Slow Performance Running as UnRAID Docker

[lavasurfer 0]

I just finished swapping the OS on my server from WSE 2016 to UNRAID.  Basically I had a hard drive fail and another fail while trying to rebuild the RAID array prompting me to basically start from scratch.  Decided to go with UNRAID to hopefully have a little less overhead, and hopefully (from what I've gathered) a little more forgiving if/when I have hard drive failures in the future.

 

My problem is that when navigating around either in a computer browser or on my Shield TV's the Emby menuys are very slow to come up and I sometimes get an error saying it has lost a connection to the server while trying to navigate.  I basically get the spinning "hurry up and wait" symbol constantly everywhere you go.  I did watch about 2 hours today and once I was playing the show I had zero issues, it seems to be only navigating through the menu and season listings.

 

My experience running on windows was pretty flawless.  I went a little overkill and bought a used rackmount server to run everything so processing power wise I really don't see that as being my problem  Here's a quick rundown of the specs

 

• Supermicro 2U 6027AX-TRF Chassis
• Dual Xeon E5-2680 v2's
• 32gb ECC Ram
• 8 2TB Data Drives
• 1 3TB Parity Drive
• 1 2TB Cache Drive

 

I have the following dockers running in UNRAID.  Even while transcoding 2 streams I never see more that 20-30% cpu utilization, in windows runing the same programs plus Windows bloat I was sitting in the 40-50% range.

 

• Radarr
• Sonarr
• Lidarr
• SABnzbd
• Ombi
• Ubiquiti Controller
• NoIp DNS Updater
• Emby Server

 

I'm running the following plug-ins in Emby that might be the cause of any of this also.

 

• Cinema Mode
• Cover Art 4.0
• IMVDb
• Open Subtitles
• Prowl
• Backup & Retore
• Statistics
• Trailers
• Trakt

 

I attached a log file.  Its my first time doing this, so I hope I got what you guys are looking for!

12-7-2018 Log 1.txt

[Luke 37065]

Hi, this is an easy one. The first thing is that the next release of the server will have dramatically improved performance. It is coming very soon and you can learn more about it here:

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/blog/1/entry-443-exciting-additions-coming-soon-in-emby-server-36/

 

Second, try removing the Cover Art plugin. This plugin does come with a fairly high CPU cost of having to treat and process images on the fly. Please let us know if this helps. Thanks !

[lavasurfer 0]

Thanks Luke.  I will jump in there and disable that and give it a go.

 

Is the beta channel on 3.6?  If I load a new docker on my server and try it out is it at the point to where I would be able to see some of the improvements you speak of?

[Luke 37065]

Hi, yes the beta channel is on 3.6 so you could try that. Thanks.

[lavasurfer 0]

Just wanted to update in case anyone else had the same issues.  My performance problems I was talking about was actually because I didn't have the cache drive setting correct.  I have an SSD cache drive and didn't have after the mover ran it put everything on the array which was slowing down the whole system.  After getting the docker containers back on the SSD we are about 95% better.  Still playing around with the settings in there to get it to 100%.  I will figure it out, just at the moment I have a lot going on as I'm rebuilding by library since everything was lost a couple of weeks ago when a multiple drive failure.

 

Currently I only have a 250gb SSD cache (1tb drive is next on the purchase list), so since there is a lot of downloading going on right now I'm having the mover run every two hours to keep up, pretty sure that while that is running and I have multiple streams going on all hitting the disks at the same time that my issues I'm experiencing now and due to that.  Once my library is rebuilt and I have a larger cache drive installed then I will be able to run the mover once a day in the middle of the night to avoid my suspected bottle-necking issues now.

[Luke 37065]

Thanks for the feedback.

[evilmatchbox 0]

Hopefully this isn't considered resurrecting the thread.  I am having the exact same issue.  I work in IT but I am new to Unraid/Emby.  My server is having the same issue.  Loading times/browsing  emby in webui and the app on my nvidia sheild can randomly take 20sec - several minutes. Sometimes it works just fine. 

 

I assume a R7 1700x wouldn't be the cause of the slow down.  I have it clocked all cores 3.8ghz 5c/10t for unraid, 3c/6t for a windows VM.    Does having the Emby docker container stored on an SSD make it that much more responsive?

I added my log if it is helpful.

1-5-2019 log.txt

Edited January 6, 2019 by evilmatchbox

[Luke 37065]

Hi there, did you forget to attach the log? thanks.

[evilmatchbox 0]

Hi there, did you forget to attach the log? thanks.

Sorry about that. I didn't realize I had to press upload this file.  I added it. 

[Luke 37065]

Ok, there's nothing obvious here. I would suggest trying again with the upcoming new release which will have significantly improved performance. thanks.

[lavasurfer 0]

Since making this post I have made quite a few changes that have eliminated a lot of my performance issues.

 

Even after installing an SSD cache I was still having issues with menu performance in Emby. What I found was when I unthrottled my downloader programs I was peaking out at 150-170 mb/s. Between that, unpacking the downloaded files, and Emby doing what it needed to import them it was just too much to all be happening on the cache drive. On top of that I had to schedule the mover way too often to keep the cache drive clear as I only have a 256mb SSD on hand.

 

Right now my downloads folder, server/transcoding cache, metadata, and docker container files with all data are in separate folders and set to “prefer” so they are kept on the SSD whenever possible. All library files are kept on the array and not allowed to be kept on the cache drive. After a download takes place Sonarr or Radarr imports the file to the library which is then moved off the cache. So far the past two weeks it’s been running almost flawless.

 

I have 20 cpu cores on the server and I have 10 core dedicated to Emby for transcoding, 2 cores for my UniFi controller, and a couple other dockers, and 8 for all of the downloading, and library maintenance dockers.

 

I am still having a random freeze here and there during playback, but I’m pretty sure it’s network related as I need to bond the two NICs together on the server and see if that changes anything.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Luke 37065]

Thanks for the feedback.