connected fast USB 3.0 stick and measured performance with time dd:
write speed over 50MB/s, read speed was over 100MB/s.
used a cutout of Gemini Man Remux (with over 100mbps overall bitrate) and tested with miniDLNA on my TV, no problem. So SoC can also perform reading over 10MB/s of real data.
since I have an offsite linux server I'd like to download some stuff from and about 10MB/s (up to 100mbps) bandwidth for that, I tried several options:
First idea was scp, but that was rather slow - around 400KB/s (~3.2mbps). I know I can download with 10MB/s over filezilla to my windows machine from that server.
I thought ssh encryption is too much for puny SoC, so I tried sshfs from my windows machine and I can reach 5MB/s (~40mbps) writing and up to 7.5MB/s (~60mbps) reading from USB storage over Wi-Fi 5 (750-866mbps connection). Not the best performance (considering I was able to reach over 10MB/s (100mbps) from my old macbook to PC and back with Wi-Fi). So encryption is not a big issue, IMHO.
I tried creating a torrent from the server and using transmission-daemon on the router, but still was barely reaching 3.5MB/s (~under 30mbps) download speed, with no encryption. Same torrent download on my windows PC easily reached 10MB/s (~100mbps)
So what am I missing?
How can I download files on my router's USB-drive from that Linux server faster?
Extrapolating from past experiences with ath79/ usb2, your figures don't appear to be too far off from what to expect from 2* 880 MHz mips1004Kc.
Both scp and sshfs are essentially the same in terms of performance requirements, while bittorrent does away with the encryption part, it adds its own overhead by splitting the data into chunks and having to dis- and re-assemble the data from these chunks with cryptographic checksums and high RAM usage, neither of which is great for high performance.
Both scp and sshfs are essentially the same in terms of performance requirements
I figured as much. Tried justbeamit.com with aria2 and got the same 3.5MB/s (~30mbps). On all encrypted transfers top shows ~25% load - one thread out of 4 (CPU has 2 cores 4 threads apparently). Still wondering why sshfs mounted in Windows gives me better writing/reading speeds, while still showing 25% load? and why scp was so slow?
What would you propose to utilize the most bandwidth?
How can I temporarily create an unsecure and linear stream from the linux server?
To be honest, faster hardware…
ARMv7/ ARMv8 with 2+ cores and >1 GHz each.
…and even then I'd strongly reconsider if my router were the right device to use as file- or general purpose server (and I am using an x86_64 Atom j1900 with 4 GB RAM, 32 GB SSD (of which less than 100 MB are in use…) and USB3 myself, intentionally only doing router stuff).
