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• avcodec/x86/vvc : add alf filter luma and chroma avx2 optimizations

  13 mai 2024, par Wu Jianhua

  avcodec/x86/vvc : add alf filter luma and chroma avx2 optimizations
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x4_10_c : 135
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x4_10_avx2 : 54
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x8_10_c : 268
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x8_10_avx2 : 106
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x12_10_c : 400
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x12_10_avx2 : 160
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x16_10_c : 535
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x16_10_avx2 : 213
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x20_10_c : 646
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x20_10_avx2 : 262
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x24_10_c : 783
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x24_10_avx2 : 309
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x28_10_c : 908
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x28_10_avx2 : 361
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x32_10_c : 1039
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_4x32_10_avx2 : 412
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x4_10_c : 260
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x4_10_avx2 : 53
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x8_10_c : 516
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x8_10_avx2 : 105
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x12_10_c : 779
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x12_10_avx2 : 157
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x16_10_c : 1038
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x16_10_avx2 : 210
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x20_10_c : 1293
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x20_10_avx2 : 259
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x24_10_c : 1553
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x24_10_avx2 : 309
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x28_10_c : 1815
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x28_10_avx2 : 361
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x32_10_c : 2067
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_8x32_10_avx2 : 419
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x4_10_c : 390
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x4_10_avx2 : 54
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x8_10_c : 773
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x8_10_avx2 : 107
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x12_10_c : 1159
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x12_10_avx2 : 155
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x16_10_c : 1550
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x16_10_avx2 : 207
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x20_10_c : 1970
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x20_10_avx2 : 260
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x24_10_c : 2379
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x24_10_avx2 : 309
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x28_10_c : 2763
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x28_10_avx2 : 362
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x32_10_c : 3158
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_12x32_10_avx2 : 419
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x4_10_c : 523
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x4_10_avx2 : 53
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x8_10_c : 1049
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x8_10_avx2 : 103
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x12_10_c : 1566
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x12_10_avx2 : 159
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x16_10_c : 2078
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x16_10_avx2 : 211
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x20_10_c : 2631
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x20_10_avx2 : 259
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x24_10_c : 3149
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x24_10_avx2 : 316
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x28_10_c : 3631
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x28_10_avx2 : 359
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x32_10_c : 4233
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_16x32_10_avx2 : 428
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x4_10_c : 649
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x4_10_avx2 : 106
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x8_10_c : 1294
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x8_10_avx2 : 206
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x12_10_c : 1936
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x12_10_avx2 : 310
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x16_10_c : 2594
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x16_10_avx2 : 411
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x20_10_c : 3234
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x20_10_avx2 : 517
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x24_10_c : 3894
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x24_10_avx2 : 621
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x28_10_c : 4542
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x28_10_avx2 : 722
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x32_10_c : 5205
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_20x32_10_avx2 : 832
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x4_10_c : 774
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x4_10_avx2 : 104
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x8_10_c : 1546
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x8_10_avx2 : 206
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x12_10_c : 2318
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x12_10_avx2 : 312
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x16_10_c : 3104
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x16_10_avx2 : 411
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x20_10_c : 3893
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x20_10_avx2 : 513
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x24_10_c : 4681
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x24_10_avx2 : 616
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x28_10_c : 5474
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x28_10_avx2 : 721
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x32_10_c : 6271
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_24x32_10_avx2 : 832
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x4_10_c : 907
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x4_10_avx2 : 103
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x8_10_c : 1797
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x8_10_avx2 : 206
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x12_10_c : 2708
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x12_10_avx2 : 309
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x16_10_c : 3632
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x16_10_avx2 : 413
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x20_10_c : 4537
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x20_10_avx2 : 519
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x24_10_c : 5463
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x24_10_avx2 : 616
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x28_10_c : 6372
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x28_10_avx2 : 719
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x32_10_c : 7274
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_28x32_10_avx2 : 823
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x4_10_c : 1029
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x4_10_avx2 : 104
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x8_10_c : 2060
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x8_10_avx2 : 206
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x12_10_c : 3112
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x12_10_avx2 : 307
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x16_10_c : 4161
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x16_10_avx2 : 413
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x20_10_c : 5211
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x20_10_avx2 : 514
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x24_10_c : 6238
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x24_10_avx2 : 614
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x28_10_c : 7261
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x28_10_avx2 : 720
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x32_10_c : 8312
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_luma_32x32_10_avx2 : 819
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x4_10_c : 70
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x4_10_avx2 : 53
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x8_10_c : 139
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x8_10_avx2 : 104
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x12_10_c : 208
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x12_10_avx2 : 155
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x16_10_c : 275
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x16_10_avx2 : 218
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x20_10_c : 344
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x20_10_avx2 : 257
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x24_10_c : 411
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x24_10_avx2 : 309
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x28_10_c : 481
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x28_10_avx2 : 361
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x32_10_c : 545
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_4x32_10_avx2 : 411
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x4_10_c : 138
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x4_10_avx2 : 53
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x8_10_c : 274
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x8_10_avx2 : 106
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x12_10_c : 422
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x12_10_avx2 : 158
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x16_10_c : 545
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x16_10_avx2 : 206
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x20_10_c : 683
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x20_10_avx2 : 257
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x24_10_c : 816
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x24_10_avx2 : 312
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x28_10_c : 951
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x28_10_avx2 : 359
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x32_10_c : 1098
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_8x32_10_avx2 : 409
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x4_10_c : 204
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x4_10_avx2 : 53
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x8_10_c : 410
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x8_10_avx2 : 104
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x12_10_c : 614
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x12_10_avx2 : 155
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x16_10_c : 814
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x16_10_avx2 : 210
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x20_10_c : 1017
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x20_10_avx2 : 258
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x24_10_c : 1221
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x24_10_avx2 : 308
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x28_10_c : 1423
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x28_10_avx2 : 366
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x32_10_c : 1624
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_12x32_10_avx2 : 410
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x4_10_c : 272
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x4_10_avx2 : 52
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x8_10_c : 541
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x8_10_avx2 : 105
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x12_10_c : 812
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x12_10_avx2 : 155
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x16_10_c : 1091
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x16_10_avx2 : 206
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x20_10_c : 1354
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x20_10_avx2 : 257
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x24_10_c : 1637
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x24_10_avx2 : 313
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x28_10_c : 1899
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x28_10_avx2 : 359
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x32_10_c : 2161
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_16x32_10_avx2 : 410
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x4_10_c : 339
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x4_10_avx2 : 103
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x8_10_c : 681
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x8_10_avx2 : 207
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x12_10_c : 1013
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x12_10_avx2 : 307
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x16_10_c : 1349
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x16_10_avx2 : 415
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x20_10_c : 1685
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x20_10_avx2 : 522
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x24_10_c : 2037
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x24_10_avx2 : 622
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x28_10_c : 2380
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x28_10_avx2 : 733
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x32_10_c : 2712
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_20x32_10_avx2 : 838
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x4_10_c : 408
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x4_10_avx2 : 104
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x8_10_c : 818
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x8_10_avx2 : 207
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x12_10_c : 1219
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x12_10_avx2 : 308
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x16_10_c : 1648
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x16_10_avx2 : 420
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x20_10_c : 2061
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x20_10_avx2 : 525
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x24_10_c : 2437
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x24_10_avx2 : 617
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x28_10_c : 2832
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x28_10_avx2 : 722
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x32_10_c : 3271
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_24x32_10_avx2 : 830
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x4_10_c : 476
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x4_10_avx2 : 104
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x8_10_c : 948
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x8_10_avx2 : 205
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x12_10_c : 1420
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x12_10_avx2 : 310
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x16_10_c : 1889
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x16_10_avx2 : 423
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x20_10_c : 2372
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x20_10_avx2 : 513
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x24_10_c : 2843
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x24_10_avx2 : 618
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x28_10_c : 3307
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x28_10_avx2 : 724
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x32_10_c : 3801
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_28x32_10_avx2 : 827
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x4_10_c : 543
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x4_10_avx2 : 105
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x8_10_c : 1084
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x8_10_avx2 : 206
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x12_10_c : 1621
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x12_10_avx2 : 309
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x16_10_c : 2173
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x16_10_avx2 : 408
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x20_10_c : 2703
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x20_10_avx2 : 513
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x24_10_c : 3245
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x24_10_avx2 : 612
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x28_10_c : 3795
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x28_10_avx2 : 722
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x32_10_c : 4339
  
  ff_vvc_alf_filter_chroma_32x32_10_avx2 : 820
  Signed-off-by : Wu Jianhua <toqsxw@outlook.com>
  

  • [DH] libavcodec/x86/vvc/Makefile
  • [DH] libavcodec/x86/vvc/vvc_alf.asm
  • [DH] libavcodec/x86/vvc/vvcdsp_init.c

• libavcodec/alpha : remove DSP & support code

  9 juin 2024, par Sean McGovern

  libavcodec/alpha : remove DSP & support code
  Introduced in 1992, the Alpha was a 64-bit RISC processor designed
  
  to replace the VAX CISC machines sold by Digital Equipment Corporation.
  After Digital was acquired by Compaq in 1998 — who themselves would be
  
  later purchased by Hewlett-Packard, the architecture was phased out over
  
  the following decade. It became effectively defunct in 2007, the last
  
  publicly available processor being the Alpha 21364.
  FFmpeg has not added any DSP code for this architecture since lowres2
  
  was introduced in 2012, and it is more than unlikely someone still wishes
  
  to maintain it.
  Remove the DSP and support code.
  Signed-off-by : Vittorio Giovara <vittorio.giovara@gmail.com>
  

  • [DH] Changelog
  • [DH] configure
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/Makefile
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/asm.h
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/blockdsp_alpha.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/hpeldsp_alpha.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/hpeldsp_alpha.h
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/hpeldsp_alpha_asm.S
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/idctdsp_alpha.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/idctdsp_alpha.h
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/idctdsp_alpha_asm.S
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/me_cmp_alpha.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/me_cmp_mvi_asm.S
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/mpegvideo_alpha.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/pixblockdsp_alpha.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/regdef.h
  • [DH] libavcodec/alpha/simple_idct_alpha.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/blockdsp.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/hpeldsp.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/idctdsp.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/me_cmp.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/mpegvideo.c
  • [DH] libavcodec/pixblockdsp.c

• Adventures In NAS

  1er janvier, par Multimedia Mike — General

  In my post last year about my out-of-control single-board computer (SBC) collection which included my meager network attached storage (NAS) solution, I noted that :

  I find that a lot of my fellow nerds massively overengineer their homelab NAS setups. I’ll explore this in a future post. For my part, people tend to find my homelab NAS solution slightly underengineered.

  So here I am, exploring this is a future post. I’ve been in the home NAS game a long time, but have never had very elaborate solutions for such. For my part, I tend to take an obsessively reductionist view of what constitutes a NAS : Any small computer with a pool of storage and a network connection, running the Linux operating system and the Samba file sharing service.

  
  
  

  Many home users prefer to buy turnkey boxes, usually that allow you to install hard drives yourself, and then configure the box and its services with a friendly UI. My fellow weird computer nerds often buy cast-off enterprise hardware and set up more resilient, over-engineered solutions, as long as they have strategies to mitigate the noise and dissipate the heat, and don’t mind the electricity bills.

  If it works, awesome ! As an old hand at this, I am rather stuck in my ways, however, preferring to do my own stunts, both with the hardware and software solutions.

  My History With Home NAS Setups
  In 1998, I bought myself a new computer — beige box tower PC, as was the style as the time. This was when normal people only had one computer at most. It ran Windows, but I was curious about this new thing called “Linux” and learned to dual boot that. Later that year, it dawned on me that nothing prevented me from buying a second ugly beige box PC and running Linux exclusively on it. Further, it could be a headless Linux box, connected by ethernet, and I could consolidate files into a single place using this file sharing software named Samba.
  

  I remember it being fairly onerous to get Samba working in those days. And the internet was not quite so helpful in those days. I recall that the thing that blocked me for awhile was needing to know that I had to specify an entry for the Samba server machine in the LMHOSTS (Lanman hosts) file on the Windows 95 machine.

  However, after I cracked that code, I have pretty much always had some kind of ad-hoc home NAS setup, often combined with a headless Linux development box.

  In the early 2000s, I built a new beige box PC for a file server, with a new hard disk, and a coworker tutored me on setting up a (P)ATA UDMA 133 (or was it 150 ? anyway, it was (P)ATA’s last hurrah before SATA conquered all) expansion card and I remember profiling that the attached hard drive worked at a full 21 MBytes/s reading. It was pretty slick. Except I hadn’t really thought things through. You see, I had a hand-me-down ethernet hub cast-off from my job at the time which I wanted to use. It was a 100 Mbps repeater hub, not a switch, so the catch was that all connected machines had to be capable of 100 Mbps. So, after getting all of my machines (3 at the time) upgraded to support 10/100 ethernet (the old off-brand PowerPC running Linux was the biggest challenge), I profiled transfers and realized that the best this repeater hub could achieve was about 3.6 MBytes/s. For a long time after that, I just assumed that was the upper limit of what a 100 Mbps network could achieve. Obviously, I now know that the upper limit ought to be around 11.2 MBytes/s and if I had gamed out that fact in advance, I would have realized it didn’t make sense to care about super-fast (for the time) disk performance.

  At this time, I was doing a lot for development for MPlayer/xine/FFmpeg. I stored all of my multimedia material on this NAS. I remember being confused when I was working with Y4M data, which is raw frames, which is lots of data. xine, which employed a pre-buffering strategy, would play fine for a few seconds and then stutter. Eventually, I reasoned out that the files I was working with had a data rate about twice what my awful repeater hub supported, which is probably the first time I came to really understand and respect streaming speeds and their implications for multimedia playback.

  Smaller Solutions
  For a period, I didn’t have a NAS. Then I got an Apple AirPort Extreme, which I noticed had a USB port. So I bought a dual drive brick to plug into it and used that for a time. Later (2009), I had this thing called the MSI Wind Nettop which is the only PC I’ve ever seen that can use a CompactFlash (CF) card for a boot drive. So I did just that, and installed a large drive so it could function as a NAS, as well as a headless dev box. I’m still amazed at what a low-power I/O beast this thing is, at least when compared to all the ARM SoCs I have tried in the intervening 1.5 decades. I’ve had spinning hard drives in this thing that could read at 160 MBytes/s (‘dd’ method) and have no trouble saturating the gigabit link at 112 MBytes/s, all with its early Intel Atom CPU.

  Around 2015, I wanted a more capable headless dev box and discovered Intel’s line of NUCs. I got one of the fat models that can hold a conventional 2.5″ spinning drive in addition to the M.2 SATA SSD and I was off and running. That served me fine for a few years, until I got into the ARM SBC scene. One major limitation here is that 2.5″ drives aren’t available in nearly the capacities that make a NAS solution attractive.

  Current Solution
  My current NAS solution, chronicled in my last SBC post– the ODroid-HC2, which is a highly compact ARM SoC with an integrated USB3-SATA bridge so that a SATA drive can be connected directly to it :

  
  

  

  ODROID-HC2 NAS

  
  

  I tend to be weirdly proficient at recalling dates, so I’m surprised that I can’t recall when I ordered this and put it into service. But I’m pretty sure it was circa 2018. It’s only equipped with an 8 TB drive now, but I seem to recall that it started out with only a 4 TB drive. I think I upgraded to the 8 TB drive early in the pandemic in 2020, when ISPs were implementing temporary data cap amnesty and I was doing what a r/DataHoarder does.

  The HC2 has served me well, even though it has a number of shortcomings for a hardware set chartered for NAS :

  1. While it has a gigabit ethernet port, it’s documented that it never really exceeds about 70 MBytes/s, due to the SoC’s limitations
  2. The specific ARM chip (Samsung Exynos 5422 ; more than a decade old as of this writing) lacks cryptography instructions, slowing down encryption if that’s your thing (e.g., LUKS)
  3. While the SoC supports USB3, that block is tied up for the SATA interface ; the remaining USB port is only capable of USB2 speeds
  4. 32-bit ARM, which prevented me from running certain bits of software I wanted to try (like Minio)
  5. Only 1 drive, so no possibility for RAID (again, if that’s your thing)

  I also love to brag on the HC2’s power usage : I once profiled the unit for a month using a Kill-A-Watt and under normal usage (with the drive spinning only when in active use). The unit consumed 4.5 kWh… in an entire month.

  New Solution
  Enter the ODroid-HC4 (I purchased mine from Ameridroid but Hardkernel works with numerous distributors) :

  
  

  

  ODroid-HC4 with an SSD and a conventional drive

  
  

  I ordered this earlier in the year and after many months of procrastinating and obsessing over the best approach to take with its general usage, I finally have it in service as my new NAS. Comparing point by point with the HC2 :

  1. The gigabit ethernet runs at full speed (though a few things on my network run at 2.5 GbE now, so I guess I’ll always be behind)
  2. The ARM chip (Amlogic S905X3) has AES cryptography acceleration and handles all the LUKS stuff without breaking a sweat ; “cryptsetup benchmark” reports between 500-600 MBytes/s on all the AES variants
  3. The USB port is still only USB2, so no improvement there
  4. 64-bit ARM, which means I can run Minio to simulate block storage in a local dev environment for some larger projects I would like to undertake
  5. Supports 2 drives, if RAID is your thing

  How I Set It Up
  How to set up the drive configuration ? As should be apparent from the photo above, I elected for an SSD (500 GB) for speed, paired with a conventional spinning HDD (18 TB) for sheer capacity. I’m not particularly trusting of RAID. I’ve watched it fail too many times, on systems that I don’t even manage, not to mention that aforementioned RAID brick that I had attached to the Apple AirPort Extreme.

  I had long been planning to use bcache, the block caching interface for Linux, which can use the SSD as a speedy cache in front of the more capacious disk. There is also LVM cache, which is supposed to achieve something similar. And then I had to evaluate the trade-offs in whether I wanted write-back, write-through, or write-around configurations.

  This was all predicated on the assumption that the spinning drive would not be able to saturate the gigabit connection. When I got around to setting up the hardware and trying some basic tests, I found that the conventional HDD had no trouble keeping up with the gigabit data rate, both reading and writing, somewhat obviating the need for SSD acceleration using any elaborate caching mechanisms.

  Maybe that’s because I sprung for the WD Red Pro series this time, rather than the Red Plus ? I’m guessing that conventional drives do deteriorate over the years. I’ll find out.

  For the operating system, I stuck with my newest favorite Linux distro : DietPi. While HardKernel (parent of ODroid) makes images for the HC units, I had also used DietPi for the HC2 for the past few years, as it tends to stay more up to date.

  Then I rsync’d my data from HC2 -> HC4. It was only about 6.5 TB of total data but it took days as this WD Red Plus drive is only capable of reading at around 10 MBytes/s these days. Painful.

  For file sharing, I’m pretty sure most normal folks have nice web UIs in their NAS boxes which allow them to easily configure and monitor the shares. I know there are such applications I could set up. But I’ve been doing this so long, I just do a bare bones setup through the terminal. I installed regular Samba and then brought over my smb.conf file from the HC2. 1 by 1, I tested that each of the old shares were activated on the new NAS and deactivated on the old NAS. I also set up a new share for the SSD. I guess that will just serve as a fast I/O scratch space on the NAS.

  The conventional drive spins up and down. That’s annoying when I’m actively working on something but manage not to hit the drive for like 5 minutes and then an application blocks while the drive wakes up. I suppose I could set it up so that it is always running. However, I micro-manage this with a custom bash script I wrote a long time ago which logs into the NAS and runs the “date” command every 2 minutes, appending the output to a file. As a bonus, it also prints data rate up/down stats every 5 seconds. The spinning file (“nas-main/zz-keep-spinning/keep-spinning.txt”) has never been cleared and has nearly a quarter million lines. I suppose that implies that it has kept the drive spinning for 1/2 million minutes which works out to around 347 total days. I should compare that against the drive’s SMART stats, if I can remember how. The earliest timestamp in the file is from March 2018, so I know the HC2 NAS has been in service at least that long.

  For tasks, vintage cron still does everything I could need. In this case, that means reaching out to websites (like this one) and automatically backing up static files.

  I also have to have a special script for starting up. Fortunately, I was able to bring this over from the HC2 and tweak it. The data disks (though not boot disk) are encrypted. Those need to be unlocked and only then is it safe for the Samba and Minio services to start up. So one script does all that heavy lifting in the rare case of a reboot (this is the type of system that’s well worth having on a reliable UPS).

  Further Work
  I need to figure out how to use the OLED display on the NAS, and how to make it show something more useful than the current time and date, which is what it does in its default configuration with HardKernel’s own Linux distro. With DietPi, it does nothing by default. I’m thinking it should be able to show the percent usage of each of the 2 drives, at a minimum.

  I also need to establish a more responsible backup regimen. I’m way too lazy about this. Fortunately, I reason that I can keep the original HC2 in service, repurposed to accept backups from the main NAS. Again, I’m sort of micro-managing this since a huge amount of data isn’t worth backing up (remember the whole DataHoarder bit), but the most important stuff will be shipped off.

  The post Adventures In NAS first appeared on Breaking Eggs And Making Omelettes.