Storage Setups

[stigzler]

So I'm wondering how everyone sets up their rigs. In particular, where they store their gamefiles and assets. 

I've got a home server here, so I'm wondering about the benefits and drawbacks of storing all my gamefiles and assets on my home server and pointing 'client' games rigs towards these networked files....

Gamefiles: I'm wondering if any emulators need ongoing, speedy access to the gamefile or whether they 'load' them into memory/temporary stores somewhere? If the latter - shouldn't be too much of a problem storing these on a NAS?

Assets: Same kinda question really - do any frontends/support apps need videos/images/pdfs etc to be available with the increased speed availed by local disks? If not then should also be golden in terms of Assets on a NAS?

Naturally, I would assume that emulators + frontends are best on the client machines....

[Shermo]

emus+frontend on client preferably on a ssd, assets are fine on a server and so are game files, make sure you have at least a gigabit network and it will work fine. Been using this combo for a while and works fine. 

[stigzler]

Excellent Shermo. Good to know + thanks for the feedback. It all sounds fine.

[Draco1962]

I believe Adultery also runs his from a NAS solution. I believe Shermo is spot on regarding the Gigabit network. You probably already know, but all devices (router, NICs, and even cables) will need to support Gigabit speeds. You will see some speed benefit using CAT 6 over CAT 5 cables for your LAN internally. 

[stigzler]

That's an inconvenient truth I've been trying to avoid for years! Never thought about replacing all my ethernet cables! Have gradually done it with switches etc, but still got some legacy stuff in my network in places..

Good steer, Draco - thanks

[Shermo]

Average mechanical hard drive speed is around the 130-140mb/s i get around 110mb/s when i am transferring from my server (Cat 6 with Intel NICS), if you're on a 100mb network you'll get a tenth of that speed, not really good enough.

[tthurman]

Good call on the Intel NIC's,  We did some "unofficial" testing some time ago with them, and at least then, their performance was superior.  This seemed especially so when Intel NIC's had been installed in both machines.

[stigzler]

What's an NIC?

[tthurman]

network interface card

[stigzler]

TAL

[tthurman]

YVW

[Shermo]

I only know that because I setup freenas, they are all sticklers there with hardware and swear by them. I tend to agree as realtek tend to drop alot, or as you said not as fast. Unfortunately now my server has a realtek nic, i managed to get a i7 2600 for free (beats the old dual core i had) but try to source a ITX board on sandybridge was a nightmare, had a choice between using a 750ti for gamestream using a shield or a intel nic card so I picked gaming of course  Now I just wish I could use Gameex with my shield  only works on a few emulators 

[Tom Speirs]

On ‎15‎/‎03‎/‎2016 at 8:08 AM, Shermo said:

emus+frontend on client preferably on a ssd, assets are fine on a server and so are game files, make sure you have at least a gigabit network and it will work fine. Been using this combo for a while and works fine. 

Just so you know, that is how I roll too and for some time now.

It also takes a lot of pain out when you build/rebuild a client since the assets and game files don't change location. Perfect for me when I want to do some testing on a different machine/vm/client. Most modern EMUs also support a UNC path too now but I tend to use a couple of mapped drives.

Both PinballX and GameEx have optimisations for reading assets off a server. It's what I use so it's going to work.

[hansolo77]

OOOOhhhh dang it you guys!  Now you got me thinking about moving my whole setup into my server I built last summer!  It would probably be a good idea since the server has redundancy for drive failure.. and I've already lost all my emulating stuff once due to that happening (some of you old folks probably remember when that happened, and one of you fine friends sent me a drive for free to replace it!).  I should probably really consideri doing this too because I'm wanting to move away from using my HTPC as much, and devote more time to using Pi boxes because they're silent.  Perhaps here in the future I can buy another Pi and dedicate it to a GameEx build, and really get into know how to make it all work with Linux (rather than limit myself to Windows).

So for you guys that ARE using a server as storage, and keep the front end local... does keeping artwork/movie assets remote on the server cause any kind of delay?  What about loading up games to play?  My server runs 4 teamed Intel Gigabit NICs, connecting to a Gigabit Switch, that connects to a Gigabit Wireless Router.  The Server->Switch cables are Cat 6 but the Switch->Router and Router->Out is all Cat 5.  I'm just curious if it's noticeable.  I would imagine there being some form of delay, compared to being 100% local. 

[stigzler]

That pretty much matches my thinking...In the process of shifting all the gamefiles off my cab + onto my NAS. Next will be assets...

I too am using drive mapping - just generally, UNC can be a bit 'sticky' sometimes. It's me being lazy and not chasing stuff down, but only so many hours in the day...

One though did occur to me the other night. My WHS is presently expanding to a the WHS unit + now a second 4bay drive enclosure. The only thing is the cab cannot be truly stand alone with dependence on a server. 

I was thinking about setting up some internal hard-drives with the same folder structure as my network resources. Then, having a selection of game files and assets on the cab hard drive. This would mean if ever the server bombed, it'd still have stuff available. The only thing I'm wondering is whether there's an easy way to 'swap-out' the mapping against a network location to map it against an internal drive. 

For e.g. =- if your Network folder is usually "Y:" to disconnect this and then a drive in your PC automatically becomes "Y:" (and having the same folder structure, preserving all that lovely GameEx functionality) 

Haven't spent any time researching into it, but just spitballin'

[Tom Speirs]

Yep, that will work.

Not automatic but only a couple of clicks.

You can map a local drive in windows assuming the PC is networked.

You can also just change the drive letter too.

I guess a nice Gigabit NAS box with hard disk protection is still a luxury item but it makes the hobby a lot less hassle.

[hansolo77]

You could run 2 versions of GameEx....  Have one version be the LOCAL system, with local games and assets, then a REMOTE version of GameEx to run stuff off the server.  OR... if you have an arcade cab, just put the MAME stuff on it locally, and keep the other consoles and stuff remote.

EDIT - Nevermind.. 2 version GameEx probably won't work with licensing...

[Tom Speirs]

That would work too actually but we said emus/front end on local preferably SSD.

[Adultery]

That's exactly how my cab is (GX and emus on an SSD, roms and assets on the NAS) and Tom nailed it... It makes it really easy to VM client installs for testing, and also keeps my roms/assets available to other devices (especially helpful for running Steam in multiple machines but still having my library).

I pretty much love the mobility. The only tiny issue I have is that for some reason SMB3 makes my MAME games take up to 40 seconds to load. But I can live with that. The benefits far outweigh the negatives.

[CharlesLam]

ive used my server to host the roms ever since i started with gameex.  i just simply didnt have the money for any more hdds.  i tried just having a basic set of roms on a local drive but i got bored with it and then ps1 emulation got way more reliable.  so i had to move them to my server and read from there.  never looked back.  

[stigzler]

Shermo - yer a star! Another obvious thing I'd forgotten. After your post - checked my rig. I was getting transfer of 10Mb/s - realised feed branched off an old DLink wireless router I was using as an extender. Took straight from the wall ethernet, now getting 100Mb/s! A 10x improvement! 

There's so much I miss in this bleedin hobby.