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[Feature Request] Rising prefetch buffer


danjames9222

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Hi,

 

My internet is a bit limited with only 75Mb down and 17up.

 

When streaming via Plex, I can get shows to start (i.e. on the first playback without it timing out as the cache builds) if I set it to 150MB but what would be useful would be if I could get it to rise to 400MB automatically after a few minutes of playback. Is this a feasible request in terms of programming? I'm not a developer and have no idea how feasible this is but it would help me immensely.

 

Many thanks,

 

Dan.

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Hi,

 

My internet is a bit limited with only 75Mb down and 17up.

 

When streaming via Plex, I can get shows to start (i.e. on the first playback without it timing out as the cache builds) if I set it to 150MB but what would be useful would be if I could get it to rise to 400MB automatically after a few minutes of playback. Is this a feasible request in terms of programming? I'm not a developer and have no idea how feasible this is but it would help me immensely.

 

Many thanks,

 

Dan.

I second this request.

 

For example, if I have 100GB cache and I set the prefetch to 1GB, I think that would mean I would have a significant portion of the movie cached and shouldn't have to buffer much at all since the information is already at the disk; however with this setting I still get really bad buffering.

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There really shouldn't be a need to do this. 

 

prefetching happens when sequential reads occur.  And this is a rolling prefetching. Meaning, that as you continue to read the data, it will continue to prefetch data.  So, as you read, it will grab that 150MB ahead.  

 

Setting this too high means that everything time you read "x" amount of data (the "prefetch trigger"), it will download the "forward" amount.  This means that you could very easily get into situations where it's downloading large chunks of data that NEVER get used.  That's wasteful.  

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There really shouldn't be a need to do this. 

 

prefetching happens when sequential reads occur.  And this is a rolling prefetching. Meaning, that as you continue to read the data, it will continue to prefetch data.  So, as you read, it will grab that 150MB ahead.  

 

Setting this too high means that everything time you read "x" amount of data (the "prefetch trigger"), it will download the "forward" amount.  This means that you could very easily get into situations where it's downloading large chunks of data that NEVER get used.  That's wasteful.  

 

I think I understand what you are saying.

 

I have 2 google drive accounts in a drivepool with file replication on. How would I best set this up to make my streaming situation better?

 

Only set one account to have a precatch rather than both?

 

Server is running Windows, on and SSD with 50GB fixed cache per grdrive account ,wired gigabit etc.

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Well, one thing that has helped others is to set the "minimum download size" to a higher value. This can only be set when creating or attaching the drive, and is limited to the storage chunk size. 

 

This setting increases the "units" we use, so we grab more data at once, but it means that the initial load of that data can take longer.  (eg, it can increase latency).   

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Well, one thing that has helped others is to set the "minimum download size" to a higher value. This can only be set when creating or attaching the drive, and is limited to the storage chunk size. 

 

This setting increases the "units" we use, so we grab more data at once, but it means that the initial load of that data can take longer.  (eg, it can increase latency).   

 

What I'm trying to understand is to make the streaming more efficient.

 

I have 75Mb down, 17 up.

 

I want 2 Google Drives replicated and have them in a drivepool together with 2x replication.

 

Is there a way to make it so that I can send files to be uploaded to one part of the pool and that is mirrored to the other without uploading the data twice? i.e. once it's uploaded to the cloud in one drive, it can be mirrored using the clouds resources rather than my bandwidth?

 

At the moment I have a tv section pointed to just one drive rather than the pool itself as I hear this is more efficient?

 

I want to be able to stream full 40 - 50Mb average bitrate files with no issue and just trying to find the best way to do that.

 

Also is there a reason everytime I view files on one drive or another (or the pool directly) it takes forever and generally freezes windows explorer? Disk activity seems pegged at 100%.

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Is there a way to make it so that I can send files to be uploaded to one part of the pool and that is mirrored to the other without uploading the data twice? i.e. once it's uploaded to the cloud in one drive, it can be mirrored using the clouds resources rather than my bandwidth?

 

Not really. 

 

Even if we dealt with the files directly when uploading (which we don't), the software isn't designed to do this.  And I don't believe that there is an official, documented way to do that (though I'm not sure about this). 

 

The other issue, is that even if you store the same files, they may not be stored the say way on each "drive".  Since the software like a normal, physical disk, fragmentation and other issues are actually possible, meaning that adding the same file may mean that entirely different data needs to be uploaded (in fact, this is VERY likely, and a guarantee if you're encrypting the drives). 

 

 

As for the hanging/freezing issue, it sounds like it's waiting on the data to be pulled from the cloud.  If both disks are active, and one or both are eating up all of the bandwidth, this can happen. 

But could you do this: 

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_CloudDrive_Drive_Tracing

 

As for disk activity, if this is disk management, ignore the 100%, it literally means nothing. 

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