Server Install not to C Drive

[aquatarkus 2]

Hi there

as the title says, is it possible to install the server on a drive other than the C drive.

 

The reason i ask is that have just rebuilt a HTPC for a friend whose hard drive crashed and died, luckily all his movies were on 2 other drives along with all the metadata images etc.

Decided to install an SSD drive (128gb Crucial M550) all was going wonderfully windows 8.1 installed, all updates installed no other programs installed apart from Spotify and a couple of internet radio apps (Radionomy, Tunein Radio, Radyo) system incredibly fast to boot up, shutdown, browser web etc.left it running like this for 2 days with no issues at all.

 

Then installed MBserver, set server up, installed his supporter key, pointed server at the drives with movies etc, appeared to carry out a scan of the media library which took about 15 minutes along with the other scheduled tasks.

 

All going wonderfully well. Installed MBT discovered server, setup login details, configured audio and video options appeared to be running fine or so i thought, started to play a movie (htpc connected to my Yamaha 1030 a/v amp) played for about 10 minutes to test, no apparent issues. stopped movie tried to exit MBT, suddenly everything running really, really slowly (like treacle). managed to exit MBT after 3 minutes of waiting. 

The pc after 10 minutes with absolutely nothing running slows right down to a crawl, takes ages for anything to open, folder on hard drive, task manager, device manager, my computer icon. when 1st boots up everything is fine but after 10 minutes same happens again.

 

Uninstalled MBserver and MBT, pc runs fine no slow down or anything, thats whay was wondering if possible to install on a different drive or have i messed something up with the install of the server due to the media folders already having the extra fan art, extrathumbs, banners logo and posters.

 

Any help gratefully received

 

Regards

Keith W

[Beardyname 198]

Make sure MBT is not forcing a transcode, test it again but fire up the task manager and see what's eating the cpu cycles.

 

 

(or if the server is using ffmpg for anything else like image extractions etc)

[CashMoney 94]

What are the specs of the server? Could it be that the server is running an initial scan, getting to a point that is slowing down the scan; maybe it's looking at your existing metadata and images and taking it's time for some reason. If the htpc is of the slower variety, it maybe causing the system slowdown you're seeing. Check to see if the library scan finishes, and maybe get a log.

[aquatarkus 2]

Hi there thanks for the replies.

 

Task manager shows 100% disk usage but everything else ok, nothing appears to be running cpu is at 5% and memory is at 15%

 

MB server is installed on the htpc, specs are 

ASrock FM2 A75 Pro 4 M motherboard

AMD A10 7700 (integrated Radeon R7 graphics)

16 gig memory (2 x 8gig banks)

Crucial M550 128gig primary drive

2 x 4tb Western Digital hard drives

Samsung Blu-Ray Drive

Don't think this HTPC is of the slow variety, library scan confirmed as finished.

As i said task manager shows (or appears to show) nothing unusual except the 100% disk usage have disabled prefetch and windows search, made no difference.

 

Regards

Keith W

[Beardyname 198]

If you go to the resource manager what process is it that is eating the disk cycles?

 

(MB might not take up much cpu usage but something is obviously hogging the disk)

 

I'm running my server on a 40 gb 5 year old intel ssd and it's absolutely fine here. If the device is running out of space or similar most paths of MBS are movable (cache, actor images, etc etc etc) And are movable from web-ui

[aquatarkus 2]

Hi all

going to run some more tests this afternoon, have completely formatted the SSD reinstalled windows 8.1 (x64) installed all windows updates and installed the ATI catalyst drivers for the graphics.

Will update later on this evening.

 

Regards

Keith W

[bill the lizard 3]

I am hoping you resolved this. I started experiencing the same symptom around the same time frame but I have been tolerating it. It seems like every 15 minutes to half an hour or when waking from sleep there is massive disk utilization for a couple minutes. Usually it affects playback and causes stuttering, if I am waking it from sleep the UI is almost totally unresponsive. It wasn't like that at all when I started using MB, now Emby. I was thinking it was maybe because of the size of my library but I only have 150 movies and a couple hundred episodes of TV. I set it to manual scan only it didn't help.I have the server and Emby classic installed on the same htpc. It is a pretty speedy machine but this is just disk utilization related not CPU usage. By the time I can get resource monitor open though to check disk processes it is done with whatever it is doing and I have nothing to look at. Getting annoying now. Any help would be good.

[aquatarkus 2]

Hi Bill the Lizard

i forgot to come back and update this post.

It turned out to be MBserver was causing the 100% disk usage, i reinstalled windows 8.1 and all the windows updates, everything ran fine, Installed MPC-HC played a few movies etc no issues, left the pc running for 2 days no issues whatsoever, installed the official release of MB server (sorry cant remember which version number now) and everything slowed down to a complete crawl again, i hadn't even pointed MB server to the movie drives at this stage.

I then uninstalled MB server and pc back to normal, no slow downs, hanging waiting for windows to open etc. I then decided to install the then latest beta version of the server. Installed ok no issues, pointed it to the movie drives, and let it scan them, the movie folders still had all the artwork, covers etc.

No slowdown, continued setting everything up no issues experienced at all, been running sweet as a nut ever since.

 

Only one nagging issue now, music in MBT still doesn't work correctly and this is becoming a BIG issue for me and friend who i built the htpc for, when are we ever going to see MBT updated? was told in a post in Feb that an update was being worked on since then nothing.

Getting pestered by him that maybe should give up with MB Server and MBT and go to the dark side and install Plex. Starting to look very tempting already lost 4 others to Plex.

 

Regards

Aquatarkus