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I have recently purchased a ReadyNas Duo NAS. It is connected directly to the router via an network cable.

The performance is slightly sluggish, and if I stream HD content around the house it's a tad slow. Not awful but it will stutter for a second or two. So I am looking for ways to boost the performance of the network.

Am I right in thinking a newer router will help boost performance? At the moment my router is quite old, 54mps wireless g router. Should I look at Wireless N and something capable of transferring more content around the house?

What specs should I be taking into account, and should a get one with Gigabit ports? If I connected the ReadyNAS via a Gigabit port what performance advantages would take bring?

Cheers!

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First off as a side note, when ever I stream HD content accross my network, I've noticed that it's the memory in the client machine that cuases the "sluggish" response. Other factors that I know of are the speeds of the hard drives on the server (I recommend at least 7200 rpm or higher) Getting a newer router can/may help especially since the newer ones can handle higher traffic which stream video adds.

When setting up the wireless router or purchasing a new one consider these tips:

  1. 802.11n supports MIMO and has an average throughput of 200Mbits/s.

  2. Disabling WEP/WPA encryption will lower the overhead of the router. You can consider using MAC-address filtering as a security protocol.

  3. DO NOT mix formats (i.e. n/b/g) select a single format for the maximum performance of that format

  4. Bringing the client closer to the wireless router will also increase the performance of the streaming.

  5. Making sure that the channel of the router is not being interfered with other surrounding routers is essential as well. inSSIDer is a great program to see what other router traffic is interfering with your network.

  6. adding more memory to the NAS machine can increase performance

  7. of course connecting to the NAS server through a wired connection will increase throughput as well.

References: XBMC Troubleshooting

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  • I'm confused how RAM could cause slowness... Once the OS swaps what isn't needed, most of the video should play just fine.
    – TheLQ
    Aug 29, 2010 at 15:11
  • I'm not exactly sure all of the dynamics of it, but I do know that leaving the video player on and streaming suck up a lot of memory, and if it's left on, then that memory doesn't always get cleared. Aug 29, 2010 at 15:25

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