Question on hardware upgrade

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f00kie
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Question on hardware upgrade

Post by f00kie »

Hello,

I've been a long time user of sabnzbd. I am potentially looking to upgrade my hardware setup and looking for advice to see if it fixes the issue I have.

Current setup & issue:
OS: Windows 10 x64
OS drive (only OS): 120GB SSD
Cache drive (only for SAB downloads, otherwise empty): 500GB SSD
Data drives: 1x 14TB SATA, 2x 8TB SATA
Internet: 1GB Fibre (effective download is 85MB/sec through my Usenet provider)
Motherboard/CPU: 4+ yrs old
RAM: 16GB
Use of computer: This HTPC is both storage of files, as well as playback via Plex (PC is connected to a TV). No gaming. Light web browsing.

The process is: the temp folder is on the Cache drive. It does all downloading, verifying, repairing, and extracting on this drive. Then, either CouchPotato or Sonarr move the files to the appropriate Data drive. Nothing gets stores on the Cache drive.
The problem: When I have more than 2 downloads in series, it appears my fast download speed overwhelms the Cache drive. My download speed drops to ~15MB/sec, and in general, verifying, extracting, etc. is the bottleneck. CPU does not seem to go up too much.

Questions:
1. Is there something I can do with the current hardware to make this better?

2. I am prepared to invest in new hardware, as the current (more specifically, motherboard and CPU), are over 4yrs old. As I built out a new system, I think I will be using M2 NVMe drives. Should I continue to go with dedicated OS vs. Cache drives, or set it all up on 1?

Thanks a lot.
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sander
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Re: Question on hardware upgrade

Post by sander »

To which drive is "Complete" pointing?
f00kie
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Re: Question on hardware upgrade

Post by f00kie »

sander wrote: April 8th, 2020, 8:33 am To which drive is "Complete" pointing?
Complete is on the Cache drive.
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sander
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Re: Question on hardware upgrade

Post by sander »

So, the SSD?

Then do this:

In SABnzbd's upper right corner, click on the wrench symbol ("Status and interface options"), then click on first tab Status, and there right of "Test download" click 1000MB.
Once clicked, repeat it a 4 times, so that you have 5 downloads of each 1GB in your queue, and SAB starts downloading all 5 after each other.

What is the download speed per download?
f00kie
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Re: Question on hardware upgrade

Post by f00kie »

sander wrote: April 8th, 2020, 9:02 am So, the SSD?

Then do this:

In SABnzbd's upper right corner, click on the wrench symbol ("Status and interface options"), then click on first tab Status, and there right of "Test download" click 1000MB.
Once clicked, repeat it a 4 times, so that you have 5 downloads of each 1GB in your queue, and SAB starts downloading all 5 after each other.

What is the download speed per download?
Just did that, 55MB/sec constant (no drop).
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sander
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Re: Question on hardware upgrade

Post by sander »

And are you happy with that?

It proves the bottleneck is not in your SSDs nor SAB.

So it must be in other hardware (SATA?) and/or processes (Sonarr?)
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