media on network drive. should i get esata?

[rpeters83]

I stream my movies on my HTPC, shows, and other media from a 1TB drive connected via 802.11N (5ghz) to a 1.8 ghz celeron computer. This HD is connected via USB. I'm able to stream several movies at a time but if i do any disk activity, such as backups (i'm backing up several computers at home here) the movie stops until it's done.

is this a bottleneck in my USB, the speed of the server, or is this just something I can't avoid? an esata PCI card isn't much money if it's worth it, and my external drive supports esata.

thoughts? thanks.

[criccio]

*deleted*

[rpeters83]

*above quote deleted* :p

alright, game on.

it looks like from my old thread that USB may be the bottleneck. I'm able to stream simultaneous movies but the issue is when backups go off or when a moderate amount of copying or other IO operations are happening. when this happens, my streams pause until the backups are done. my media and backups reside on the same drive.

with this said, is the bottleneck still the USB or just the activity of the HDD itself (in this case then usb is fine and there's nothing i can do). thanks.

ryan

[criccio]

Ill just post what I posted in the old thread:

In you're specific situation where you are trying to use the streaming PC at the same time as it is serving movies, then yes, USB is the bottleneck.

If you weren't trying to use the computer at the same time as it was streaming, USB would be fine.

My old server had a 1TB drive connected to it that I could stream 2 1080p x264 rips to two different HTPC's without issue. And these videos have an average bitrate of 25Mbps.

If you are going to be doing multiple streams and want to still use the server in the meantime I would upgrade to e-SATA.