I have done two streams at once and seemed to handle it ok as long as they are connected directly to the WD. Only time I have had issues is when I have the WD connected via Wifi to my home network and then try to stream on a client on the same wifi network instead of connected directly to the WD. Not sure why but ineveitably I get buffering. On the same wifi network I have about 3 chromecasts and a roku and none ever buffer on wifi. It’s not a huge issue since the majority of the time it will be used, I will be connecting to it directly anyway.
Yeah, my disconnects were usually because I was optimizing files directly to the drive and it’s much faster connecting via USB. I tried via wifi and it was horribly slow. I was surprised having it mapped as a network drive would cause an issue, but it seems it did. I have removed the mapping and so far so good. If the drive error warning comes up again, then the drive itself may have a bigger issue.
Going to Vegas for work but staying 3 extra days after my conference…I am hoping to squeeze some fun in
@athflying@gmail.com said:
Yeah, my disconnects were usually because I was optimizing files directly to the drive and it’s much faster connecting via USB. I tried via wifi and it was horribly slow. I was surprised having it mapped as a network drive would cause an issue, but it seems it did. I have removed the mapping and so far so good. If the drive error warning comes up again, then the drive itself may have a bigger issue.
I would concur with this experience. While I haven’t experienced disconnects, i’ve found that it is best to Optimize the files and sync/copy them to the drive via USB, then before you leave on your trip (say the night before) safely eject/unplug the WD and ensure that PMS is scanning for new content overnight. My plan is to leave a majority of the content on the device all the time and only update a smaller subset of shows with new episodes automagically via sync’ing.
Going to Vegas for work but staying 3 extra days after my conference…I am hoping to squeeze some fun in
Just to be clear, the drive didn’t disconnect itself. One time I thought I had powered it down and unplugged it, but I hadn’t. There was nothing transferring at the time, but an alert came up in the WD software and then the next time I plugged in to my W10 machine, the notification that there was a drive problem came up prompting me to scan and repair.
The other two times, the drive was on my home wifi network but mapped as a network drive to my W10 machine. It seems if you turn wifi on the WD off while it’s mapped as a network drive, it is not a clean disconnect and I got the same alert as above. Since un-mapping no error.
Moving forward, I will only transfer content when it’s connected via USB. I will probably plug it in weekly (or whenever I remember) via USB so that it stays in sync with my main library.
The Vegas trip should be a good test run as one of my co-workers uses my Plex library now, so on the plane will be streaming to both of us. It’s Southwest, so no assigned seats…be interesting how it does if she is more than a couple rows away. So far my WD’s biggest downfall seems to be wifi range, but we will see.
Arrived late last night back home from Vegas. Overall, I am extremely happy with the WD. I streamed between 2 and 3 streams on the plane via Plex to 3 different users there and back with not a single hiccup. Battery was only about 60% gone after a solid 4 hours on the plane.
I got to the hotel and connected to the hotel wifi and then streamed to my chromecast from the WD, also without issue. From then on, I kept my phone and chromecast connected directly to the WD and no issues with internet connectivity. In fact it was very convenient because it kept the connection alive. WHenever I disconnected my iPhone from the WD and re-join the hotel wifi…had to re-authenticate and accept there “hotspot” terms of agreement.
My only complaint…when changing the WD network settings…sometimes the interface is slow, disconnects and can be more time consuming than it should be to get the settings you want configured (this is using the iOS app).
@athflying@gmail.com said:
Arrived late last night back home from Vegas. Overall, I am extremely happy with the WD. I streamed between 2 and 3 streams on the plane via Plex to 3 different users there and back with not a single hiccup. Battery was only about 60% gone after a solid 4 hours on the plane.
I got to the hotel and connected to the hotel wifi and then streamed to my chromecast from the WD, also without issue. From then on, I kept my phone and chromecast connected directly to the WD and no issues with internet connectivity. In fact it was very convenient because it kept the connection alive. WHenever I disconnected my iPhone from the WD and re-join the hotel wifi…had to re-authenticate and accept there “hotspot” terms of agreement.
My only complaint…when changing the WD network settings…sometimes the interface is slow, disconnects and can be more time consuming than it should be to get the settings you want configured (this is using the iOS app).
Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased.
That is an outstanding report.
I to like having it connected to the hotel WiFi because, as you say, it keeps the connection alive without having to re-authenticate all the time.
Totally agree with the complaint. Sometimes it just takes a little too long to change network settings.
Great to hear you had such a good experience. Hope you got some free time in while you were there, but not expecting any word on that because we all know - what happens in Vegas STAYS in Vegas … =))
I encountered an issue today that I thought I’d share here in case it helped anyone…
Initially I had my main PMS optimizing all shows to a special, local folder which I would then sync to my Windows 10 computer w/ my WD attached by USB. This worked great, but I was frustrated at keeping two copies of the optimized shows (couldn’t leave well enough alone ).
So instead of using btsync and keeping two copies, I mounted my WD (plugged in via USB to my W10 box and shard) via SMB to my Ubuntu PMS VM and optimized directly across the network to the shared WD Movie and TV folders. Everything seemed to be going well in my testing. I loaded a bunch of shows, then unplugged from USB and fired up the local WD-PMS and it added the shows. After they were added, I plugged back in and optimized some more. I repeated this process several times, but never left it unplugged from USB for more than a few hours at a time.
Fast forward to this past weekend… I optimized numerous additional shows direct to the WD. Like before, I safely ejected the WD and fired up the WD-PMS. However, this time I left the WD-PMS up and running for a couple days as I toyed around with it. After a couple days, I shutdown the WD and plugged it back in via USB. This is where my issue began on my main PMS.
To make a long story short(er) I’ll say that I believe the “Auto Empty Trash” feature of PMS is what got me. I believe it detected overnight that the Optimized versions were no longer there and deleted them (emptied the trash) such that when I did plug the WD back into USB, it thought the optimized versions were new and attempted to add them fresh to my TV library.
So I ended up with something like this (note: I actually only have two seasons of America’s Funniest Home Videos… 25 & 26 ):
Pretty crazy huh? Not entirely sure why it lumped all my Optimized versions together like that… I don’t have the time at the moment to run any controlled tests. But I’ve now disabled my auto-trash emptying and deleted all my optimizations. I’m starting over and once I have a healthy amount on the WD again, I intend to unhook it from USB and leave it running in WD-PMS mode for several days before plugging it back in. Hopefully, my main PMS will understand that these optimized versions were gone but are not back and they’ll be seamlessly listed in my TV library.
).
