I have gigabit Internet. Right now I run my Plex server off my 1 computer that I use to download everything. Let’s say I’m streaming Plex inside the house (internal network), but I’m downloading files from the Internet at nearly full speed, my Plex slows down and eventually stops. I guess this makes sense since the download speed is hogging up the network.
I have a QNAP NAS setup in link aggregation mode on my Asus router. Ports 1 & 2.
So the Internet is coming into the WAN port on my Asus router. Then passing on to my desktop computer via ethernet (port 3.) Next, Plex is running and streaming the files which are located on a QNAP box. The QNAP is plugged into ports 1 & 2 on the Asus router.
I was thinking of buying an Intel NUC and placing it on Port 4 of my Asus router. Then run Plex server on the NUC. Would this help alleviate congestion since Plex would be on port 4 and grabbing the files from the QNAP (which is on Port 1 & 2), thus bypassing my desktop (port 3) all together? So if I’m downloading heavily on port 3, Plex can still be streamed easily?
I download heavily, and not looking to just reduce my download speeds.
You say Plex slows down and eventually stops. What do you mean by this? Are you direct playing from it on the LAN or WAN? Is it transcoding? When it stops do you mean the playback stops or the server becomes unresponsive?
You could be saturating the capabilities of your QNAP. I presume from your description you are running both the downloader and Plex on the QNAP itself. You should check its CPU and I/O load to see if that is the case. If this is the case, a separate machine could help (provided that it can get the media/metadata from the storage on the QNAP at sufficient speed. If your QNAP is not saturated, then there is something else going on.
Correct. Plex slows down, starts to spin, and eventually just stops and I can click ‘retry’, but it won’t work until I slowdown my download speeds.
I actually do NOT download to the QNAP. I download directly to a hard drive that is inside my desktop computer (port 3 on the router.)
My router is the RT-AC88U, which is pretty powerful. As mentioned, the QNAP is on ports 1 & 2 using link aggregation. And the router download/upload speed (WAN-LAN throughput) up to 1800 Mbps. So if I’m downloading heavily to my desktop’s computer (port 3) and Plex is trying to do its thing on the same computer, is this why I’m experiencing issues? Keep in mind, I have a powerful computer I built myself. So it’s not the hardware.
From my understanding, each ethernet port on the router is dedicated 1Gbps. So if the NUC is going directly from its port to the QNAP, it would be a dedicated connection.
So this is why I thought adding a NUC to the router to simply handle Plex streams/transcoding from the QNAP would solve my problem.
Ah, so you are doing the downloads and running Plex on your computer and the QNAP is the media storage. In that case the QNAP is likely not saturated, but something in your setup is. It’s worth finding out where that point is before you can really answer as to what might fix it. If it’s your router that’s saturated, another computer won’t help, but if it’s something in your existing computer, then offloading to another machine should help.
It’s not my computer I have an Intel 8700K, 32GB RAM, 1TB Samsung 960 EVO hard drive, and 1080TI graphics card.
So you don’t think it’s just the desktop computer’s connection is being maxed out? If I’m downloading at gigabit speed and Plex is trying to stream a video at the same time, then Plex is having to reach across the network to the QNAP to grab the data, and then send it back to router, and send off to my FiretV. My theory is that is too much going on a single ethernet connection going into my desktop computer. So that’s why I thought offloading the Plex to another machine would fix this.
I have an Intel 8700K, 32GB RAM, 1TB Samsung 960 EVO hard drive, and 1080TI graphics card.