[smallclone]

Firstly, apologies if this is in the wrong section.

I currently use an ODROID N2+ to access a couple of drives on my network with many large 4k files. It works well and I can see all Drives on my windows PCs,  but one of them is a hard drive that is connected to a media player (running OSMC) but it does not have a Gigabit port. Therefore it can be prone to stuttering over my network.

Is there a device, that can act as a network server like this, that has Gigabit connectivity and can be seen over Windows network? I'd rather it not be a miniPC running Windows / Linux as it seems a bit of a waste and high on power. Would one of the cheaper ODroid models work if I loaded CoreELEC on to it?? 

https://www.odroid.co.uk/odroid-xu4  ? 

Budget is ideally £80 ($100)

Thanks

[noggin]

Have you tried using a USB 3.0->Gigabit Ethernet adaptor in your OSMC device ?  In USB 2.0 mode they are usually more than fast enough to stream anything playable. (It was the stop-gap solution before Sam came out with a GigE Vero model).

[smallclone]

Have you tried using a USB 3.0->Gigabit Ethernet adaptor in your OSMC device ?  In USB 2.0 mode they are usually more than fast enough to stream anything playable. (It was the stop-gap solution before Sam came out with a GigE Vero model).

Hi,

Yes I have. I tried this method and it seems alot slower. Files copy over the network at about 35% of the speed of when I go straight into the supplied ethernet port.

[noggin]

Have you tried using a USB 3.0->Gigabit Ethernet adaptor in your OSMC device ?  In USB 2.0 mode they are usually more than fast enough to stream anything playable. (It was the stop-gap solution before Sam came out with a GigE Vero model).

Hi,

Yes I have. I tried this method and it seems alot slower. Files copy over the network at about 35% of the speed of when I go straight into the supplied ethernet port.

How odd - I've had no such issues in the past with using USB 3.0 Gigabit adaptors via USB 2.0 - I guess there must be some reason...

If you have a spare Raspberry Pi 4B that would be a good candidate. If you don't have one - then other USB 3.0 native ARM SBCs would make sense.  You can get some pretty cheap Android TV boxes that have a USB 3.0 port and Gigabit Ethernet (and come with a PSU and a box) that boot CoreElec that might be a neat solution. (You have to be very careful to check the Ethernet specs though - my Vontar X4 is running CoreElec 'ne' builds fine and has both USB 3.0 and GigE. Was approx £40 via AliExpress)

[smallclone]

Have you tried using a USB 3.0->Gigabit Ethernet adaptor in your OSMC device ?  In USB 2.0 mode they are usually more than fast enough to stream anything playable. (It was the stop-gap solution before Sam came out with a GigE Vero model).

Hi,

Yes I have. I tried this method and it seems alot slower. Files copy over the network at about 35% of the speed of when I go straight into the supplied ethernet port.

How odd - I've had no such issues in the past with using USB 3.0 Gigabit adaptors via USB 2.0 - I guess there must be some reason...

If you have a spare Raspberry Pi 4B that would be a good candidate. If you don't have one - then other USB 3.0 native ARM SBCs would make sense.  You can get some pretty cheap Android TV boxes that have a USB 3.0 port and Gigabit Ethernet (and come with a PSU and a box) that boot CoreElec that might be a neat solution. (You have to be very careful to check the Ethernet specs though - my Vontar X4 is running CoreElec 'ne' builds fine and has both USB 3.0 and GigE. Was approx £40 via AliExpress)

Hi, I only have the Raspberry Pi with 10/100 connection. This seems ok actually:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003606518606.html

Does it load CoreELEC straight from Boot or do you sideload it on to an Android OS? Sorry I'm not overly familiar with Kodi on Android.

[noggin]

Hi,

Yes I have. I tried this method and it seems alot slower. Files copy over the network at about 35% of the speed of when I go straight into the supplied ethernet port.

How odd - I've had no such issues in the past with using USB 3.0 Gigabit adaptors via USB 2.0 - I guess there must be some reason...

If you have a spare Raspberry Pi 4B that would be a good candidate. If you don't have one - then other USB 3.0 native ARM SBCs would make sense.  You can get some pretty cheap Android TV boxes that have a USB 3.0 port and Gigabit Ethernet (and come with a PSU and a box) that boot CoreElec that might be a neat solution. (You have to be very careful to check the Ethernet specs though - my Vontar X4 is running CoreElec 'ne' builds fine and has both USB 3.0 and GigE. Was approx £40 via AliExpress)

Hi, I only have the Raspberry Pi with 10/100 connection. This seems ok actually:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003606518606.html

Does it load CoreELEC straight from Boot or do you sideload it on to an Android OS? Sorry I'm not overly familiar with Kodi on Android.

I bought a 4GB/32GB model and boot from uSD card (you push a toothpick, or a paper clip that has been unfolded, into the middle of the 3.5mm AV jack socket to push a hidden microswitch to get it to boot from uSD card - aka 'the toothpick method'). There is not a 100% guarantee that you will get a GigE model it seems - but a few of us have Vontar X4s and no major issues.  If you use them as a media player they can run quite hot I believe.

I'm surprised you've had such poor success with USB 3.0->GigE network adaptors - they usually deliver ~250Mbs at least, though I guess if the same USB bus is also doing double duty with USB storage that might explain it.

[emveepee]

Does it load CoreELEC straight from Boot or do you sideload it on to an Android OS? Sorry I'm not overly familiar with Kodi on Android.

That will be your choice.  You can sideload Kodi for Android and also boot CE's version of Kodi using SD card or USB.  When that disk is in it always load CE but there is an option to boot from emmc which will load Android.  Then after power off (or long power button on the remote) it will restart into CE. 

Start with that to see which version of Kodi works for you.  You can also replace Android with CE on the emmc disk losing Android entirely.

Martin

[smallclone]

Does it load CoreELEC straight from Boot or do you sideload it on to an Android OS? Sorry I'm not overly familiar with Kodi on Android.

That will be your choice.  You can sideload Kodi for Android and also boot CE's version of Kodi using SD card or USB.  When that disk is in it always load CE but there is an option to boot from emmc which will load Android.  Then after power off (or long power button on the remote) it will restart into CE. 

Start with that to see which version of Kodi works for you.  You can also replace Android with CE on the emmc disk losing Android entirely.

Martin

It does sound perfect for what I need, then I keep thinking of the previous comment "there's not a 100% chance you'll get a GigE model" which would render it a pointless purchase.

[emveepee]

It does sound perfect for what I need, then I keep thinking of the previous comment "there's not a 100% chance you'll get a GigE model" which would render it a pointless purchase.

I got a couple of my S905X4 devices on Amazon which makes it less pointless.  However I thought your original use case was as a server though so not sure how this got switched to a player, since in Android you lose the file share. Maybe switch the role of the N2+ and your potential new device?

Martin

[smallclone]

Just remembered I have an old NUC DCCP84DYE in the cupboard. Think I binned it off ages ago thinking it wouldn't be powerful enough. Anybody know if it will be ok to run as a server for this type of use and if it has gigabit?

[noggin]

Literally the first hit on Google for the model : https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/...47dye.html

It has 10/100/1000 i.e. Gigabit ethernet.  It's a 2013 Dual Core Celeron 847 CPU running at 1.1GHz.  It'll probably be OK for file server duties I'd have thought.

[Klojum]

I still have a C1037 Celeron box (slightly faster sister of the 847) still acting as "catch-all" server. The dual gigabit port works as expected running Ubuntu Server, so you should be fine on the 847. Sadly though such chipsets had no USB 3.0 support yet.

[smallclone]

I still have a C1037 Celeron box (slightly faster sister of the 847) still acting as "catch-all" server. The dual gigabit port works as expected running Ubuntu Server, so you should be fine on the 847. Sadly though such chipsets had no USB 3.0 support yet.

Thanks - Is lack of USB 3.0 likely to cause problems in read write speed over a network?

[Klojum]

Thanks - Is lack of USB 3.0 likely to cause problems in read write speed over a network?

In practice, my USB 2.0 maxes out at roughly 40MB/s, especially on the older machines.
USB3.0 could do way over 100MB/s theoretically.
1 gigabit = 125MB/s max (100-110 IRL with some network overhead)
So your network would not be the weakest link.

I don't have a super fast AMD 7xxx or Intel 13th gen PC, so I don't know what the impact of faster PC's is with USB 2.0, but I guess every little bit helps.

[smallclone]

Thanks - Is lack of USB 3.0 likely to cause problems in read write speed over a network?

In practice, my USB 2.0 maxes out at roughly 40MB/s, especially on the older machines.
USB3.0 could do way over 100MB/s theoretically.
1 gigabit = 125MB/s max (100-110 IRL with some network overhead)
So your network would not be the weakest link.

I don't have a super fast AMD 7xxx or Intel 13th gen PC, so I don't know what the impact of faster PC's is with USB 2.0, but I guess every little bit helps.

Do you think something like this would solve the usb problem?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265500124871?...DAEALw_wcB