Disadvantages & Limitations of running SB Media Server on SD card or USB

[erland]

And what are the mean reasons why running the tinyMLS on the SB Touch in conjunction with an (certain type) USD stick or SD Card is less stable than running it on a SheevaPlug or via mysqueezebox.com?

Generally the main issues with TinyLMS on the Touch are:
- Lack of memory (the Touch only have 128MB and have to run both TinyLMS and the Touch firmware while the SheevaPlug have 512MB and only have to run LMS)
- The Touch firmware (or maybe hardware) seems to have issues with some USB drives, in some cases the issues are caused by USB drives not following the power usage specifications, but in other cases I believe the issue is in the Touch, but in all cases the result is that the system isn't stable.
- The CPU is too slow to perform a rescan of the music folder in decent time and due to the design choices of TinyLMS (instead of LMS) rescan is automatic and due to this automatically performed in some cases when it might not be optimal to perform a rescan.

mysqueezebox.com should work great as long as you don't need access to locally stored music, basically it should work great if you are only interested in using internet radio and online streaming services. During some periods it has been a bit unreliable but it's important to note that mostly it is reliably and works great if you don't need to play locally stored music files.

[Marc_S]

Yes, I have been thinking about the NAS solution and in fact have one around (not active at the moment).

So how do all the 'Pro's' do it who run a SB Touch (or more) in their house? Do they preferably have a PC running somewhere in the basement, or SheevaPlug or a NAS?

And what about the Media Server running in the Sonos system - is that also a 'tinyLMS type' of program running in their box or is it a more full flatch Media Server package running in their box? I get a bit that feeling since one of friends has a Sonos and doesn't have another PC on all the time or a NAS (as far as I know).

Thanks

[Marc_S]

I understand that mysqueezebox.com can in fact only be used reliable when listenong to Internet radio?

So what is the prefered solution to run the LMS when you have a lot of local music files (see my previous message)? And I prefer not to have my PC on all the time.

[garym]

I understand that mysqueezebox.com can in fact only be used reliable when listenong to Internet radio?

So what is the prefered solution to run the LMS when you have a lot of local music files (see my previous message)? And I prefer not to have my PC on all the time.

no, mysb.com is quite reliable (notwithstanding some trouble with the European servers a year or two ago). mysb.com is simply LMS "in the cloud". Works well with internet radio, pandora, mog, spotify, siriusXM, etc. For me personally, I have a headless computer in a back cabinet (vortexbox appliance, but any similar thing would work). I leave it running 24/7, so then I have my own music and access to all the mysb.com stuff as well. But if I didn't want to do this, I could just use mysb.com directly and only turn on PC when I wanted to play my own music. One can do either approach.

[garym]

Yes, I have been thinking about the NAS solution and in fact have one around (not active at the moment).

So how do all the 'Pro's' do it who run a SB Touch (or more) in their house? Do they preferably have a PC running somewhere in the basement, or SheevaPlug or a NAS?

And what about the Media Server running in the Sonos system - is that also a 'tinyLMS type' of program running in their box or is it a more full flatch Media Server package running in their box? I get a bit that feeling since one of friends has a Sonos and doesn't have another PC on all the time or a NAS (as far as I know).

Thanks

for sonos, your friend must have his music files located somewhere on his local network. They are not built into the SONOS player itself. They are on a computer or a NAS, etc. Something attached to the local network.

My setup is a vortexbox appliance (computer with no monitor or keyboard that I access via browser on any other computer on my network). It is on 24/7 and feeds all my squeezeboxes.

[erland]

Yes, I have been thinking about the NAS solution and in fact have one around (not active at the moment).

So how do all the 'Pro's' do it who run a SB Touch (or more) in their house? Do they preferably have a PC running somewhere in the basement, or SheevaPlug or a NAS?

Those that want good performance use a new or old PC in the basement.
Those that want to save electricity or don't want to have a PC powered on for some other reason and still want decent performance use a VortexBox Appliance or SheevaPlug.
Those that refuse to listen to recommendations and desperately want to use a NAS get a highend NAS with decent CPU and lots of memory and get an expensive system with half decent performance.
Those that refuse to listen to recommendations and don't care about performance either struggle with TinyLMS on the Touch or use a cheap NAS and run LMS on it, both often result in poor performance.

And what about the Media Server running in the Sonos system - is that also a 'tinyLMS type' of program running in their box or is it a more full flatch Media Server package running in their box? I get a bit that feeling since one of friends has a Sonos and doesn't have another PC on all the time or a NAS (as far as I know).

I haven't tried a Sonos myself, but as far as I've understand:
- It can play internet radio and online music without a PC or NAS, pretty much the same as a Squeezebox with mysqueezebox.com
- For local music it does one of the following:
-- Use another non Sonos device which is plugged in to the line-in input in the Sonos (for example an AirPort Express offering AirPlay server for an iPad with music files)
-- Use a NAS, router or PC that can share it's disk on the network, Sonos will be able to play music from network shared disks

So the advantage Sonos have compared to a Squeezebox in this regard is that it can work with a network drive without any extra server software installed while Squeezebox requires LMS or TinyLMS to be installed on some device on the network.

I understand that mysqueezebox.com can in fact only be used reliable when listenong to Internet radio?

mysqueezebox.com is ONLY providing internet radio or other online music, as far as I know it's fairly reliable doing this.
When you want to play local music, you either need to use LMS or TinyLMS.

So what is the prefered solution to run the LMS when you have a lot of local music files (see my previous message)? And I prefer not to have my PC on all the time.

In my mind, the preferred solution is an old PC, if you have the knowledge you can configure it with Wake-on-LAN so it goes into standby when you don't use it and powers up when you try to access it, but this can require some configuration to make it work reliable.

If you still don't want a PC, my recommendation would be:
- A VortexBox Appliance if you can afford it and want something that just works with everything pre-installed.
- A SheevaPlug (or other plug computer) using the SqueezePlug software if you want something cheap with decent performance and are able to follow instructions to install the SqueezePlug software.

An important question is why you don't want a PC:
- If price is the issue, getting an old used PC should be even cheaper than a SheevaPlug
- If fan noise is the issue, a SheevaPlug with an external USB drive isn't necessarily less noisy than a PC built to be silent, a NAS is definitely not silent it's just small.
- If size is the issue, there are small PC's available, just look at Mac Mini or similar solutions

I'm guessing your issues are a combination of all the above, you basically want something fairly small, something fairly silent and something fairly cheap, in this case a VortexBox Appliance or a SheevaPlug (or other plug computer) is probably the best option.

[aubuti]

I understand that mysqueezebox.com can in fact only be used reliable when listenong to Internet radio?

So what is the prefered solution to run the LMS when you have a lot of local music files (see my previous message)? And I prefer not to have my PC on all the time.

mysqueezebox.com does not access your local music library at all, unless you subscribe to MP3Tunes, which allows you to upload your tracks (MP3 only, no FLAC) to a "music locker" and stream from there. Otherwise, mysb.com will deliver internet radio and streaming services such as Pandora, Slacker, Rhapsody, MOG, Spotify, etc. (depending on availability in your country).

My preferred solution is to run LMS on a small Atom-based headless pc that is stored out of sight (used to be in the basement, now it's tucked away on a shelf in the study). I used to use its power management capabilities along with the slick ServerPowerControl plugin to automatically go into ACPI suspend mode after 15 minutes passed with none of my SBs being active, and then wake up whenever I turned on an SB or had an alarm set. For various reasons mostly related to ease of use for other family members and a bug in the BIOS coming out of suspend I leave it on 24/7 now. I can live with the 20w it draws, but could easily go back to the 20w running / 3w suspended regime if I wanted.

Btw, several years ago I ran LMS on a NAS, but gave that up because of frequent problems with unavailable Perl modules or binaries for its ARM architecture. Using something that is x86 or compatible is a lot less headaches.

[garym]

very good response from Erland. One point I would make is that the Vortexbox Appliance is much closer to a full-blown PC than to a sheevaplug. My VBAs can do everything just as quickly as my multi-core win7 high performance laptop. I would actually consider the VB appliance to be essentially equivalent to a moderately powerful PC.

Those that want good performance use a new or old PC in the basement.
Those that want to save electricity or don't want to have a PC powered on for some other reason and still want decent performance use a VortexBox Appliance or SheevaPlug.
Those that refuse to listen to recommendations and desperately want to use a NAS get a highend NAS with decent CPU and lots of memory and get an expensive system with half decent performance.
Those that refuse to listen to recommendations and don't care about performance either struggle with TinyLMS on the Touch or use a cheap NAS and run LMS on it, both often result in poor performance.


I haven't tried a Sonos myself, but as far as I've understand:
- It can play internet radio and online music without a PC or NAS, pretty much the same as a Squeezebox with mysqueezebox.com
- For local music it does one of the following:
-- Use another non Sonos device which is plugged in to the line-in input in the Sonos (for example an AirPort Express offering AirPlay server for an iPad with music files)
-- Use a NAS, router or PC that can share it's disk on the network, Sonos will be able to play music from network shared disks

So the advantage Sonos have compared to a Squeezebox in this regard is that it can work with a network drive without any extra server software installed while Squeezebox requires LMS or TinyLMS to be installed on some device on the network.


mysqueezebox.com is ONLY providing internet radio or other online music, as far as I know it's fairly reliable doing this.
When you want to play local music, you either need to use LMS or TinyLMS.


In my mind, the preferred solution is an old PC, if you have the knowledge you can configure it with Wake-on-LAN so it goes into standby when you don't use it and powers up when you try to access it, but this can require some configuration to make it work reliable.

If you still don't want a PC, my recommendation would be:
- A VortexBox Appliance if you can afford it and want something that just works with everything pre-installed.
- A SheevaPlug (or other plug computer) using the SqueezePlug software if you want something cheap with decent performance and are able to follow instructions to install the SqueezePlug software.

An important question is why you don't want a PC:
- If price is the issue, getting an old used PC should be even cheaper than a SheevaPlug
- If fan noise is the issue, a SheevaPlug with an external USB drive isn't necessarily less noisy than a PC built to be silent, a NAS is definitely not silent it's just small.
- If size is the issue, there are small PC's available, just look at Mac Mini or similar solutions

I'm guessing your issues are a combination of all the above, you basically want something fairly small, something fairly silent and something fairly cheap, in this case a VortexBox Appliance or a SheevaPlug (or other plug computer) is probably the best option.

[aubuti]

very good response from Erland. One point I would make is that the Vortexbox Appliance is much closer to a full-blown PC than to a sheevaplug. My VBAs can do everything just as quickly as my multi-core win7 high performance laptop. I would actually consider the VB appliance to be essentially equivalent to a moderately powerful PC.

+1
In fact, the "small Atom-based headless pc" that I mentioned in my earlier post is the exact same hardware used in the 1st generation Vortexbox Appliance. Buying the "barebones" pc and then installing RAM, hard drive, and operating system was a lot cheaper for me than buying ready-to-go VB appliance.

[Marc_S]

very good response from Erland. One point I would make is that the Vortexbox Appliance is much closer to a full-blown PC than to a sheevaplug. My VBAs can do everything just as quickly as my multi-core win7 high performance laptop. I would actually consider the VB appliance to be essentially equivalent to a moderately powerful PC.

Guys, these are all some excellent responses. Thanks for it!!

My main restriction is that I do not prefer to have a PC/Barebone running all the time 24/7 'in the basement' just to maintain the LMS running (in order to be able to play decently local music files). Perhaps I should go for the Vortexbox or an old ('naked') PC and use the Wake-on-LAN facility.

The best solution would be that Logitech in future spend a few more USD more to put a decent CPU and some extra internal memory in the Squeezebox Touch itself to take away the whole need to run the LMS on a separate CPU.
Nowadays with the continuously improving hardware and dropping costs that should be a big deal and Logitech could leave the price of their players just the same.