 

The difference on load times for lots of album art etc is marked, it really is. That being said if you are looking for a balance of electric consumption etc then a bit of a pause is probably worth it. I use my server for all sorts of things both LAN and WAN, its great but so loud the only feasible place is the garage, but for £140, 8 cores/16 gigs ram etc it sure does merry along.

Fatcat..I was using Asset and Plex on the NAS (Qnap 112) I must admit, Asset was slightly faster than Plex. Now that I've put Asset on the Mac...it's lightning quick, instant!

I agree Gary. My Qnap 112 was good value for money, when I first started off streaming, but it is sloooooow!  Hard wiring the Mac has also given faster internet access. Happy days!

Yes Mike, hankering!

Your Synology is a higher spec than my Qnap, both in processor speed and system memory. So I would imagine the Synology would perform slightly better than the Qnap. 

The speed of streaming navigation and selection for the most part is down to the UPnP media server. As Gary says many consumer NAS's have limited resources but is ample for basic storage and RAID controller duties which is what they are designed for.. they are not always optimum for running server applications. If using consumer NAS's I say best leave them to provide network attached storage duties if you have the choice. 

As far as UPnP media servers, I run MinimServer on my USB powered RaspberryPi2. The Pi connects to my NAS's via Ethernet. The speed of responsiveness is fast and feels approximately equivalent to the Naim Unitiserve. My advantage is that I have high performance and very low running costs and just as importantly it's always on, totally silent, configurable, highly reliable and hidden away in a box no bigger than a large box of kitchen matches... oh yes and it cost less than £50

Simon

That sounds like an ideal setup Simon. I don't know what make of NAS you have, but are the NAS's processor speed relevant to the speed of the data transported to Minim, on the Raspberry Pi2?

Davina

You may need 8 cores/16 gig for other duties, but you certainly don't need it for streaming music.

Earlier this year I posted snap shots of my QNAP TS112 resource monitor while streaming. Steaming music is neither CPU or Memory intensive.

I think the misconception fast CPU's are required to stream music is an urban myth repeated by people who don't know any better.

Repost.

I took a few screenshots of the NAS resource monitor. It’s a QNAP TS112 1.2 GHz CPU with 256MB DDR2 Ram.

Streaming to a SBT with squeezebox server doesn’t appear to trouble the CPU at all, in fact most of the small value spikes are caused by the resource monitor.

Streaming doesn’t cause any spikes or change in memory.

24/96 high res flac streamed in flac.

Redbook WAV streamed in WAV

Redbook WAV streamed in flac

Memory.

Might be interesting to take a look at the qnap resource monitor (Applications/system status/resource monitor, to see exactly what's going on.

Davina, I use some low power high capacity Netgear NAS's and they can provide the relatively low data transfer rate for audio streaming with ease.

The actual streaming of the data and even the transcoding is relatively low CPU load and memory load - the pinch point becomes the I/O bandwidth which you can monitor at the Unix level. Small NASs and non specialist hardware can easily develop I/O bottlenecks.

However the responsiveness comes the from the web server and data base functions of the UPnP server - here memory and CPU power is useful. A more powerful machine will give a progressively faster and more responsive feel to navigating and selecting on the Naim app. This is where the Raspbery Pi2 with MinimServer excels.

On a RPi1 running Asset on transcoding 192/24 from FLAC to WAV I did see the I/O bandwidth becoming the bottleneck and so CPU load artificially was raised because of I/O waiting. Everything still performed ok however as there was plenty of headroom. I have not repeated the measure on the RPi2 - but I guess the underlying performance has improved significantly. Ideally on a NAS I don't want to run any process that becomes I/O bound as that will start to impact everything else - its better to manage that separately on a mini server or Pi. I/O bandwidth is the key resource to monitor for streaming and transcoding, not usually CPU or memory unless in extreme circumstances.

Ultimately on a home network streaming the media typically occurs at a greater rate than the playout rate - and so therefore on the network you see bursts of data transfer rather than continuous

So you see for example a data transport flow (in a stylised simplified approach):

->send

->send

<-ok - all received

->send

<- ok and wait

..

->are you ready?

<-no

..

<-continue sending

->send

etc

So there is no inherent advantage streaming the audio too quickly - you just want to do it such that it does not affect other functions or processes and its sent quicker than it plays out.

Simon

Thanks Simon

A bit technical for me, but I definitely get the idea. I'm not sure how savvy one has to be, to set up and configure a Pi, but I'm surprised that not that many forum members use it in their system. Most, like me, settle for an off the peg NAS. The Pi2 sounds ideal, and Asset do a version for It.

davina

Thank you Fatcat for that detailed reply. We have the same NAS, and although I have never really studied the resource monitor, I will check it out while playing 24/96, 16/44 and Mp3 files, to see if my monitor gives similar readings to yours

Davina, you need a little know how to use the Pi, after all that was the intent of the Pi .. To allow people to develop know how.. But there is much basic setup guidance on the web..but as with many things if you invest a little time and effort you can save much money and get a better solution... So the choice is plug and play and pay or.. Read up, setup and save...