Orcon Genius as a File Server

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Orcon Genius as a File Server

gehenna

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#87731 5-Aug-2011 10:57

So I've been running Genius for about 2 full days now. I decided to try it out as a File Server dishing content to my XBMC enabled Apple TV2.

Previously I had an Eee PC with a 2TB USB drive connected to it, dishing the content to the same place over 802.11n on an Airport Express. It ran smoothly with zero buffering and was very responsive to browse the folders.

When I installed Genius I had to shift things around a bit and now the Airport Express is dishing out 2.4GHz G+N so as to cater to the G devices, and the Genius is dishing out straight N for the N devices - including the aTV.

The process of connecting the drive to the Genius, and enabling the file server within the firmware is pretty straight forward - it's basically plug and play. Accessing the drive over the network is easy enough too - just browse to the router's IP and you're in.

However....

It's slow. So so slow. When entering a folder and launching a video through the old method was taking 2-3 seconds, this is taking up to 20 seconds just to get into the folder, then another 10 seconds to launch the video. It tends to buffer on bandwidth intensive files too, where it never used to.

I tried switching around the signals, so the Airport Express was doing 5GHz N and the Genius was doing G. Same thing - slow slow slow. That was the other night. Cut to last night and it wasn't performing at all - in fact I couldn't map the drive or browse to it from XBMC. When it DID finally map after 5 minutes, I could only view folders but couldn't get into them.

So, I rebooted the Genius and things went back to "normal" - i.e. quite slow but usable.

Curious if anyone else has tried using it as a File Server, and what your performance has been like? It's not going to be my final solution - that's for sure. I'll be putting a proper server back in at some point, and dishing content over the Airport Express again, bit disappointing though given how much the Genius isn't delivering on its promises.

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#502865 7-Aug-2011 00:53

Hmm... you're lucky you can get yours to work at all. I just purchased a 1TB external today, and my son tried for ages to get it set up for me, but despite configuring it as a server through the router, we can't access the external hard drive at all!

Now we are just running it on Windows Home Network... not ideal because it means the computer it's connected to has to be on if anyone wants to look at files stored on it.

You said that to get access to the drive over the network you browse to the router's IP... is this the only way, or does it show up in Windows Homegroup?

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gehenna

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#502903 7-Aug-2011 09:39

as long as you give it a group name and have your pc accessing the router for dns you should get there by name.

cyberbuddha

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#502911 7-Aug-2011 09:52

Hi, thanks for your reply. Yes, my son tried all that, but still could not get it to work - and unfortunately, as I have got older, I seem to be losing my ability to think things through, LOL.

I think I will have to have someone send me step by step instructions, with pictures, before I can figure it out, sadly. So now I am resigned to having to just use it whilst connected to a computer which is a pain.

gehenna

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#503692 9-Aug-2011 09:21

It's almost as if the File Server part of the firmware is throttled to a specific throughput bandwidth as I'm only getting half a megabit on the N wifi. Very disappointing, hopefully you can unlock this with firmware soon.

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#504936 11-Aug-2011 12:20

So after a bit of ranting on Twitter, Orcon asked me to email through my experiences for escalation and to see if they can get new firmware on the go. I'm not expecting anything, having read similar experiences from iiNet customers who had the same unit as the BoB2. So if they weren't able to get new firmware developed I can't see how Orcon will, but who knows.

All this after last night where the performance was the worst so far. I'm now on the hunt for a crappy little PC that I can use as a file server again...hoping something crosses my desk at work soon :)

cyberbuddha

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#504941 11-Aug-2011 12:30

I've given up emailing them now, and have started faxing them and posting on their Facebook page, and I'm going to copy everything in writing to Scott Bartlett by snail mail!!! I got my first voicemail message to email today... and what do you know, the bloody thing doesn't play. I'd read on GeekZone to download VLC player, so I did, but even though it's only a 5 second message (as per Orcon's email to me, and in fact I know it is, because it was a test message I left myself!), the player tells me it is 74 minutes long, and it consists of just white noise.

Maybe we should all contact Fair Go!

kedec

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#512926 27-Aug-2011 18:04

Far out, I've had the same thing happened to me. I worked out that the Genius obviously can't handle large external HDD's, i.e 1TB. I'm now using my small 320GB external HDD as my file server. It seems to be fine, but my god, opening a folder within the file serve does take quite a while. Nevertheless, I'm somewhat satisfied with its video buffering - hardly any delay in audio and video on a usual .avi file (using vlc), although I am yet to try streaming a 1080p .mkv file.

hbngan

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#516339 4-Sep-2011 08:58

hmmm..

We changed over to orcon last week with no dramas , mind you I gave them 3 weeks notice

I had the same issues with trying to set up the usb and did a google search and got to this thread

I bought a 2 TB external hardrive in anticipation of using this with orcon and transferred all my files from my pc to this

When I saw the thread, that it had a limit of only 100gb etc , OMG!!!

however I manege to get the thing going and its quite fast and can stream HD content from it, no issues

so I am using a seagate 2TB desktop USb ext drive formatted NTFS and I can access all the files from PC with no issues

My orcon firmware version, I think is 1.0.37-106.17

cheers

bevan

kedec

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#516343 4-Sep-2011 09:38

Really? How did you manage getting your 2TB going? I can't even get my 1TB W.Digital (NTFS formatted) HDD to work. Hmmm... So I have to my small 320GB...

It could possibly be because it needs a firmware update. Do you know how I can update its firmware?

So, with your 2Tb, it works fine, right? Is it a wee bit slow when accessing folders and stuff over the network?

Cheers.

cyberbuddha

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#516346 4-Sep-2011 09:44

Hi Bevan, can you please let me know how you managed to do it too, please. I would be most grateful, especially when Orcon themselves said that it could not be bigger than 100GB. I will check out my firmware version later... Father's Day... busy with the kids LOL

hbngan

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#516521 4-Sep-2011 17:38

fathers days activities are sort of over, wishing I had a sleep in..

Right, here goes

1. I have only the orcon lite and I just connect to my cordless panasonic

2. I am not using wireless, but connect through 10/100 ethernet cable

3. OS is Windows 7

4. usb drive is 2 TB seagate powered from Noel leemings as I have heard the orcon genius is struggling to power an usb powered hard drive

4. media player I am using is MPC classic, I can also see the file server using AC Ryan media player and plays good

All I did was:

go to configure usB port (after plugging in my usb driver first of course)

I see my drive at the bottom

I click Edit and it takes abt 30 secs to bring up the folders in the USB drive, then you asked to select the root folder to access - I just selected the whole drive

go to windows explorer and type in

\\boblite\ and this should resolve to the file server

I will also check the speed on wireless

I will upload some images once I work out how

hbngan

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#516537 4-Sep-2011 18:42

I have now mapped as z drive so it now the file server appears like just another drive

kiwiscoota

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#516554 4-Sep-2011 19:53

hbngan:
---- edit----

4. usb drive is 2 TB seagate powered from Noel leemings as I have heard the orcon genius is struggling to power an usb powered hard drive

Thanks for that...

That could well be the reason why my Maxtor drive did not work when I tried it... I'll try again with an external power source and if that still doesn't work, I'll try again with an alternative external powered drive.

cheers
Robert

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#516556 4-Sep-2011 19:58

I've read in another topic here on Geekzone there's a 100GB drive limit? Is that the case? Perhaps partition the drive and see if you can access the 100GB partition?

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#516557 4-Sep-2011 19:59

cyberbuddha: I'd read on GeekZone to download VLC player, so I did, but even though it's only a 5 second message (as per Orcon's email to me, and in fact I know it is, because it was a test message I left myself!), the player tells me it is 74 minutes long, and it consists of just white noise.

I saw someone on Twitter complaining of the exact same problem.

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