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What defines the download speed?

D

David Shapiro

Member
I posted this question in another thread but I didn’t get a response. Which hardware defines the download speed? Is it the player or the server or both? I’m asking because I want start with a used Strato S with storage. If Kaleidescape works for me in my system, I’d eventually get a separate server.

Thanks
David
 
Which piece of Kscape hardware governs the download speed? Whichever piece you are downloading to. The Terra is only a server. A Strato S is both a server and a player. The only pure player is a Strato C and you can't download to those. You can find more information on the Kscape support page but the easy way to think about this is that the newer generation servers are faster than the older generation in almost every case. For example, I have a Strato S and the latest Terra compact server 30TB with SSD. I'm seeing about a 50% reduction in average download times, from around 50 minutes to about 25 minutes. I haven't done a direct comparison of the same movie downloading to each server but if I scan my download history, on average I'm seeing movies downloading in half the time it typically took when I was downloading to the Strato.

But total download time is affected by many things. Download time will vary based on the size of the movie file, the maximum download speed of your ISP link, other activity on your home network, the maximum throughput of your firewall (if you use one) because they often top out below the bandwidth of your ISP link, and the throughput on your internal LAN. In my case, despite the fact that I have 1GB service from Verizon, my Meraki firewall maxes out around half of that.

Download speeds can also be impacted by any movies you are playing from either the Strato S or a Terra server. Someone can correct me, but I believe the Strato S pauses downloading when a movie is being streamed to ensure there are no dropouts in the playback. A Terra server with hard drives doesn't pause the download but it will throttle download speeds if a movie is playing. However, it is claimed that the Terra SSD can handle up to 10 movies streams before it has to throttle back downloads.
 
Strato (6TB or 10TB) and Strato S (6TB or 12TB) are player/server combos in a 2RU and a 1RU chassis respectively. They will max out at about 150 mbps download speeds. That’s about a little over an hour for an HD movie download and a little under two hours for a 4K movie download. They will suspend all downloads during they are playing movies.

Terra (24/40/48/72/88TB) and Compact Terra servers (6/12/18/22TB) can saturate a gigabit network. That’s 8 to 10 minutes for HD downloads and 10 to 14 minutes for 4K downloads.

Terra Prime (48 TB or 88TB) and Compact Terra Prime (8TB or 22TB) have 2.5Gbe ethernet ports. Theoretically, they can download movies at speeds above gigabit but far below 2.5GBe speeds. They will unlikely to sustain above gigabit speeds due to the varying write speeds for mechanical spinning HDDs. Slightly below to slightly above gigabit download speeds are more realistic. I would expect similar or slightly faster download speeds to Terra and Compact Terra servers.

Terra Prime SSD (31TB) and Compact Terra Prime SSD (8TB) also have 2.5Gbe ethernet ports. These can fully saturate 2.5Gbe speeds due to the really fast SSD memory for their storage. These servers can download 4K movies in 4 or 5 minutes.

Strato, Strato S, Terra and Compact Terra are discontinued. Terra Prime, Compact Terra Prime, Terra Prime SSD and Compact Terra Prime SSD are current models.

You can have multiple servers and server/player combos in a single system. This allows virtually limitless storage expansion.

Recommendations:

Terra Prime for max storage size with more than respectable downloads speeds.

Terra Prime SSD for max download speeds and no more 500 title movie library.

Compact Terra Prime SSD for max download speeds and utilizing cloud storage for the movie library. You can keep all your movies in the Kaleidescape cloud indefinitely for free of charge. Your entire movie library will show only on the web interface and the Kaleidescape mobile app. Only movies already downloaded to your server will show on the TV interface. If you don’t mind browsing your library on the mobile app or the web store then a few minutes to download the movies you want to watch, this is a good compromise.

Compact Terra Prime for a smaller library of 125 titles and/or the least expensive entry into the eco system.
 
Ksalno said:
Which piece of Kscape hardware governs the download speed? Whichever piece you are downloading to. The Terra is only a server. A Strato S is both a server and a player. The only pure player is a Strato C and you can't download to those. You can find more information on the Kscape support page but the easy way to think about this is that the newer generation servers are faster than the older generation in almost every case. For example, I have a Strato S and the latest Terra compact server 30TB with SSD. I'm seeing about a 50% reduction in average download times, from around 50 minutes to about 25 minutes. I haven't done a direct comparison of the same movie downloading to each server but if I scan my download history, on average I'm seeing movies downloading in half the time it typically took when I was downloading to the Strato.

But total download time is affected by many things. Download time will vary based on the size of the movie file, the maximum download speed of your ISP link, other activity on your home network, the maximum throughput of your firewall (if you use one) because they often top out below the bandwidth of your ISP link, and the throughput on your internal LAN. In my case, despite the fact that I have 1GB service from Verizon, my Meraki firewall maxes out around half of that.

Download speeds can also be impacted by any movies you are playing from either the Strato S or a Terra server. Someone can correct me, but I believe the Strato S pauses downloading when a movie is being streamed to ensure there are no dropouts in the playback. A Terra server with hard drives doesn't pause the download but it will throttle download speeds if a movie is playing. However, it is claimed that the Terra SSD can handle up to 10 movies streams before it has to throttle back downloads.
Click to expand...
You could probably forward ports for your Kaleidescape server so it is not bottlenecked by your firewall.
 
Substance said:
Strato (6TB or 10TB) and Strato S (6TB or 12TB) are player/server combos in a 2RU and a 1RU chassis respectively. They will max out at about 150 mbps download speeds. That’s about a little over an hour for an HD movie download and a little under two hours for a 4K movie download. They will suspend all downloads during they are playing movies.
Click to expand...
Our showroom Strato S never went over an hour for a 4K download, most of them being around 40-50minutes.
 
My internet service provider is the most restrictive part of my system.
I have the best available in my area (rural) and it takes about 1 1/2 hours to download a 4k movie to my new Terra
 
For reference, I have 1GB internet in the SF Bay area and it takes 10-15 minutes to download a typical 4K HDR title to my original Terra. When a movie happens to download to my Strato S, the download time drops to roughly an hour (usually just under).

Andy
 
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