Rclone Mount slow read speed

cache mode full, rclone will use sparse files.
in that case, rclone only downloads the chunks, not the entire file.
the file system needs to support sparse files, such as nfts or refs.

the app requests the data and rclone supplies it, so it depends on the app you use.
if that app seeks from the start of the file to the end of the file, rclone has to download all those chunks.

if you are accesing a plex server over the internet, then you are not using rclone, correct?

Yes. Well, i mounted unencryped remote to google drive. Uploaded some files. Those files are in cache as well. And they play like instantly with vfs cache mode full. I think i really don't understand this cache thing. Anyway, the best thing it would do is download small chunks of file. So let's say i want to play 3rd song from the whole flac file. It will download only like 1 MB chunk so it can play like instantly and it can continue downloading small chunks to the end of the song. Is something like this possible with rclone?

btw, i'm using foobar2000 for playback. It is really popular among audiophiles

edit: i did some math. With 1 MB cache it would play ~10 seconds. And along with this 10 seconds, it will download another chunks of song.

The thing is that vfs chache mode full will keep the files as long as a part of the file is open.

If you want to get small parts of that file, you might run into the API limit of google, that is why people use bigger chuncks to fetch (to avoid that you ask google to deliver every time 1 mb of your file, in your case your album).

What kind of playing device shouldnt matter. I think in your case it depends on your internet connection - my flac files are all in the cloud and they load and play smooth - but I have a 10gbit line....

You should also be fine with "read only" like, what was the command? minimal?. It will play it directly from the cloud (or just download and cache it in the temp file).

I am really no specialist, but what I know is the chunks will be kept if the file is open. I assume that is why your files are eating up space: You listen to the file, it grabs a chunk and keeps the entire file. since you play it from beginning to the end, it will downloand and keep the entire file until it is flushed.

great to hear that you got rclone working that way you need.

the OP would need to use 1,000,000,000 api calls in a 24 period.
do not think i ever saw a post that about

Interesting. Currently, i'm testing playback speeds with couple of tweaks and it seems like there's big playback time differences between encrypted and unencrypted music. For my taste, 5 seconds to play is too long. With unencrypted mount, it will play after ~5 seconds (this result has been calculated from 11 samples) The buffer size or cache size seems to do nothing with playback time. The best time i did was that ~5 seconds. With encrypted music its somewhere from 5 to 12 seconds.

I was browsing rclone forum for music topics, many of them used plex for music and it turned out it's horrible with music streaming. Anyway, my internet connection is good for this use i think. 30 MBytes/s down and 5 MBytes/s up.

I tried every type of vfs cache mode. from off, through minimal, writes, to full. The best result is (obviously) with full. That's that ~5 seconds mentioned above. But it takes whole flac file over time (200MB for one album) so if i want to switch albums or interprets, i would need to buy like 1TB drive only for music play lol. Just kidding, it can be crapped with that buffer size and cache size. I set it to 1MB and it's kinda good, no prob there. But the dream for music stream is like 1 second or less. Unfortunately, i don't think it's possible.

I don't have any problem with long testing sessions so if someone would like to help, i would be glad.

you can have rclone flush out cache objects on a timer

--vfs-cache-max-age duration         Max age of objects in the cache. (default 1h0m0s)

I mean, as i mentioned, it can be throttled via cache and buffer size. I'm more afraid of that playback speed. Of fact i will not be able to get better time. Do anyone know how spotify does this? :joy:

i would try to tweak foobar2000

Well, i will try that later, there maybe actually is another option for this. According to this post, i can make DLNA server from rclone? I don't even know what that DLNA is.

sort of a poor mans plex.

most media players can search for dlna servers.
for example, i have a jellyfin media server, same as plex, in dlna mode.
my vlc player or foobar2000 will search for and find the jellyfin server or a rclone dlna server.
in that way, i do not have to use plex player app.

i have a wki about it
https://github.com/rclone/rclone/wiki/turn-your-android-phone-into-a-media-server

i can do that in two seconds.

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Yep. Got DLNA serve working via rclone. Now i can play that flac instantly via VLC. Turns out that foobar2000 probably isn't best for this kind of playback. I will google it to get it into better time. Currently i can play it on ~3 seconds. But there's catch comes with it (for now). You can't set up .cue file for that flac file. Or, i didn't find anything can do that so it looks like i will need to cut every song as separate file.

where can i find a free flac file with .cue for testing?

I'll send you one in a few hours

Edit: Turns out the "serve dlna" has some bugs and issues. That's why it don't show all files. Take a look here and here

thanks for .flac file.

used vlc to open that .cue file, then selecting a song to play, starts without delay.
rclone.exe mount wasabicrypt01: b:\mount\rclone\wasabicrypt01 --read-only --vfs-cache-mode=full

Did you try using that .cue file? If yes i can start worrying about my pc or internet connection. Try play "Big Muff". I have biggest loading time with this one ~11 seconds (in foobar2000).

In VLC, only in 2 songs from 11 i had some small delay like 2 seconds which is pretty cool. Anyway, i tried to play Big Muff but without luck. Via VLC i wasn't able to even play it.

i used vlc to open the .cue file

also, i could not play big muff, might be something to do with the .cue file or .flac file.

That's weird. Luckily, i can play it in foobar. But anyway, the best way is probably DLNA server. Big thank you for testing and trying to optimize whole process! :slightly_smiling_face:

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