What is the impact of drives larger than 500GB on the N299?

[d3fiant]

Have been helping a friend who purchased the N299 and 2x 750GB SATAII drives. Have them running in JBOD and have copied a number of divx/xvid films to the NAS which are accessed via CIFS/SMB shares by an Xbox running XBMC. Previously he accessed shares on his PC but didnt want that left on all the time so I suggested he buy the N299, however we have noticed severe issues like choppy video playback, inability to scan through a video file. Currently running 1.0.0.28

Basically, what is the impact of using 750GB drives, he has two 500GB drives in his PC that I could swap but it will involve moving around a fair chunk of data.

[PeterG]

Hi,
why do you think it is a problem with the drives? I am still using 1.00.26 as there are no docs about the changes in 1.00.28. There are no problems with the drives here (2 750 GB Samsung Spinpoint F1).

Regards
Peter

[d3fiant]

1.0.0.28 came installed, it only arrived this week. I was wondering about the drives being the cause as there is a big warning in the manual that they havent tested drives over 500GB. To be honest I was hoping that it was the N299 struggling with larger drives, that I could fix by swapping for some 500GB drives I have. If its not that then it must be the ability of the N299 to stream data over CIFS/SMB, that really would be unfortunate I was thinking of installing 1.0.0.32 which I have seen around but a lack of readme's or to be brutaly honest any form of decent documentation has me concerned. I am regretting telling my friend to get this unit, I guess u get what u pay for

Do you use ur N299 to stream media files over CIFS/SMB? These are standard xvid files, nothing cleaver, no high bitrate HD type files?

[d3fiant]

out of interest what RAID setting are you using. I am running JBOD with 2 750 GB Seagate ST3750840AS Barracuda 7200.10, I was hoping that would have the lowest impact on the pow spec processor in the unit?

[PeterG]

I am using RAID0. And I use the N299 for backup and to stream audio (via iTunes) and video recorded from DVB-T. I have also tried two HD videos available freely (elephants dream and big buck bunny) which worked too.

Regards
Peter

[d3fiant]

Thanks for the info PeterG, at least I know its capable of handling what I throw at it

[d3fiant]

Still having issues, but intermittent... we have swapped out the 2x 750GB for 2x500GB. The layout is as follows;

N299 wired to N1 wireless router, as is PC
Xbox is connected to a 54G Wireless game adpater which accesses N299 via CIFS/SMB
Wireless signal is very high, devices are only several meters apart with minimal obstructions
If I watch videos that are shared on the PC, no problem, if I watch them on the N299 then sometimes its fine, most of the time I am unable to fast forward or video is stuttery.

The only thing I can see that is to blame is the N299, so far it is not delivering ehat it is designed to deliver, VERY VERY frustrating, can anyone help??

TIA

D3fiant

[PeterG]

Hi,
well, my setup is a bit different but not so much. The N299 is connected to a buffalo WLAN router (setup as access point only), which is connected to an 8port switch (all ports used so I had to add the N299 to the switch within the WLAN router). Playing audio/video an any network device works. I also have a netgear eva700 streaming client connected via WLAN (not to the buffalo wlan but a fritz!box dsl router with wlan, the fritz!box is connected via fast ethernet to the 8port switch mentioned above). The eva700 is streaming video from the N299 too, even tested with two hd-files as mentioned in my previous post.
Do you have the same problems when streaming video via LAN only (e. g. watching video on your PC streamed from the N299)? Then I would suspect the WLAN not being fast enough...

Regards
Peter

[d3fiant]

PeterG thanks for the reply. I do not believe it is a WLAN problem as before we was sharing the media via SMB shares on the PC for several weeks with no probs whatsoever. The N299 was bought so that the PC didnt have to be left on, simply use that as the source instead. While I appreciate the N299 is lowend it is very frustrating that it looks to be failing on simple tasks.

I was thinking about moving the N299 to the Xbox side, plug the wireless gaming access point into the WAN port and the xbox into the LAN port, however I'm concerned the xbox may loose connectivity to the internet due to (I assume) further NAT'ing between networks

Thanks for takin the time to share ur experiences, it is a shame Thecus dont share ur interest

[PeterG]

Hi,
have you ever tried to stream from the N299 via LAN only? Streaming and access via shares are not the same thing. I suggest to get access to the stream from the N299 without WLAN, only via LAN and see what happens. If the problems remain you can be sure the fault is not with the WLAN. If they stay it might be the N299 not delivering fast enough or something with your network. Although I am anything but satisfied with the N299 I have to admit that - though being slow - it sems to be sufficient to stream video via LAN and WLAN.
Nevertheless the point of advertised but missing spindown is still p***** me and I will not accept Thecus - obviously wrong - answer about adding spindown to be impossible. I have begun to take legal action against the dealer selling me the N299 which at least will force him to take legal action against Thecus I think. I am already looking for people with enough knowledge to be able to add the spindow feature and already have contact to some linux programmers; any further advice is appreciated.

Regards
Peter