Slow(er) Home Network

[Colin Law]

On 22 September 2014 00:59, Peter Smout <smoutpete at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> My laptop, phone and second PC all backup / upload their important data in
> compressed tar files (Laptop Sun 4am, phone as & when PC Mon 4am) to a
> specific 2tb hdd in the main PC / Sever. Any movies, series or music that I
> download are stored again on a different hdd in the main tower.
> Note that ALL my gear is running a Linux distro from the Debian derived
> family (apart from PS4 which is beyond my control but still not the evil MS,
> phone is Android)
>
> I have noticed that when I want to watch a movie for example, the movie file
> (.Mp4 or .MKV usually some .avi) is stored on the main server, I used to be
> able to "stream" the movie straight from the server to the Pi used a media
> server and watch it with little if any lag. Since my move into the sticks
> the lag has increased and I now get buffering!
>
> This I have worked around by copying the file onto a USB memory stick and
> plugging that into the Pi and watching the file from there! Such a hard life
> ;)
>
> I will try changing channels on the router but as the lag is over copper I
> am unsure as to the benefit.
> I mentioned my faithful D-Link router as it must be nearing it's "built in
> obsolescence time" by now (5 years I believe)
> I might try cutting out the D-link & going straight to the "free" ISP one
> although this may cause IP address issues in scripts etc.

Concentrate on the issue over the wire first, changing channels on the
router will not affect the rate over the wire. I would start by
opening System Monitor and going to the resources page.  Then just do
a simple copy of a file across the wire and in the network history see
what bandwidth you get.  On the wire you should be able to get close
to 100 megabits/sec or 10 megaBytes/sec.  I think it shows in kiB/s in
which case it should be 100kiB/s.  Obviously you can time a decent
sized file and double check the rate.

Colin