Video stuttering

[dvn]

@cskenney + roddy - Thanks guys. I missed that.

I believe I don't experience the 'demigrator issue' because I don't use dup, plus I occasionally use Beefcake's Drive Balancer utility which puts my 2 drives withing a single percentage point of each other.

If it is indeed demigrator, it would seem that this issue is long overdue for a fix. Meanwhile, would it be worth the hassle to disable it while watching a movie? Of would that be inviting disaster?

[roddy]

@dvn: I don't have any issues with demigrator either, even though I have full duplication (all folders including backup DB). I guess there shouldn't be any harm stopping the demigrator process, as all it would do is halt the duplication of new or modified files. Drive Balancer routinely restarts the demigrator, and so far I've not had any problems using it.

Of course, you'd need to remember to turn it back on afterwards yah?

[wodysweb]

I've dealt with this problem by scheduling some tasks to do just that. Take the lines below, save them each as .bat files, and schedule them in your task manager whenever you would like the service to turn on and off...I have done it for other setups so that the service is off when people are home, and on when they're not or sleeping. This has helped sorta solve the problem until WHSv2 where they had BETTER implement a more elegant solution to not screw over the user when trying to stream video files.

REM Batchfile to stop the WHS Drive Extender Migrator Service and set it to Disabled
net stop DriveExtenderMigrator
sc.exe \\localhost config DriveExtenderMigrator start= disabled

REM: Batchfile to reset the WHS Drive Extender Migrator Service to on demand and start the service
sc.exe \\localhost config DriveExtenderMigrator start= demand
net start DriveExtenderMigrator

[dvn]

Good stuff, wodysweb.

[ikon]

Is there any reason, other than folder duplication, to use demigrator.exe? If not, then I can disable it altogether because I don't use duplication at all.

[mrossco]

Is there any reason, other than folder duplication, to use demigrator.exe? If not, then I can disable it altogether because I don't use duplication at all.

 

demigrator.exe can kick in even if you don't have duplication turned on.

[ikon]

demigrator.exe can kick in even if you don't have duplication turned on.

 

Thanks, and understood, but is there any actual reason why I would need demigrator if I don't use duplication? I was thinking I could just disable the service.

[pcdoc]

You can not disable it as it controls moving data tot the storage pool.

[ikon]

You can not disable it as it controls moving data tot the storage pool.

 

Thanks; that's exactly what I was looking to find out. Too bad though.

[pcdoc]

<p>I have an LX197 (Same as lx195 with 1 TB drive) I have a decent gigabit switch that provides the "backbone" to my network. My media center is connected to this switch and so is the home server. Sometimes when playing from the the home server direct I get stutters and pauses. Of course playing it locally is almost perfect. The only process that has been suggested as a cause is the one that balances the drives. I have not enabled duplication on the relevant folder where the videos are.</p>

 

Getting back to your original problem the DE is not the only cause for your stuttering. There are many things that can cause it. Asussming you can play content directly off your media center, than it may be your network performance. Even though everything looks good on paper, you should test using file copy and see what kind of throughput you are getting. Also what is the bit rate of the files you are playing. I only see stuttering when a process runs on the server at exactly 12am for about 10 minutes and then all is well. Depending on the bit rate, using a USB via a low power server may cause it as well espeically if you have add-ins. Do you run AV, or any other add-ins. My suggestion is benchmark what you are getting so at least we can narrow things down.