Nothing to do with QoS at all, and yes the existing WD NAS is probably the bottle neck and getting a higher spec one will probably help.
Wiring it all through a seperate switch, just a basic layer 2 one which it sounds is likely what OP has, means you’re taking the router out of the equation should that be in someway lacking, they aren’t often that well made or specified, especially the freebies the ISP’s hand out.
Beyond that I haven’t over analysed the specifics, something to try out, see if it helps with the setup, pack it back to the loft if it makes no difference, move on.
I agree if NAS and streamer and wifi connect to a separate switch, if the router is an old design it’s switchports may be lacking, but highly unlikely for anything made in recent years.
The router is an ASUS AC88U router modem, which has been well reviwed so I’d hope the switching etc would be OK. It replaced a BT Homehub 6. If it is OK then I probably don’t need the Netgear switch in. I did wire it in last night and noticed perhaps a very slight improvement but there were still pauses, albeit smaller ones
Thanks as always. You’ve saved me hours of time I would have spent fiddling with Qos and as always I’ve learned a great deal. I can spend that time pouring over Synology NAS’s on Amazon to see what might suit and what they can deliver!
No harm having a tinker with these things.
Do report back on your NAS shopping and changes ahead. Back to your original issue of higher resolution files, you’ll probably find unless you swap out the Qute for something newer/improved that exploring the higher resolution versions of recordings won’t ultimately prove that rewarding anyway, beyond a curiosity that is. I’ve found it a bit hit and miss and ultimately it comes down to the source of the mastering and how the mastering itself is conducted as to how beneficial the final result is from a listening enjoyment perspective.
I have found some very nice DSD recordings for example of live performances that sounded very nice so maybe take a look there also for comparison.
Good luck with the NAS shopping, I’m sure others can advise in suitability of specific models/versions. Synology or Qnap is a good start as mentioned elsewhere.
Thanks for all the help. I’ll certainly report back when I get it all going, subject to deliveries and so on. But being at home means there is time to tinker!!
I did this when I first got G.fast installed (Smarthub 2, which is, I think, the same thing), but soon found the ASUS has a memory leak and will stop responding after about a month, requiring a reboot.
Two weeks ago I switched back to the BT and all seems to be better - I no longer get the occasional stutter in Teams and wi-fi throughput is slightly higher.
I only switched away from the BT as I couldn’t get “BT WiFi” to disable (I still can’t), which is supposed to happen automatically if disabled on your BT account.
(I found that when available memory got below about 90MB on the ASUS it would perhaps continue to stream iradio, but nothing else could connect, wirelessly or Ethernet, or route so it was effectively dead in the water. This was reboot time).
There was no noticeable change if I played with QoS and no noticeable change in SQ between the two (not that I expected it). I do have NAS and streamer on their own switch, initially because I didn’t have enough ports on the modem/router then I fell into the Netgear/Cisco comparison hole, then, worse still, the cable whirlpool, but that’s another story altogether and about which too much has already been written.
Sounds painful but all too common inevitably. Hope you managed to sort it all out and find a workable solution.
Thanks Tall Guy
Where on the Asus router page did you find the available memory read you refer to? I can find nothing like that, but I’m probably looking in the wrong place
My experience so far is that the Asus is superior to the BT Homehub6 I had in terms of stability and range. But that could change if there is a memory problem as I have only been using it about two weeks
Does all this mean you recommend a router reboot occassionally? I had always thought you left them alone, as I do the Qute2 itself and do not turn off and on. Is that right?
Many thanks
Noisy
I am not sure what you mean by stability… the BT SmartHub 2 are rock solid and go for months on end without issue… in fact they only restart when a new firmware is automatically downloaded by BT , or there is a power cut. They are designed to be highly stable so as not to upset the BT DLM system that an unreliable modem router would otherwise do, and impact the BT network performance you receive.
As far as the modem, technically the BT device will almost certainly be superior to the Asus , because of interoperability matching with the BT cabinet firmware, especially with VDSL, less so with ADSL.
Wifi may vary… but as has been posted many tines before multiple access points or an EasyMesh system is nearly always preferable to one single access point trying to reach your whole house.
Thanks Simon.
My original Homehub was an early one but failed and was replaced by BT. I’ll have to see whether it’s a SmartHub1 or 2? Perhaps I’ll give BT a ring and get a new one
By stabilty, I mean that there seem to be fewer dropouts
We are not on VDSL here and are unlikely to be for some time. Ours is Infinity 1
Infinity 1 is VDSL.
I’ve not got it in use anymore so, from memory:
On the default front page over on the right are several tabs for performance it’s over there somewhere in the form of a graph.
My experience with it was that it was excellent until it stopped with no warning, then a reboot was required - around every month. I don’t recommend a reboot, it became a neccessity when it locked up. You should aim to reboot as infrequently as possible to maximise line performance,
With the Smarthub 2 I’ve not had to do a reboot and it seems just as good, if not slightly better with wifi signal at range. The downsides of the Smarthub 2 (and why I bought the Asus) were that it can’t be configured with my choice (or any choice) of DNS, BT Wireless is always active, even though it’s supposed to be configured as off (All BT devices are wifi hotspots unless it’s switched off, but that’s done from your “my account”/“My BT” page, not on the device. My device hasn’t noticed yet that the account sets it to off), not being able to seperate 2.4G and 5GHz (I accept the reasoning behind this, but it doesn’t mean I don’t find it annoying with some devices) and the awful way it sets up DHCP reservations.
The upsides of the Smarthub 2 are its performance, it’s ability to not stand out like an alien helmet in a domestic environment (VERY important), its simplcity, it “just works” with BT TV (I believe, I don’t have it but friends tell me it does - they’ve borrowed my Asus and failed to get that working) and its stability.
If you’re a BT customer it’s a no-brainer - if I’d tried it for more than a few days before buying the Asus I probably wouldn’t have bought the Asus.
I guy I know who had an Asus, not sure of age or model, but he’d had it at least 4 years. They were all happy until it failed, I believe it had a ‘coming together’ with a heavy curtain track. Whatever he ended up with a borrowed BT HH6 (the previous model to the latest SmartHub-2) & was surprised how it ‘just worked’ with no need for any playing with. He’s since moved on to a better BT service which included a SmartHub-2 & has no desire to go back to 3rd party router/wireless/hubs. The 5 bed house includes wife, 3 teenagers, ethernet wired BT TV, no interest in hifi & he runs a business from home. He has good all over wifi & this does not include extender discs.
Thank you all. I thik a call to BT is in order
Simon, sorry for the idiot mistake of ADSL and VDSL; it was late! The point remains though that here, over a mile to the nearet cabinet and well out of the nearby small town I cannot see full fibre being a priority, sadly. 16-20Mbs is what I get compared with my son’s 100+ in the metropolis 10 miles up the road
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