Normal time for precaching a large library?

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I am completely new to Rasplex and Raspberry PI having moved from mini-itx and OpenElec builds. I am using a Maplin (UK) 8GB card which doesn't show what class it is, but was bought in December 2013, and running the latest 0.4.0-RC3 version

 

The PI is connected via Fast Ethernet cabled connection on the LAN, with Plexmedia Server running on Ubuntu 12.04.

 

I am at the precaching stage of the setup, and slightly surprised at the length of time it is taking - I have 900+ movies, and 90+ TV shows with multiple series/episodes. 

 

How long would you expect the precaching to take in this setup? I am estimating the process will take 10+ hours - is this within the realms of 'normal'? Also, will I have sufficient space on an 8GB card for everything that needs to be precached?

 

Many thanks - great project, and looking forward to trying this out tomorrow, at this rate :) 

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I might take an hour or two, but the precaching functionality has been really improved in the rc4 release to come. 

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Thanks - so with RC3 is this really much slower, i.e. 8+ hours for a large 5TB library normal? I remember it took a while with OpenElec too, but not sure if something is not working correctly.

Also, when I choose to select precaching, I have the choice of my local server name, and MyPlex - I assume one would be precaching from the internet, and the other from the local server, so I am selecting the local server.

Thanks for the reply!

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Ok - precaching is not working out for me. After 70% or so, the PI has switched off it appears, and on reboot, the SD was corrupted and needed a fresh install. Getting to 70% of the 912 movies took around 6 hours (I think - can't be totally sure) so something isn't right.

Any ideas on what I can post to give some indication for those in the know as to what the problem might be?

Edit: I have changed my cache size from 5% to 30% which I read somewhere here might help. I am now going to leave it precaching overnight and see what happens.

Edit 2: changing cache to 30% seems to have made the difference. I am now precaching at the rate of about 2 films per second, which bodes well.

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I'm glad it seems to be working for you now, but the cache setting you raised from 5% to 30% has nothing to do with precaching.

That setting controls how much of the free memory the media player is allowed to use for caching of media file segments during playback.

It's main purpose is to minimize the playback sensitivity to momentary peaks of bitrate or encoding complexity in the played media.

Best regards: dlanor

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I'm glad it seems to be working for you now, but the cache setting you raised from 5% to 30% has nothing to do with precaching.

That setting controls how much of the free memory the media player is allowed to use for caching of media file segments during playback.

It's main purpose is to minimize the playback sensitivity to momentary peaks of bitrate or encoding complexity in the played media.

Best regards: dlanor

Many thanks for the explanation Dlanor - I am unsure why it suddenly sprung into life on the third attempt. I suspect the SD card I am using, while new, is not great quality, and a class 10 card would improve things. RC4 is going to really improve an already great system for sure!

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