Sorry for my ignorance but, is it possible to have a server (preferably on linux but if having it on Windows server/7 helps then that's fine) and wirelessly stream media to PCs around the house. Advice much much appreciated. Cheers Ash
So you'd have media on the server needing to be watched on other PCs? If so just run it wirelessly through your network and job's a good 'un You'd probably need NMax (300Mbps) to cope just in case you want to stream anything hi-def
Audio or video? if video I would really recommend using power-line or homeplugs VS WLAN. much less troubles believe me. WLAN sucks for highspeed over distance, just lock at some WIFI diagrams. The further away you are from the router the less mbs you get and more signal drop outs. Delovo are the top brand and Solwise are reliable cheap alternatives. (from experience) You want AV 200 or above. At AV 500 both use the same chips.
If using DLNA then you could try PS3 media streamer so transcode the video on the fly. Otherwise just share the folder on the network through your homegroup
i used to stream media to my HTPC over a G network. it worked fine. there are certain steps you can take to maximize your connection. a good router running dd-wrt allows you to turn up the routers radio for a stronger signal. a wireless PCI card with an external antenna. dont use a USB dongle as they cant pull as much power (or dissipate as much heat) meaning they have weaker radios. that said, transferring large files over the wireless will still be painful. ive since gone to gigabit wired LAN and its an amazing improvement.
This. Wireless routers generally only go at their maximum rated speeds in a sort of burst mode. You won't be pulling down 300 Mb/s the entire time you're streaming, so after a minute or so, you might not be able to serve to all connections in the house. If you can, wire it.
You can get away with Wireless G on HD streaming, however, if there is anything else accessing, you can see stuttering. If you do 100mbit or 150N you will be fine. Many will say you can do HD over G, and you can, but many also find it's fickle. These days, N is so cheap there isn't much reason not to anyhow, but why risk it. Beware using Linux with Windows as Samba /CIFS is known to not push as much data as possible through a connection. Windows to Windows sharing you can usually get 70-95% full capacity, but Linux to Windows sharing may get only 30%, this can be an issue if you have a slower connection. With gigabit lan (W to W) I can pull 115megs, which is almost as fast as spinning drives not long ago allowing me to use shared drives as a slow internal drive. Oh, and a good modern router will likely run slower with DD-WRT, however, I still would recommend getting one that is compatible with DD-WRT just in case the firmware is bad, or you need something an alternative like DD-WRT offers. There are places selling Linksys e3000 for about $50 and Netgear 3700 series for under $100 so look around.
could you expand on this? ive not heard of this happening and cant say that ive noticed a slowdown since loading DD-WRT on my asus.
Some see a slower interface, other see a drop in throughput. DD-WRT hasn't really been updated in quite a while and has quite a few bugs. It also tends to use lots of memory which newer routers have, but it hasn't been optimized for it. Manufacturers have come a ways since the old WRT54g, firmware has gotten better and they have better access to manufacturer code. DD-WRT on the other hand, is still stuck on the old WRT54G in terms of it's code. Personally, I find Asus and Buffalo firmware a bit lacking, and on those would consider a 3rd party firmware ( there is more out there than just DD-WRT). Netgear and Linksys on the other hand is much more refined. Also, contrary to some saying 3rd party firmware enables extra features, you can also lose features such as usb sharing. Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in 3rd party firmware, but I see it as an alternative to stock firmware, not a replacement for it. I would have loved to use it on my D-Link DIR 655 as it was a great router with horrible firmware. On the other hand, my WRT610Nv2 which can use DD-WRT, runs so ridiculously good on stock firmware, why would I change it?
fair enough. i guess if "your mileage may vary", i just dont have the experience to make an informed suggestion. all i can say is that installing DD-WRT on my asus router made it vastly more capable with no notable drop in performance. in my case, there is even a way to maintain USB functionality, but i chose not to go that route at this time.
It made it more capable, but was it features you needed or use? All of that extra code is just bloat if you aren't using it. The average router today does everything that 99.99% of people need them to do, back when the WTR54G was released that wasn't the case. VPN routers on average were hundreds more and very few supported Dyndns, both of these features are found on $100 (or less) routers today. It's an option that is there if you need it in case you need a feature or the factory firmware is garbage, otherwise, users should stick to stock firmware. It's simpler, has a warranty, and these days, probably faster.
i absolutely use many of the features DD-WRT added. the stock firmware is also known to be pretty buggy on my particular router (its an asus). DD-WRT has been extremely stable for me so far.
I wouldn't even bother if you are thinking of using a G wireless network. I used to do that and sometimes got stuttering on SD videos. File transfers are so slow too. I have heard good things about homeplugs from friends but if it's an option I'd recommend running some cat6 cable round the house. I spent an afternoon with a big drill and couldn't be happier with the result. If I stream multiple HD videos my CPU gives up on the decoding long before the network becomes a limiting factor.
best perf, gigabit ethernet, end of, not exactly hard to set up. If you want to go the linux route then no issue. There is the issue of SMB being slower (although CIFS in Solaris (*nix though, not linux) is faster than SMB due to running in kernel space) being slower than a native windows share. Are there numbers to back up the claim of 30% as quick though? seams kinda subjective from my stand point. I run an all linux / BSD shop and almost never have to resort to SMB, except when i have to plug a windows box into my network (go figure i guess). My file server supports DAAP, DLNA, UPnP, etc. Basically everything i need to shunt media all over my network w/out having to dig around in remote mounted file systems. I've streamed to Xbox's, PS 3's, linux rigs, windows rigs OS X, etc with absolutely no issues. That said YMMV depending on how comfy you are doing the req'd config and such. From my perspective, if your not confident running servers the big bonus w/ linux is the avalibility of a number of pre-built distros for exactly these type of use cases. Most have nice web admin interfaces pre-built and config'd, making for easy administration and if you want / need to go deeper then a quick smash about in an ssh shell will have you working magic in no time. One thing to note though w/ linux. Alot of windows wifi cards are not supported. Atheros and intel chipset wifi cards are very well supported though and using NDIS wrapper will getthe vast majority of windows cards running but for easy, out of the box support, best to go w/ intel or atheros chipset wifi cards. IIRC, Broadcom have a propriety linux driver under active dev, it works well enough but i only run that on my linux netbook, so not like im stressing it much. As always, my $0.02
Some have experienced as low as 30%, most seem to be getting around 50. My personal network can hit 118meg over gigabit (over 90% saturation), large files just fly. When I switched the new server to to Linux, I dropped to a peak of 37meg. This was unacceptable to me. Some is tied to the brand of nic, but most is due to SMB/CIFS. The newer Samba supposedly will help, but will still not rival native Windows transport, I beleive around 80% was expectation. After several days of digging and several more trying to get the newer Samba working, I gave up.
50% sounds about what i would expect, thank you for clarifying. You are right though, if you really want to get the most out of SMB on Linux then an intel NIC and alot of time and patience are needed for tweaking and tuning and windows like perf is a no hope. That said, there are enough other protocols that it is easy enough to run w/out SMB on just about any OS or mix thereof. Ultimatly, go w/ what you know and what you can make work i guess.
