A20-OLinuXino-LIME as NAS, seedbox and DLNA server

[cegueira]

Hi,
I currently use a raspberry pi as a NAS (samba), seedbox and DLNA server. When transferring files across the network, the CPU hits 100% and the files transfers are slow (to a USB HDD connected to the pi). The same happens when downloading, it seems to top out at 3MB/s.

Will the A20-OLinuXino-LIME alleviate these problems?

[MBR]

Probably yes, because the RPi NIC is connected via USB bus (it's part of the USB hub). The NIC in the A20 is connetcted directly (it's a part of the SoC).

[rouvas]

I get about 4 to 5 MB/s transfering big-gish files (about 1GB) to a microSD on my A20.
Since there is also a SATA adapter on A20 board, propably higher numbers can be achieved.

[cegueira]

Does anyone know what kind of transfer speeds you get through a samba share?

I would also want to disable the GUI, is this easy to do? I just followed a couple of guides to set my rpi up and am a bit worried that there doesn't seem to be as much information for this. Although I guess it would be mostly the same for setting up software and services.

[brt]

I have an A20-oLinuXino-LIME here with the rootfs on an attached SATA-SSD, a Sandisk / 64GB SATA III SDSSDP-064G-G25. An rsync-over-ssh between (to or from) the A20 and my laptop does close to 9MB/s with a 4GB file (and not much different with a 77MB file, a bit faster maybe):

Code Select Expand

T440:~$ rsync -e ssh -avP CentOS-6.4-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso 172.22.22.2:/tmp/
X11 forwarding request failed on channel 0
sending incremental file list
CentOS-6.4-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso
  4,353,378,304 100%    8.97MB/s    0:07:42 (xfr#1, to-chk=0/1)

sent 4,354,441,257 bytes  received 35 bytes  9,394,695.34 bytes/sec
total size is 4,353,378,304  speedup is 1.00
T440:~$ rsync -e ssh -avP 172.22.22.2:/tmp/CentOS-6.4-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso /tmp/
X11 forwarding request failed on channel 0
receiving incremental file list
CentOS-6.4-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso
  4,353,378,304 100%    8.77MB/s    0:07:53 (xfr#1, to-chk=0/1)

sent 43 bytes  received 4,354,441,257 bytes  9,196,285.74 bytes/sec
total size is 4,353,378,304  speedup is 1.00


I don't think Samba would be very different, possibly a tiny bit quicker because it doesn't have the ssh encryption overhead; during the transfer, ssh pretty much keeps one core busy. But we're not very far from saturating the 100Mbit ethernet interface.

NB I use a vanilla 3.17-rc kernel as opposed to the usual Allwinner 3.4 kernel.

[MBR]

Does anyone know what kind of transfer speeds you get through a samba share?

On normal PCs, you can get around 10 MB/s on 100Mbit/s (on 1Gbit it starts to be complicated).

[JessePinkman]

I'm considering using my LIME as a NAS too, but the 9MBps is a bit on the slow side for me. Could this number be increased if I use a 300Mbps wifi USB dongle? Thanks!

[PaceyIV]

I use Olimex A20 with roots and data on a SATA hard disk.
I can transfer file with SAMBA at the maximum speed of the ethernet 100MB/s.

[MBR]

I'm considering using my LIME as a NAS too, but the 9MBps is a bit on the slow side for me. Could this number be increased if I use a 300Mbps wifi USB dongle? Thanks!

Interesting question. Theoretically: yes, I've seen 802.11n devices which were able to go much faster than 100Mbit/s, but they used mutliple (MIMO) directional high-gain antennas. Most USB dongles have only one built-in antenna, so they are limited to 150Mbit/s (sometimes, they are called 802.11n-lite) and only if they can use two channels at once (40MHz instead 20MHz), with a single channel you can reach only hafl of that speed. And without MIMO, the WiFi works in half-duplex mode (there is only one channel for both directions).

Practically: probably no. Unless you have a dongle with MIMO, your limit is 150Mbit/s only, you need two "unpolluted" consecutive channels and the dongle must be the only client of your access point (because the half-duplex and shared medium). If you live in a city and have multiple WiFi clients, the 802.11n will work like "a bit faster 802.11g" (which has theoretical speed 54MBit/s), with the top speed very similar to your current maximum.

[gippy73]

I use Olimex A20 with roots and data on a SATA hard disk.
I can transfer file with SAMBA at the maximum speed of the ethernet 100MB/s.

What are your real measurements over the network?

100Mb/s (b must be lower case ;--) usually means about 6 to 8 MB/s in practical use, but I can't get more than 2.8MB/s.

The data is stored on an external USB HDD. Does A20-OlinuXino share Ethernet bus with USB?

[giovanni.v]

And without MIMO, the WiFi works in half-duplex mode (there is only one channel for both directions).

Sorry being off-topic but this isn't correct.
Despite improvements like wider channels, better efficient modulation schemes, spatial streams and so on the whole 802.11 family is half duplex. 802.11 core uses CSMA/CA in the MAC layer (like 20 years old ethernet hubs) so can't do full duplex.

[OniNiubbo]

Is it possible to use an A20-OLinuXIno-LIME(2) as a 2 disks (1 USB + 1 SATA) NAS without using an extra power source like a powered USB hub?

[Gerrit]

first look up the power consumption from the disks, else it is hard to say, this can differ from disk to disk, the olimux adapters are 1.2A the disks normally don't use full power guess if both disk together stay under 0.9 - 1 A you are ok