home network backup solutions

[The Nal]

what device are the XBMC streams playing on?

How does the remote on your phone work?

(they might sound like dumb questions, but i'm trying to understand your set-up and what benefit there might be if I did similar)

Edited February 11, 2013 by The Nal

[eFestivals]

cheers.

[The Nal]

cheers.

[Essex_George]

Got my Pi yesterday. Very nice piece of kit. Set up XMBC pretty easily, currently watching QPR v UTD. The remote for android also works well. Happy with it so far.

[eFestivals]

Am thinking of getting a pi for streaming video to my TV, by I'm confused about how it all works with xbmc. When xbmc is installed, is the pi still able to operate as a normal Linux PC, to do web browsing, etc? If so, does flash run in a web browser OK? In xbmc, I see it has plugins for iPlayer, etc. But can it also play other internet stream (eg: dodgy footie streams). If so, how are the streams found?

[Essex_George]

I use an add on called sportsdevil on xbmc, this then has lists of games that are available. I have only tried it once, last weekend and it worked fine. I did find that not all the streams worked, I had to go through a few to get one that works. It did a couple of times have some buffering issues but I'm trying it again with the Wigan v Liverpool game so will see how that goes. I'm not the most tech savvy but I managed to get xbmc running with a bit of searching on Google.

[eFestivals]

Cheers. Have just ordered a Pi, so I'll check that out.

[Essex_George]

The game today has streamed well, bit blurred here and there but most streams online are like that. The Navi X add on for xbmc looks pretty decent for watching films and TV. I had some issues with buffering every 10 minutes or so but a quick Google and looks like can overcome this. Movies can also be downloaded to get over the buffering problem.

[eFestivals]

thanks George.

Are you (and Nal) running raspBMC or XBian or OpenELEC? Does it make much difference which you go for?

[The Nal]

I'm just using the default RaspBMC. Seems to be the "litest" piece of software for it. Runs very smoothly.

[eFestivals]

cool .... I'll look forwards to watching my kid making a hash of trying to get it set up next weekend.

For me, it'll be a nice alternative to buying a YouView box; it of course won't do recording and pausing live TV, but they're two things I can't see myself using anyway. And if I can get dodgy footie streams over it too, so much the better.

The one thing that's put some added cost onto doing it is the need to have a wired connection in my front room (from everything I've read, wireless can be too slow for the streams), but that's something I was meaning to sort out anyway .... and to keep things easy for myself (as I ideally need two network points in different locations downstairs) I've spent another £50 on powerline network outlets, so hopefully they'll do the job.

[Essex_George]

I'm also using RaspBMC. Runs pretty well and you can def get the dodgy footie streams through Sportsdevil.

[eFestivals]

RaspBMC it'll be then - thanks.

[eFestivals]

My power line adapters work great. I have a 100mb Virgin connection and I get about 60mb upstairs in my office, which is out of the range of the wireless.

How much speed you get will depend upon the age of your wiring, how your circuits are laid out etc etc... It can vary quite a lot. Try to plug them directly into sockets rather than extension boards as this can make a difference.

the wiring in the house is pretty new, and I've got more than enough sockets in the right places to plug straight into those (so thanks for the tip). I'm not quite sure how the wiring is done (I'd guess a separate ring for upstairs and downstairs), but it shouldn't be an issue.

You shouldn't see any lessening of your broadband speed thru powerline adapters (tho it'll depend on how old they are I guess) - so if you are, I suggest you get some that have a faster speed than your broadband connection (the ones I've just ordered are (up-to) 500Mbps between the units; they might only be 100mbps LAN sockets tho, i'm not sure. My LAN speed is limited by my 100Mbps router so that doesn't bother me, but I know that 1Gbps ones are available if your LAN is 1Gbps)

[Spindles]

I also swear by powerline adapters, using them around the house in a network which includes wired and wireless devices, they are a godsend when it comes to getting a decent ping without running wire round the house (which I did for the decade before I got powerline )

[eFestivals]

I think you need to read up a bit on them Neil. You don't get the advertised speeds.

I know ... but with a 500mbps unit you should get at least 300mbps, or at very worst 200Mbps, which would not impact on your broadband speed for traffic that ran thru the powerline adapters.

Mine are new 500mbs ones and they only do 60 mb upstairs in the new extension. About as far away as I can get from the hub. If I go closer I can squeeze it out to 100+ mb but not much more.

having checked out my circuitry last night, my office is as far as it's possible to get (via the wires) from where the powerline outlets will go .... and here's betting I get 300Mbps or greater out of them.

They've just arrived this minute, so I'll get them set-up and then test the speed to my NAS (which is downstairs, currently using wireless).

[eFestivals]

If you get 300 Mbps out of yours you should post about it on a few forums as I haven't read of anyone getting that in a real world test.

PMSL - the amazon reviews are stuffed full of 300Mbps + claims.

I've not seen anyone saying they've got less than 220Mbps - and those who were getting those low speeds were able to get it up above 300Mpbs by a bit of playing around.

Edited March 5, 2013 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

I'm, currently plugged in (at the router end of things) into an extension lead/socket (cos I want to backup my server before I power down the server to move the power plugs around, so I don't have the powerline adapter plugged into the extension lead/socket) and i'm getting 113Mbps.

[eFestivals]

Which adapter did you buy....

TP-Link AV500 mini (three of them - one for next to my router in my office, the other two for two different rooms downstairs).

------

I've just unplugged the wireless dongle from my NAS, and now the powerline utility is reporting only 87Mbps* .... but it's a lie ... my linux server is now reporting nearly twice the output speed for what it's backing up to what it was giving when the NAS was connected by both wireless and wired.

(* remember, I've yet to put the device in my office into a wall socket; it's in an extension at the mo).

[eFestivals]

(With the * above still applying) I'm getting just over twice the backup speed from my linux server to my NAS as I used to get via wireless, so that's definitely a good result before I tidy the cables up (which should improve things a bit more I hope).

I'm not going to get too much more than that tho, as my LAN speed of 100Mbps is going to be the limiting factor, rather than the powerline adapters.

[eFestivals]

I have seen a amazons review saying they was getting 300mbps plus. I don't belive them at the moment.

it's always possible that the utilities are lying, but I reckon there's also a fair amount of confusion on what exactly is being reported, and how a person's network setup effects things.

Firstly, is the utility reporting on the LAN-LAN speed, or the powerline-powerline speed?

When I removed the wireless dongle from my NAS so that the connection was only over the powerline adapters, the speed dropped from 113Mbps to 86Mbps - which VERY strongly suggests that what my utility is reporting is LAN speed and not device-device speed.

If it's reporting the LAN speed (which I think it is) I'm certainly not going to ever get more than 100Mbps being reported by the utility, because 100Mbps is the speed of my LAN.

If it's only going to give me 86Mbps, I can live with that no problem. Doing these backups over wireless caused both wired and wireless devices to not be able to access the net, but doing them now over the powerline is no problem at all.

[eFestivals]

Your wireless couldn't of been going much over 30mbps I wouldn't of thought unless you was on the n standard with nothing lesser connected.

the network config on my NAS was reporting a 75% signal strength for the wireless, so it wasn't as fast as it might have been (tho the distance from my router meant I couldn't address that).

[eFestivals]

Anyway. There is the reported and tested facts out there regarding these plugs and then there is an amazon review making wild claims, until I see something from a proper source proving everything else wrong I don't buy you can get speeds as high as 300mbps plus on a real world situation. These best I have seen reported is around 175 Mbps and even then it's done under some control to do that.

nah, you're completely wrong. At the end of the day, a copper wire is a copper wire, whether it's in a cat5 cable or 2.5mm t&e house-wiring cable.

If you get 500Mbps over a metre of wire then you'll get very nearly that over 100 metres of wire (and because the devices are rated 500Mbps, they'll be getting near-that over a metre). There's a resistance effect caused by a longer wire, but it's exceedingly small unless you're talking miles [i'm an ex-sparky, remember). There's also a resistance/interference effect caused by other wires that might be nearby to the wires that the data is travelling on, but unless you have a jungle of wires (which is my office right now) around the wires the data is on, it can just about be ignored.

There's not a lot that will make it drop hugely outside of that - bad physical connections is what will cause a big drop. It's because of that that they recommend avoiding extension cables, because they'll include at least three extra physical connections, and the fact of them being moved around gets to loosen those physical connections.

You could probably improve the speed in your home by a fair chunk by turning off the power, and then unscrewing all your sockets, and tightening the cable connections at the back of them - here's betting that you'll get at least a quarter turn on every connection - and that WILL make a difference.

[eFestivals]

So after all that you now accept I am right *rollseyes*

are you reporting your powerline device speed, or your network speed?

You're reporting your network speed. Your network is limited to 100Mbps, so you won't get as much as 100Mbps.

If you upgrade your network to 1Gbps - including getting powerline adapters with a 1Gbps socket - then you'll get 300Mbps or better, I guarantee.

Why turn everything into a competition?

it was you who did that.

I know that these adapters can do 300Mbps or greater, but that you need all your other equipment capable of that too. I knew that I wouldn't get as fast as 100Mbps because of my LAN, but I was (perhaps stupidly) expecting the utility to report the device-device speed and not the LAN speed.

[eFestivals]

When you transfer a file it windows and I guess Linux? Will tell you the transfer speed...

that'll tell you the speed across your LAN as limited by the slowest part of your LAN. It doesn't tell you the powerline device speed.

I wouldn't trust the provided utility as they will only probably tell you the best possible speed you could get.

Given the reported speed before I unplugged the wireless dongle and afterwards, I'm exceedingly confident that the utility that came with my kit is reporting a real-time transfer speed (especially as it varies, sometimes each second).

My backup has finished now, and it's reporting 101Mbps - so it's not quite 100% accurate, but pretty damned close. If I start a transfer again, it drops to around 86Mbps.

Given that the transfer rate that my linux box reports (when using rsync) when using wireless or wired, and when using wired across just a metre of cable in and out of my router (with no powerline used), I know that these powerlines are slowing down the data-transfer by almost nothing at all.