[SGVLUG] Samba performance issue

[Claude Felizardo]

On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 4:44 PM, Matt Campbell <dvdmatt at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Good afternoon,
>
> My media server project is coming along well, I have purchased an Apple TV
> and am hacking it with Linux to act as the client (fall meeting topic?).
>
> I have been running into some performance problems using Windows as the
> client.  The Samba server on the Linux platform can spool media all day, but
> every 20 minutes or so there is a .5 second hiccup.  Do any of you have
> experience tuning a Linux server to remove these problems?

Could it be thermal recalibration of the hard drives?  What brand and
models?  What temp are the drives running at?   What temperature is
your office and the computer?

I remember that the first TiVo's used a specific brand/model that were
"A/V" rated that were suppose to schedule the recalibration to when a
platter was not being accessed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Av_drive
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/pc_hardware_faq/3_14_What_is_Thermal_Recalibration.html
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/op/actRecal-c.html

When I hacked my first TiVo by replacing the original 30 GB drive with
an 80 GB, this was a frequent topic of discussion but it's been a
while since I've looked at this.  According to one TiVo hacking supply
website, they offer drives that have been tuned for DVR use.  They
don't say exactly what they have done other than they use tools or
procedures that have been approved by the drive manufacturer.

What kind of RAID configuration are you running?  Perhaps you could
use more memory to increase the number of buffers?

claude