using PS3 media server for gigabit file transfer

[GLE3]

Just recently picked up this gigabit switch:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001QUA6R0

Server is telling me my speed is at 512 MB/s. I figured I would get better speeds than that. I believe I have everything correctly connected. I have one 50 ft cat5e cable connected from router to switch and 2 other 3ft cat6 cables comming from the switch. One connected to ps3 and one to computer with a 10/100/1000 NIC in it. Don't know everything there is to know about file transfer over 100 mbs so would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance!

[Joe The Dude]

Can you run a speed test on the hard drives in your (PC) Media Server?
That is the first place I'd look for a bottleneck.

[neomaine]

GLE3,

You’re running 200-500 times better than normal home internet speeds. First you'll never hit the theoretical speeds of 10/100/1000 once you account for the overhead of protocols and other things that must happen for clean communications. If you're getting 512MB/s (or @4000Mb/s) then you're maxing out ... and should feel quite pleased. Frankly, for gigabit connections, anything over 300-400MB/s is damn good. On my PCs at home, I see sustained throughput of 100MB/s on SATA drives and 200MB/s on SSD. You should have more than adequate bandwidth to handle streaming at home.

I would make sure your PC, PS3 or other connected hardware are actually communicating and staying at gigabit connections. Since you have an unmanaged switch, i.e. you basically can't change anything, you should set your clients' NICs at a fixed speed of 1000/full duplex. If you don't, the slightest hiccup could cause them to knock down to 100MB.

[GLE3]

Ok, upon further review my media server says I am running at 512 Mb/s NOT 512 MB/s... I guess that is why everything seems slow...lol I'm thinking that I'm still running at a 100MB connection. Although my switch says I'm gigabit and my network connections status says I'm at 1.0 Gbps too. I do have other wired 10/100 connections on my router but I wouldn't think that would make a difference. Just for giggles I upgraded my drivers on my computer's NIC but that didn't help either. I've been trying to manually set connection speeds and it doesn't seem to matter. Any ideas?

[neomaine]

GLE3,

Is that from a single sustained file transfer? Could be about right at 68MB/s... Try doing muliple ones at the same time. Anything over a few minutes would do. You want to get past any caching going on and see the sustained rate. I'm trying to see what the threshold on the whole process...

Can you do a disk-to-disk on your cp/media server? What are the numbers?

[GLE3]

Actually I'm thinking it lists 512 in theory. My tests suggest something slower. I can transfer 2400 MB in 278 seconds. About 8MB/s. I'm thinking this is why. It's at the bottom of the post.

http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/3397200

Looks like most guys get around the problem by transfering to an gigE external hard drive and streaming from there.

[yoda313]

Isn't the ps3 the bottleneck? I thought it only had a 100 connection?

[Nelson37]

According to the link, it has gigabit capability ONLY when streaming video, and ONLY streaming COMPATIBLE video. For file transfer the speed is capped off way slower.

This makes absolutely no sense to me, especially since playing video in real-time does not require or utilize Gigabit speeds. I'm thinking it's a standard 100 connection.

[GLE3]

Here ya go kids.... Tons of pdf specs straight from playstation.com. Gigabit was one of the appealing things that sold me on buying a PS3. I had no idea they would put a govenor on data transfer rate though.

http://us.playstation.com/support/manuals/ps3/



Here is the discussion I had on the media servers site

http://www.ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10832

Some think the Sata controller is to blame for the throttled rate.

[wrathofbod]

i dont get what you are trying to do?
i have 2 x PS3 running at home with PS3 media server , both can run any video format at the same time from my pc.its on24/7.
& i can watch on my pc any movie from the same hard drives too.
& play black ops all at the same time
so why do you want to transfer 2400 mb?

my spec:
quad core 2.90 ghz16gb 1333 ddr3
win 7 home prem 64bit
3 x 1TB sata
2 x 500 gb sata
1 x 2tb sata
2 x 320 gb sata
1 blu-ray lg rw
gt 460 1024
2 x 22 inch hanns-g lcd hg216d/hg221a
20mb vi#in broadband
buffalo N series router
PS3 IN LIVING ROOM ON CAT FIVE TO ROUTER
THE PS3 UPSTARS is on wifi.
my pc is out in my office/shed about 30 feet from router on cat45 .
the wife on laptop using wifi so is both the kids & i dont have any problems
and my android phone & 10 inch pad at the same time

[GLE3]

I like your set up... I'm more of a 'patchwork' techie when it comes to creating media centers. I have an older G router, a 1.5 Mbps DSL service and a house full of pentium 4's. If you are on the opposite side of the house from the router, forget wireless unless you like watching your streaming movies in twenty minute intervals... Got a home with 3 laptops and a desktop that could be used at the same time, sometimes doing things that require more than browsing bandwidth. Personally I find it very distracting to have any kind of hiccups while watching a movie, so I've found wired connections and easily accessable secure rate storage playback is the best for me. Transfering files also kind of forces me to make backups, something I'm not really good at!

[wrathofbod]

wow only 1.5, so glad i can get optical broadband.lol