Temp and final image directories in a remote PC?

[fjhdavid]

Hello,

 

I use backyard eos for several months and it is very reliable and valuable.

 

In fact I use an ethernet link between my two PC's (the first one is near the Telescope where Backyard is installed and the second PC stay in the house).

 

In backyardeos settings, I choose to save pictures directly on the "house PC" harddisk . It works perfectly as the connection is 1gbits fast, and pictures are saved almost as fast as if the hard drive was in the "Telescope PC".

 

The only drawback, is that almost of all my pictures stay in the temp directory of the "house PC", and take a long time to be transferred to the "final directory" of the "house PC" and if, before the transfert process finished, I launch another acquisition plan, pictures won't be transferred at all to the final directory, (they stay for ever in the temp directory).

 

I don't understand why, as the temp and final directories are both on the same hard drive (in the "house PC");

 

Do I have to change something in the settings?

 

thanks

François

[s3igell]

You've setup a rather "challenging" environment for most any App to be moving around the large CR2 files which are produced by your DSLR.

 

You don't specify, but let's assume:

House PC is a moderately powerful PC with current WD Green HDD SATA II Drive

Telescope PC is older less powerful PC with older SATA I Drive

Ethernet is 1Gb but usual Half-Duplex

Temp and Final Directories are Network Mapped to House PC

 

Gigabit Ethernet has a "Theoretical Speed" of 125MB/s, but usually a real-world speed of 30-40MB/s due to latencies and negotiation and half-duplex.

SATA II HDDs have Write Speeds of 25-50MB/s.

 

When BYE's Background Worker Thread works to move the 20-25MB .CR2 file from the Temp to Final Directory, due to the Network Mapped Drives this becomes a File Copy where data is Read from Temp on House PC across Ethernet to memory in Telescope PC and then turned back across Ethernet to Write to Final Directory on House PC.  You are generating two trips across Ethernet, with contention due to these copies occurring simultaneously.  And you have contention at the HDD for the same reason.  With all of this, it's no surprise that results are substantially slower than you'd expect...  

You should perform a few tests where you simply use your Remote Control software to have the Telescope PC "Move" a .CR2 file from the Temp to Final directories on the House PC - just to give you baseline expectations.

 

But, this doesn't explain why you have occasions where the files don't successfully end up in the Final directory...

 

Honestly, I'd suggest that you have BYE working Locally on the Telescope PC - including Temp and Final Directories.  This will allow BYE (and it's Background Worker Thread) to process at Full Speed, and to maximize your Exposure Time.  It will also improve the speed of BYE functions like the Filmstrip and Previews and Overlay Mask and Planetary Video Imaging and Snapshots and...

Then use the other File Transfer capabilities of your Remote Software to transfer those Final files onto your House PC.  You can even do this on a Per File basis during the middle of each subsequent Exposure.

[admin]

Are you saying that both you download folder and temp folder are on a different pc other than where BYE is installed / running?

 

The BackyardTEMP must be on the same PC and must be an internal hard drive to the PC were BYE is running.  Have the BackyardTEMP in any other location other than an internal hard drive where BYE is running is not supported.

 

Does this makes sense?

 

Guylain

[fjhdavid]

thanks for all these info!

 

could it be a medium and supported (but not optimal) solution to run Backyard Eos and the BackyardTEMP on the "Telescope PC" and have the "Final Directory" on the "House PC" ?

[admin]

thanks for all these info!

 

could it be a medium and supported (but not optimal) solution to run Backyard Eos and the BackyardTEMP on the "Telescope PC" and have the "Final Directory" on the "House PC" ?

 

No, the BackyardTEMP folder HAS to be a local directory.  If this folder becomes unavailable, even for just 1 second, things will start to fail.  It must be on a local drive.

 

Your final download folder on the other hand can be on a remote drive, but if it becomes unavailable when an image is being copied in that folder it will remain in the BackyardTEMP folder.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Regards,

[fjhdavid]

thank you! it is very useful; I will test this configuration

[fjhdavid]

just to let you know:

 

if you put the TEMP folder on local HD (where Backyard is running), and the "Final" folder on a network mapped Hard drive, it works perfectly!

 

thanks Guylain

 

Francois

[admin]

just to let you know:

 

if you put the TEMP folder on local HD (where Backyard is running), and the "Final" folder on a network mapped Hard drive, it works perfectly!

 

thanks Guylain

 

Francois

 

Yep, that is the indented behavior

 

Regards,