Streaming from external drive to Chromecast

Robzere31 · 31 Oct 2016 at 14:15

Not sure if anyone has some advice on this but here goes.

I currently have a USB external hard drive plugged into my Asus NT66u router acting as a shared drive.
It has films, music etc on there along with other bits & pieces.
I also have plex running & point plex to this drive to access films to stream to a chromecast.

However, I find when streaming I have constant buffering, the network I'm sure is plenty quick enough so not sure what the problem is.
If I stream directly to my phone or tablet however it seems OK.

Also, I find every few days the hard drive disappears from the connected devices & has to be unplugged & router reset for it to be found again.

bremen1874 · 31 Oct 2016 at 15:40

Is it network buffering or is it Plex deciding to transcode the video with insufficient cpu available to keep up?

Are you running stock firmware? If you are have a look for Merlin's modified firmware. It's safe and simple to use and offers a number of fixes and enhancements.

Robzere31 · 31 Oct 2016 at 15:51

Hi

Yes the router is running the Merlin firmware.

Not sure if its network or Plex causing the issue, I did have plex running on my Windows 10 tablet originally, but then moved it to my desktop machine which has a i7 4770K running at 4.6ghz so I hope it's not the CPU !

I have thought it may be the drive itself, as it's only a 5400rpm mechanical drive, but I thought the transfer speed would be enough for simple jobs like streaming movies etc.

bremen1874 · 31 Oct 2016 at 16:23

The drive will be fast enough. The limiting factors will be USB and the N66U itself.

I did briefly try a drive attached to my N66U and the r/w speeds where nothing to write home about. It's certainly not going to be anything near the speed of a real NAS.

Robzere31 · 1 Nov 2016 at 14:14

Bit of messing around last night, I've now plugged the external drive into my main machine (see sig) & its certainly running better.
However, plex now comes up with the message, about the server not being powerful enough for a smooth stream? :confused:

May try using one of my SSDs as the storage drive just to see if that helps.

bremen1874 · 1 Nov 2016 at 14:46

When you're streaming from Plex connect to the server interface and see if it is transcoding the video.

Robzere31 · 1 Nov 2016 at 15:19

bremen1874 said:
When you're streaming from Plex connect to the server interface and see if it is transcoding the video.

Thanks, will do.
Speaking to a friend it may be the fact I'm trying to stream 5.1 dolby as well as 1080p video. Will have a proper fiddle with the settings tonight.

EDIT
Sorted, turned direct play off & now working perfectly.

Uhtred · 3 Nov 2016 at 08:49

If you're having to turn direct play off then it sounds like you have a bandwidth issue between the plex server and your chromecast. That is possible as the chromecast wifi chip isn't great.

Robzere31 · 4 Nov 2016 at 23:26

Uhtred said:
If you're having to turn direct play off then it sounds like you have a bandwidth issue between the plex server and your chromecast. That is possible as the chromecast wifi chip isn't great.

Thanks for the ideas
Now changed the external HD for an internal 3tb drive & its Soooooooo..... much better.
Streaming 1080p,5.1dts etc no problems at all.

Safe to say that the USB drive was crap.