HP T5725 - Debian or FreeNAS

[dave77]

Hi,
I've just purchased a HP T5725 to act as a music server for an SB3 and Boom.

I've seen a lot of people on this forum with a HP have installed FreeNAS. The HP has Debian installed already, what advantage (if any) does FreeNAS have over Debian?
Can I just install SlimServer straight to Debian and be up and working?

cheers

[ant.perry]

As a freenas user, you get some nice status information on Squeezecenter through Freenas+Slimnas - the main web interface to squeezecenter will be there either way. Also, the latest stable version 0.69 of FreeNAS would not install on my T5730 (kernel panic). The previous version 0.686.4 was fine, and one of the nightly versions seemed okay as well. Just something to be aware of!

I would guess (as in I don't really know) that there would not be a lot of difference between the Debian or FreeNAS environments for Squeezcenter. You might look to see if other Operating System functions are the deciding factor for you (ie software raid/bit torrent/Upnp/rcp/samba)

regards
Ant

[dave77]

Cheers, i'll give it a try on linux first and see how that goes.

Am I correct in saying that I can just attach a powered USB 500Gb hard drive to the HP T5725 to store my music on?

[cdmackay]

davidrhodes wrote:
> Can I just install SlimServer straight to Debian and be up and
> working?

Yes, at least that's what I'm doing, and I'm using the nightly builds:

diz $ grep -i slim /etc/apt/sources.list
# SqueezeCenter/SlimServer
deb http://debian.slimdevices.com unstable main

diz $ apt-cache policy squeezecenter
squeezecenter:
Installed: 7.4~25533
Candidate: 7.4~25564
Version table:
7.4~25564 0
500 http://debian.slimdevices.com unstable/main Packages
*** 7.4~25533 0
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status


cheers,
calum.

PS - note that although there's also a squeezeplay pkg, it currently
does not startup on Linux platforms, for which there are a couple of
bugs logged.

[dave77]

Cheers, i'll have a read of http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Debian_Package and give it a go!

[ant.perry]

Yes - all the music is on an external HDD. I actually install Squeezecenter on the external drive as well. I am not sure that I have to put it on the external drive but I do this to prevent excessive writing to the onboard flash module which may eventually wear the module out.

Cheers
Ant

[raven22]

I replaced the internal dome with a 2,5" harddisk (which fits inside perfectly), is a bit faster and no wear. Installed a very basic debian lenny, squeezecenter and musicip. Starts up in 20 seconds (via WOL) and with the help of the ServerPowerControl plugin shuts down again when not in use for 30 minutes.

[dave77]

Yes - all the music is on an external HDD. I actually install Squeezecenter on the external drive as well. I am not sure that I have to put it on the external drive but I do this to prevent excessive writing to the onboard flash module which may eventually wear the module out.

How do you install it on the hard drive, is it straight-forward? Also, do hard drives just plug in and work (like WinXp etc) or is it more complicated? cheers

[Kim.T]

All you need for an internal HDD is a 44-pin cable and a IDE HDD (or some kind of IDE to SATA converter for 44-pin connector. The cables goes where the DOM is.
I have a 160Gb HDD inside my T5700 :

[dave77]

I've already got an external HDD so I'll be using that for now, should that just plug into USB and work?