Building Playlists

[larrettp]

There is, indeed, a lot of stuff out there about performance of Slimserver/Squeezecenter on the ReadyNas.

Unfortunately, although customers themselves try to give tips on improvement (some work, some don't) there is little, if any, evidence of the vendors (i.e.Slidevices and Netgear) showing any rapid progress towards finding a lasting, ready to implement solution.

I really feel conned out of a lot of time and money for both the ReadyNas and the Squeezeboxes which have NEVER lived up to the promise I was given at the time of purchase.

When are we going to see true collaboration and willingness to resolve this issue?

[iPhone]

There is, indeed, a lot of stuff out there about performance of Slimserver/Squeezecenter on the ReadyNas.

Unfortunately, although customers themselves try to give tips on improvement (some work, some don't) there is little, if any, evidence of the vendors (i.e.Slidevices and Netgear) showing any rapid progress towards finding a lasting, ready to implement solution.

I really feel conned out of a lot of time and money for both the ReadyNas and the Squeezeboxes which have NEVER lived up to the promise I was given at the time of purchase.

When are we going to see true collaboration and willingness to resolve this issue?

Why do you feel conned? If you do not like the SB3 or Duet, send it back. I believe they both come with a 30-day Satisfaction Guarantee. As for the ReadyNAS, I had one and it did what it said it would do. Was it up to the task of my huge CD collection, NO it was not. The ReadyNAS is also really only meant for a small music collection and not other tasks. It is NOT a PC, it is an intellegent Network Storage Device. The Thecus N5200 Pro is in my opinion the minumum equipment as far as an NAS goes for any small to medium CD collection. And if one has over 5000 CDs, I strongly suggest that one builds their own NAS based off a minimum of an Intel P4 machine with 2 GB RAM running some form of Linux (and before everybody goes crazy, yes you can use older slower PCs, but with P4 prices where they are why would you). The biggest advantage of building your own NAS is that you can fix it yourself from regular PC parts as well as upgrade it anytime.

Finally, if one has a wireless network, why not try keeping the music files stored on the ReadyNAS and running SqueezeCenter on an old PC. That way the NAS does not have to deal with SqueezeCenter or all GUI overhead.

[larrettp]

There are 2 issues here:

1. I have spent countless hours trying to get this setup to perform as promised. WAY beyond any 30 day guarantee. This is mostly because any technical support offered (for any IT product) automatically makes you assume it is YOUR fault! I have tried every new version of Slimserver, SqueezeCentre and RAIDiator issued and they have ALL performed like dogs. My library is well ordered and I spent a long time converting all tracks to the same format (AAC). I put 1gB of RAM in the ReadyNAS and that DID lift the performance from appalling to just dreadful. Since the ReadyNAS, Squeezeboxes and Slimserver were sold as a package, I would have expected them (naively) to work out of the box. Which part of this statement is unreasonable?

2. I would expect the vendors (Netgear and Logitech) to work TOGETHER to solve this problem, not in seeming isolation and denial of responsibility for a product combination which obviously is not fit for purpose. If you are selling a 1Tb server with a promise of music streaming to a specifically named product, it should be capable of working as well with 1Tb of stored music as with 1Gb. Size should not be an issue. Is there anything wrong with that assumption?

What you are suggesting is that the adverts recommending this combination were misleading and, although I can store music on the ReadyNAS and use the Squeezeboxes to stream it, I need to use an interim computer to do the work that SlimServer/SqueezeCenter reckons it should be able to do on the original combination.

[aubuti]

My library is well ordered and I spent a long time converting all tracks to the same format (AAC).

I don't recall you mentioning before that your tracks are AAC. So in addition to the demands of 7500 track shuffle plays, you are also spending lots of the ReadyNAS's scarce CPU power in transcoding. I don't expect to change your mind about what you think you were promised, but imo you are way overtaxing that machine. You could get much better performance with a codec that the SB handles natively (Ogg, MP3, FLAC, etc.) and using Random Mix instead of shuffle.

[larrettp]

But it is advertised to be capable of handling AAC!!! Why should I not believe it? There is a basic dishonesty here. How am I to know that, although it is capable of playing AAC files, it isn't capable of playing them efficiently?

[sebp]

There is a basic dishonesty here. How am I to know that, although it is capable of playing AAC files, it isn't capable of playing them efficiently?

You should not blindly trust ads and reviews.
There are tons of threads in both SlimDevices and Infrant forums where people complain about SlimServer's / SqueezeCenter's poor performance with the ReadyNAS and large music collections.
Now, if you're so upset with your ReadyNAS, sell it and buy a Thecus or whatever, but please stop bugging Slim/Infrant forums with your complaints.

[larrettp]

So...

Are the forums a service provided for customer feedback and to provide solutions for problems found during use...

or are they a nerdfest for those who just want to tinker with the hardware and software but aren't interested in a product that is readily usable by the general public?

[radish]

Forums are like life. They're whatever you make of them.

[bpa]

What processor does your ReadyNAS have?

The processor in the ReadyNAS NV is a IT3107 Network Storage Processor. This is a custom processor tuned for networked storage operations and does not have floating point which means the processor is not good at handling some Perl operations and also many decoding applications.

AFAICT the SC port is the responsibility of ReadyNAS engineering and it is up to them to assess what is acceptable performance from the ReadyNAS platform and decide which functionality (e.g. plugins) can be supported.

[aubuti]

But it is advertised to be capable of handling AAC!!! Why should I not believe it? There is a basic dishonesty here. How am I to know that, although it is capable of playing AAC files, it isn't capable of playing them efficiently?

And it is capable of playing AAC. You have just chosen to torture this little CPU with the way you choose to use it.

You have been given advice to reduce your problems, eg, use Random Mix instead of trying to use shuffle play on 7500 tracks, use a separate program for building your playlists, run SC on a separate PC (doesn't solve your ReadyNAS problem, but at least you cut the losses from buying hardware that isn't up to your expectations), etc. Have you tried any of these, or do you just think these "nerdfest" forums are supposed to be a place to complain and ignore advice?