rough performance comparison moving from plug computer to mele

Got a kernel/arm hf headless debian build mele with working sata and although sata performance still seems poor i thought i would try and see how an armhf compiled squeezebox server (notoriously very heavy on system resources) compared on its initial media scan (large media library)

on the plug - hacked iconnect (armv6 256MB 1GHZ USB 640GB WD 5400 2.5HD) running debian squeeze it took around 5 hours for the scan to complete .. on the mele (1GHZ 512MB SATA 640GB WD 5400 2.5HD) armhf (wheezy) it astonishingly took just 1.5 hours

now the meles squeezebox server was compiled for armhf so perhaps that made a large difference as well

in day to day use its snappier than the plug but still heavily CPU constrained when squeezebox is doing something

.. so just some improvement of the sata speeds hopefully and a bit of tinkering with the mele LED's (like to get a flashing blue led for booting and a solid blue led for booted and a red led heartbeat for accessing network) and its basically good to go to replace the iconnect ...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2012 11:43AM by hyena.

Thanks for your comments!

SATA seems to work well for me now on the Mele. But still not as fast as the Dockstar.

Quote

a bit of tinkering with the mele LED's (like to get a flashing blue led for booting and a solid blue led for booted and a red led heartbeat for accessing network

That would probably need to be accomplished in u-boot like is done on Kirkwood.

hi,

i cut down in the config on what i installed on the kernel to keep it light and fast so i probably chopped out the relevant led GPIO driver ... these are the commands needed to do the business on the mele .. trouble is i forgot the led driver i need to install :-(

the heartbeat could be relatively easy as the dockstar netfilter script for the same can probably be bastardised and the on/off using the blue led can probably be done by setting the blue to default as off in the script.fex ? and then just adding a command to set the blue to on at the end of the /etc/rc.local or similar script would probably approximate to blue led on when server booted up


Power off blue led
echo '0' > /sys/devices/platform/gpio_sw.1/gpio_sw/PH20/data

Power On blue led
echo '1' > /sys/devices/platform/gpio_sw.1/gpio_sw/PH20/data

Power On red led
echo '1' > /sys/devices/platform/gpio_sw.0/gpio_sw/PH10/data


Power off red led
echo '0' > /sys/devices/platform/gpio_sw.0/gpio_sw/PH10/data

Hyena,

Nice to see you are enjoying the mele a2000.

Cut the led, it's just consuming power for nothing ;)

Mine (32) are in full production since 3 days now and serves an average 100Mbps while sleeping.
More heavy traffic is coming soon.
Uptime is 15 days now and all is quite stable.

Arm rocks ! Mele a2000 rocks !

hey i got the 1000 it was $20 cheaper and basically the same plus the free caddy ;-)

the mele (now its sata is working) has already replaced my little old hacked plug iconnect that has been for the 2 yrs or so 24/7 running squeezebox server/minidlna iplayer TV downloader and an on demand python in build simple webserver (so i can upload pdf's/pics etc to my ipad 3 without the horrific itunes) ... i love the flashing led's ... tells me when the mele is up to no good ;-)

and hey you cant have a cluster of CPU's without loads of flashing lights its not IT is it without those flashing lights ?

the trusty old plug iconnect will not die though .. its gonna hopefully have a new life as a little standalone secure VPN server so i can use public wifi hotspots with a decent chance of keeping my info secure and not exposing my home network too much ...