Local vs. SMB/NAS performance

[boutwell]

I am currently running a library of about 1,000 files (950GB or so) on a bus-powered USB drive attached to my Boxee Box. I find transferring new files to the drive rather slow and if anyone is watching the box at the time, it stutters quite badly.

Would there be any degradation in performance by moving this to a Firewire 800 drive attached directly to my iMac and letting the Boxee Box connect via a network share vs. letting it run local?

I also have a Airport Extreme that I could run it on via USB it that is known to work well.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Jonas81]

If you already have the firewire 800 drive, test it out. I can stream to BBox from my HTPC while adding files to the same drive without Boxee Box stuttering. But, like you said, if I try to transfer a file to the bus-powered USB drive attached to the Boxee Box, major stuttering while playing back even SD content.

[Prospero424]

If both your Boxee Box and your iMac are connected to your network via wired Ethernet, then moving the storage to your iMac is probably your best bet. Whatever device is hosting your shared drive should always be on wired Ethernet. Boxee streaming over WiFi from a wired device is fine, but 1080p can be spotty over WiFi in less-than-ideal network performance situations. 720p and lower should be fine in any but the most dire circumstances.