Setting up Qos in my house - also general networking help

[Nvidiaguy07]

Just set up my house so it can stream to many devices. Im using mezzmo as my server.

I set it up so everyone in the house can see all my media files on my server, and watch them on whatever device they use, but now im concerned that my network might not be able to handle all the traffic.

Here is my current setup.

My router: WNDR3700 dual band router. currently no device uses the 5ghz frequency
i dont use the usb slot - i use my server pc to store/stream files

linksys router flashed with dd-wrt used as a repeater. Located upstairs.

Server PC - streams media with mezzmo to all devices in the house.
handles most downloads, torrent downloads capped at 800kb/s
connected to main router with ethernet cable

My main pc, wireless N. Possibility of connecting a cable, but not easy. Connected to main router

Laptop 1 - connected to main router. wireless N - capable of 5ghz, not used though

Xbox #1 - Connected to main router with cable

Xbox #2 - connected to main router with cable

Xbox #3 - Connected to main router through wireless

Xbox #4 - connected to repeater with wire

Google TV - connected to repeater (not sure if wireless or not)

Laptop 2 – connected to repeater wirelessly


#1 is that my main pc gets priority over other pcs/streaming devices in the house
I have all my shows stored on my server pc now, and if im streaming, I don’t want to have to sacrifice at all. Im just watching videos from the shared folder, so the server doesn’t have to work to transcode the files, so if using a cable will allow me to never lose bandwidth, and let other devices work while mine is working, ill do that.

But most importantly, if anyones going to have to lose bandwidth, I don’t want it to be this pc.

#2 I want xbox #1 to have priority over everything. Regardless of whats happening, I only use xbox1 to play multiplayer fps games online, so I want no lag, and the best service possible.

#3 I do want the streaming devices to have enough bandwidth (eg if someone is watching a movie on google tv located on the server, I would not mind sacrificing download speed somewhere else, not the above 2 though) So is it possible to do this?

The network has been fine up to this point, but recently I set it up so one of the Xboxes, and the google tv can also watch movies on the network, so this is the biggest difference.

Ive heard Qos should be pretty easy to set up, but how do I do this for my router? Should I consider flashing DD-WRT on my main router? I’ve heard that with my setup, im not even using 300mps anyway.

Im also worried with having so many Xboxes hooked up to the same internet connection. Ive heard lag becomes an issue, even if internet speed is high, you can still lag. Anyone have experience with this?

 

[bobdole369]

You won't be saturating anything yet. You hit the speed limit on the disks on the mezzmo servers before the physical network - yes even wireless.

What kinda files are on there? What codecs, and what bitrate?

As for lag - nothing to worry about at all. Again you aren't going to be congested, so even if you do get QOS running, there will be no changes made.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

You won't be saturating anything yet. You hit the speed limit on the disks on the mezzmo servers before the physical network - yes even wireless.

What kinda files are on there? What codecs, and what bitrate?

As for lag - nothing to worry about at all. Again you aren't going to be congested, so even if you do get QOS running, there will be no changes made.

good to know about the speed limit.

I mostly just download shows in hi-def, and then watch them whenever i get around to it. So avi. mp4, and mkv's mostly. not sure about codecs and bitrate.

I shouldnt worry about lag at all on xbl? even with torrents downloading, and movies streaming at the same time?

Also one more question. Lets say i was downloading a file at the maximum my connection would allow me. Would this clog up the network, as far as streaming goes, or would i still have much more room left? I think i know the answer to this, but i feel like a few years ago, this would happen to me when we first had uverse. If i was streaming a video from my wireless pc, to a pc that was connected with a wire, it would start to skip if i was downloading a torrent at a fast rate.

 

[CubanlB]

You won't be saturating anything yet. You hit the speed limit on the disks on the mezzmo servers before the physical network - yes even wireless.

Is this an issue with mezzmo transcoding slowly? Doing file transfers from a fast volume can saturate a 1000mbps network easily, let alone anything slower. My slowest drives (WD Green) still move data around at about 50-70MB/s (Byte is important) on my home GbE network.

You shouldn't get close to saturating your network with transcoded video. Uncompressed bluray rips start to get a little dicey on 100mbs lan.

Honestly, QoS really isn't going to have much of an impact unless some starts moving data to or from the server at a much higher rate than a torrent or streaming media.

QoS is your network isn't going to help with saturating your connection to your ISP. Your router can give priority to XBL getting out of your network, but it will have no say on data coming into your network.

 

[smitbret]

I think you'll be fine. My setup (with Mezzmo):

Main PC - Gigabit wire to the router (D-Link 825)
Laptop - 2.4 Wireless N
Main TV - 5Ghz Wireless N
TV 2 - Coax as part of DirecTV MRV
TV 3 - Coax as part of DirecTV MRV
TV 4 - Coax as part of DirecTV MRV
3 miscellaneous mobile devices

I've never had a congestion problem on any of the lines for anything, yet. Keep in mind that I am running a gigabit connection from the main PC that acts a server rather than a wireless connection. I could see how you could get some congestion if you are trying to serve more than one Blu-Ray stream from it simultaneously. Depending on what devices you are using for playback and how much transcoding your PC is doing, I would think that any slowdowns would occur at the transcoding phase before the network is bottlenecked.

If at all possible, I would wire the main PC in. Otherwise, I would get a 5Ghz card and put it on its own network just to be sure. But in the meantime, if it's working, I wouldn't worry too much.

If you do get some congestion, it might not hurt to turn the settings/resolution down on your transcoding just to save bandwidth in the meantime. You probably won't notice the difference between 1080p or 720p if it's being transcoded anyway.

 

[bobdole369]

I don't think mezzmo transcodes. I think it acts as a DLNA server and serves up your rips bit for bit.

What size is a typical movie for you? If its like what I think than you can count on about 8GB "1080p" movies. This translates to roughly 8000k bitrate, or 8megabits per second on a fairly typical BR rip. This means you can count on 10 streams before you get to the 80% point.

Doing file transfers from a fast volume can saturate a 1000mbps network easily

Using all the available bandwidth on 2 ports, and "saturating a network" are 2 different things. Even the most rudimentary of switches has a fabric significantly larger than 1gbit. While your file transfer is occurring, other things can happen at the same time wihtout being affected. After all file transfers are port to port, and require very little ASIC action from the switch besides port direction.

Also one more question. Lets say i was downloading a file at the maximum my connection would allow me. Would this clog up the network, as far as streaming goes, or would i still have much more room left? I think i know the answer to this, but i feel like a few years ago, this would happen to me when we first had uverse. If i was streaming a video from my wireless pc, to a pc that was connected with a wire, it would start to skip if i was downloading a torrent at a fast rate.

The short answer to this - ensure your torrent client is well-behaved. That is know your outbound and inbound max speeds and use the settings to allow 20% overhead. So if you have 12/2 service, set the client to use 10/1.6.

Essentially the effect you are referring to is related to the inability of some routers to handle so many incoming and outgoing connections. When the WAN bandwidth is absolutely full there is no room for outgoing ack replies and connections, so other users of WAN see "latency". The fix is above, just don't hog the pipe. Using up to 80% or more of the WAN connection should not increase latency in any way besides that effect.

This is not able to be controlled by you in any meaningful way besides setting your clients to behave. (That is since you have no control of what is coming to you from the internet, you can only prioritize your "outgoing" packets).

There are 2 things to think about - local LAN traffic (which you are calling "streaming" i.e. mezzmo to clients) and WAN traffic (out to the internet and back). So no - having a torrent downloading at (I'm guessing here no idea what speed your Internet is) at 12/2 will have absolutely no effect on a pc streaming from the mezzmo. if it happens on different computers - the traffic won't hit the same ports on the switch, and you are only using roughly 10% the bandwidth available for each task.

(computer 1 downloading at 10/1.6 ----> Internet)
(computer 2 streaming at 8mbit -----> mezzmo)

See how that works?

However as your question was how to set up local QOS - my reply was not to bother as you have sufficient bandwidth.

Now if you want to talk outbound QOS - thats a different story and probably worth some time. Lets start with a simple diagram, have you Visio?

 

[CubanlB]

Using all the available bandwidth on 2 ports, and "saturating a network" are 2 different things. Even the most rudimentary of switches has a fabric significantly larger than 1gbit. While your file transfer is occurring, other things can happen at the same time wihtout being affected. After all file transfers are port to port, and require very little ASIC action from the switch besides port direction.

Very true, brain fart leading to a poor choice of words.

 

[smitbret]

I don't think mezzmo transcodes. I think it acts as a DLNA server and serves up your rips bit for bit.

Mezzmo transcodes on the fly when Mezzmo detects an incompatibility between files/codecs it'll remux/transcode to a compatible format before serving it up.