Firmware update request to ease strain on resources

[aubuti]

Especially as drives need to be disconnected periodically to put more stuff on them.

Notwithstanding the merits of your other points, this one just isn't true. At least not with the Touch, because it runs a Samba server, so you can transfer files to it over the network while it's still connected to the Touch. Or are you referring to the Boxee only here?

[jean2]

Especially as drives need to be disconnected periodically to put more stuff on them.

Others have mentioned Samba/Windows file sharing. I personally found Samba to fussy, so I rsync directly to the Touch :

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showth...ht=touch+rsync

You may want to stop the server during rsync.

I've also used "scp" for the occasional file, and you could script that.

Jean

[Phil Leigh]

OK Phil, I've never counted my tracks. But there are lots. And lots. And if I put them all on one drive, the Touch becomes slow and unstable. And judging by many other reviews elsewhere, I am not alone in this.

10,000? 50,000? 100,000?

You must have some idea - everyone who has a sizeable/important collection knows exactly how many tracks they have... they are (rightly) paranoid about backups!

[Phil Leigh]

Oh, it was never an issue of expense, I don't know why Phil even raised the issue. I have lots of disk drives. Three of them dedicated to audio now (Rock, Jazz and Classical!) instead of just one drive with three "genre" folders.

Never mind. I guess it really is the case that the Touch must (for some design reason) scan an entire device that is connected, and is incapable of only scanning a nominated folder. It was worth asking anyway.

I raised it because I got the impression - maybe wrongly - that you had non-music stuff on the disks.

What format are your files? flac?

[slate]

10,000? 50,000? 100,000?

You must have some idea - everyone who has a sizeable/important collection knows exactly how many tracks they have... they are (rightly) paranoid about backups!

If it is 500GB of FLAC then about 20.000 tracks

[rotho]

OK Phil, I've never counted my tracks. But there are lots. And lots. And if I put them all on one drive, the Touch becomes slow and unstable. And judging by many other reviews elsewhere, I am not alone in this.

As far as the sluggishness of the Touch goes when using the internal server for a big collection of music, you should try installing the 7.5.4 version (http://downloads.slimdevices.com/nightly/?ver=7.5) of SBS (first by installing it on a PC, and then the Touch will automatically update the next time it is connected to the PC).

In this version of SBS, an optimization has been made to the database (http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=84931) which improves greatly the use of the Touch internal server for a big collection of music (I have myself more than 26000 tracks).

Don't forget to do a complete wipe & rescan of your tracks. This won't solve your main problems, but at least you should find the Touch far more stable and pleasant to use with the internal server.

[Phil Leigh]

If it is 500GB of FLAC then about 20.000 tracks

yeah - I have 37k tracks in 1Tb

[Dave1972]

10,000? 50,000? 100,000?

everyone who has a sizeable/important collection knows exactly how many tracks they have...

Everyone except me. I've never counted. Lets say about 20k as has been guestimated by someone else. I'm going to try a firmware update as suggested by a helpful soul. I hadn't done this before as I just assumed my Touch would automatically have downloaded and installed the latest version.

And yes, I did used to have other non-music stuff on the same drive, but I have since taken all non-music off.
I have to say, I do love the Touch, it's probably the best hardware music playing device I have owned (I even prefer it to my NAD SACD/DVDA player). But the fact that you can't nominate a folder to scan is, frankly, ridiculous (IMHO). But I'm letting that one go now as I've wasted enough energy over this.

[Dave1972]

As far as the sluggishness of the Touch goes when using the internal server for a big collection of music, you should try installing the 7.5.4 version (http://downloads.slimdevices.com/nightly/?ver=7.5) of SBS (first by installing it on a PC, and then the Touch will automatically update the next time it is connected to the PC).

In this version of SBS, an optimization has been made to the database (http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=84931) which improves greatly the use of the Touch internal server for a big collection of music (I have myself more than 26000 tracks).

Don't forget to do a complete wipe & rescan of your tracks. This won't solve your main problems, but at least you should find the Touch far more stable and pleasant to use with the internal server.

THAT is a very helpful suggestion Rotho, many thanks. I will do that.

[rotho]

Everyone except me. I've never counted.

You can find the exact number of tracks you have in your collection by using a certain command in the "Advanced" menu of the Touch (I don't recall it right now, but it is something concerning the "statistics of the collection").

I'm going to try a firmware update as suggested by a helpful soul. I hadn't done this before as I just assumed my Touch would automatically have downloaded and installed the latest version.

The Touch does indeed automatically update when the "official" version number of SBS is changed, but currently this "official" version is still 7.5.3, so you have to manually "force" the update to 7.5.4 (or wait till 7.5.4 is made official...).