[REQ] WiFi Sync Boost

[botijo]

Hi,

I tried the WiFi sync the other day and found it somewhat slow - probably due to WiFi being slow anyhow (too many WiFi APs in my neighborhood). I wonder if a faster way to sync would be possible. I might be off the mark by a mile or so, so take my suggestion only if it makes sense.

As the developers control both the server and the client, how about a boost mode? Let me explain, I fear that the client is taking some time asking for each file individually. If that is the case, then the client and the server could agree on a list of files to be sent. The server would concatenate all of them, e.g. unix tar command, making for a very long stream that is efficient to sent over WiFi and no extra network commands. A fairly large buffer would also be appreciated, like 64 MB or so.

The background to this suggestion comes from what we do at my workplace. Where I work we have slow access to remote NFS shares, so if you need to transfer a lot of files, it is far way faster to tar'em up, making a single large file, send that over the network and then untar'em on the other machine via remote login.

I hope all of this make sense and that you can look on ways to improve sync performance.

[Lowlander]

Problem would be with any modifications to the files like conversion or volume leveling which would have to take place prior to sync. I also wonder what the affect of the added overhead of unpacking on slower devices will be.

[botijo]

Errr... Maybe tar was not the best example. One other thing that pops into my mind is Google's SPDY protocol. If I got this one right, it gets a lot more info per TCP connection, instead of standard HTTP where each webpage resource - each graphic, each CSS file, each JS file - is taken by a single TCP connection each.

Another similar example is the Asrock XFastUSB, a feature of some PC motherboards. By not sticking to proper USB mass storage protocols, data transfers can achieve a higher throughput.

I haven't been looking into MMA too much. I have issued another sync today and looked at the standard Windows tools. Windows resource monitor is telling me that Mediamonkey has around 10 TCP open connections to my mobile phone, with the connections being opened and closed all the time. I can also see how the network usage jumps up and down a lot while my CPU is almost IDLE, and I hope that my local harddisk is faster than my network connection. Of course, this is not a thorough investigation - I will let the ones that know better than me to handle that.

One way to improve things is to have a single TCP connection for the whole data set (similar to SPDY), so that neither device needs to open and close so many connections. I know that UPNP uses HTTP for file transmission - I wonder if that is an efficient way to transmit a large amount of binary files. I suppose that any protocol where you can send various files over the same data stream will be OK, and I say the easier the better.

I am sure there are other ways to improve wireless sync - developers are full of creativity themselves.

[Lowlander]

I think MMA uses the UPnP standard for wifi sync. Other protocols could mean major work as devices may not support them.

[rusty]

There's definitely room for improvement here. I used to work for a router company and we saw tremendous gains with the type of approach you're suggesting. Good wishlist item--but first I want to get MMA out the door

-Rusty

[rovingcowboy]

i suggest that you try one of the many new wifi booster apps on play google. they might have one that works for you.
just use the catagory menu and go to tools then go to top new free and look at the free ones that way you only get the tools to show up.

[botijo]

There's definitely room for improvement here. I used to work for a router company and we saw tremendous gains with the type of approach you're suggesting. Good wishlist item--but first I want to get MMA out the door

-Rusty

Thanks Rusty for the reply. Good luck getting MMA ready for mass consumption!

And thanks Lowlander and rovingcowboy for your suggestions.

[zombiefly]

wifi sync is pretty slow, so any improvement in this area is welcomed