ReadyNAS, DLNA, Slimserver, SPEED

[Cape11]

OK, everyone is agreed that the ReadyNAS is slower than other NASs - some are even quite hysterical about this!
I'm puzzled as to why this is so. Many say it's due to problems with the ReadyNAS web interface. I'm no expert, but the following might be of interest.
I've just bought myself a Denon AVR4308 to drive a subsidiary AV system. It's a DLNA device, and so is the ReadyNAS, so the two should be able to work with each other. And indeed they can. You turn on UPnP services on the NAS and away you go. The system you end up with, superficially, looks very like what you see with Slimserver (whatever else, believe me, the Slimserver interface is far better). The Denon gives you a web interface similar to that of Slimserver.
But it's the speed of the Denon service that's of interest here. It's clunkier than Slimserver, but it's much, much faster than Slimserver. For example, request an Artist list, and it appears almost instantly on the Denon; via Slimserver, it takes an age. Can that all be down to deficiencies in the web interface? The same occurs with a mere Folder listing - what takes 6 seconds via Slimserver is almost instantaneous via the Denon.
All the foregoing might be explained by the web interface problem. But then there's the time it takes to scan your music library to compile the Album/Artist lists. The UPnp scan is at least 12 times faster than the equivalent Slimserver scan. Now both scans are carried out solely on the NAS, so this points to serious flaws in the Slimserver software.
I'd be interested in comments (constructive please) and let's hope that SC7 on the ReadyNAS might go some way to fixing these problems.

[mherger]

> I'd be interested in comments (constructive please) and let's hope that
> SC7 on the ReadyNAS might go some way to fixing these problems.

The main difference is simply that we do more: we support more formats, more platforms, more skins, more features, more interfaces (web, player, CLI, Controller)... all this doesn't come for free. Eg. the scan you mentioned: we handle symlinks on unixes, shortcuts on Windows, aliases on OSX etc. All this adds overhead to the job. If we only supported FLAC and MP3 on Linux, we'd be much faster.

--

Michael

[mherger]

> OK, everyone is agreed that the ReadyNAS is slower than other NASs -

Oh, did I mention I'm using a ReadyNAS as my everday's SC server at the office? Working pretty fine with the Controller!

--

Michael

[Cape11]

Thanks for both replies. I'm looking forward to the official release of SC7!

I can see that Slimserver does more work compared to the DLNA/Denon arrangement - you only have to see the quality of the Denon service I used for comparison. But against that, the difference in speed between Slimserver and the Denon DLNA set-up is so very marked: no one using the Denon service would ever make the observation that the ReadyNAS was slow. From observation of the Denon system you'd think the ReadyNas was a slick performer. So, we'll see with SC7.

I'm certainly in no hurry to abandon the ReadyNAS - it performs quite well enough as is, and it's doing more than just distributing my music files.

[Kris]

Are there indeed speed issues using a SB3 or Duet Controller accessing music on the ReadyNAS?? I want it to be instant...

[MrSinatra]

interesting thread...

it would seem to relate to both the DLNA bug [enh]

http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=5091

and to a degree the VA logic req:

http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=8324

my guess is there are a lot of users out there, esp infrant ones, who would greatly benefit from both of these.