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Now my miseries have compounded. The mini laptop I've been using as a dedicated music server has died.
Great timing.
I'd like to know more about this Raspberry Pi solution. How tech-savvy would I need to be to set one up?
If you don't take up on sodface's offer, you could do what I did. I bought an Inovato Quadra to use as an LMS server. It is a single board computer, similar to the Raspberry Pi 3, but a lot less expensive.
It sounds like you are running a 2.5” drive. I have not used laptop scale HDDs in over a decade (since SSDs became affordable). But their power efficiency may be high enough to still pull it off on these low powered usb supplies. In your case, they certainly are.
For 1-5TB storage, my mind now thinks in solid state terms. For a primarily read-only lower capacity environment, such as in the typical LMS situation, a solid state working library is hard to beat. But nowadays when someone says HDD, I reflexively think of full size 3.5” drives, and much larger capacities. And those will usually overwhelm a typical 1A usb bus powered supply right on spin up. For instance, I just bought a quad of 7,200 16TB drives to update a ZFS array. And there is no way those can operate on a USB bus supply. And I now toss or give away HDDs under 3TB once outside warranty. Too much space and energy used per GB. Just the nature of evolving storage tech these days. My bad.
My 3TB 3.5" external HDD has its own power supply so I assumed most others also did so again there is no issue when attached to a Pi.
Just noting that I use an rPi4B running LMS with an attached HDD. The attached HDD is a 4TB portable USB drive (spinning disk), holding about 130,000, mostly FLAC tracks. My drives are formated NTFS. I don't have to use separate power for the USB drive (the HDD gets its power from the rPi, though the USB connection). The rPi4B is using the standard rPi4 power supply.
Not sure at what point the library size or HDD size requires separate power, but I haven't reached it yet (on two identical installs).
It sounds like you are running a 2.5” drive. I have not used laptop scale HDDs in over a decade (since SSDs became affordable). But their power efficiency may be high enough to still pull it off on these low powered usb supplies. In your case, they certainly are.
For 1-5TB storage, my mind now thinks in solid state terms. For a primarily read-only lower capacity environment, such as in the typical LMS situation, a solid state working library is hard to beat. But nowadays when someone says HDD, I reflexively think of full size 3.5” drives, and much larger capacities. And those will usually overwhelm a typical 1A usb bus powered supply right on spin up. For instance, I just bought a quad of 7,200 16TB drives to update a ZFS array. And there is no way those can operate on a USB bus supply. And I now toss or give away HDDs under 3TB once outside warranty. Too much space and energy used per GB. Just the nature of evolving storage tech these days. My bad.
The only issue for a larger library drive is that the Pi does not have the power to directly run larger drives such as HDDs. The Pi is almost an invisible server with the tiny micro sized USB thumb drives, but not so elegant as you move to spinning disks.
Just noting that I use an rPi4B running LMS with an attached HDD. The attached HDD is a 4TB portable USB drive (spinning disk), holding about 130,000, mostly FLAC tracks. My drives are formated NTFS. I don't have to use separate power for the USB drive (the HDD gets its power from the rPi, though the USB connection). The rPi4B is using the standard rPi4 power supply.
Not sure at what point the library size or HDD size requires separate power, but I haven't reached it yet (on two identical installs).
As has been stated, a Pi running piCore configured for LMS is the easy solution here. Unless you must have it wirelessly elsewhere, the most efficient and trouble free setup is to ethernet the Pi right to your router.
The only issue for a larger library drive is that the Pi does not have the power to directly run larger drives such as HDDs. The Pi is almost an invisible server with the tiny micro sized USB thumb drives, but not so elegant as you move to spinning disks. The good news is that you can tie your library in anywhere in your network as a shared volume, and LMS on the Pi will find and use it. If you want to connect it via a powered enclosure directly to the Pi, you could do that. But if your router supports usb shared volumes, or you have a network accessible enclosure, you can also connect it at the router, or anywhere in your network in the case of the latter.
A 2-bay economy NAS or enclosure with a Pi comes to mind here. I think that may be more flexible with a larger growing library in the longer run, and won’t ask too much of the Pi. And you need only start with one drive … and if on a budget, you could eventually set up a JBOD on it to leverage the old drive into storage as your library grows (as long as you have adequate backups in hand).
exFAT is going to be the most versatile general format, as most OSes can read it. I think the non journaled corruption concerns with it a bit overblown in this application, which will likely be predominantly read only. But any NAS enclosure will force you to use whatever you format it uses.
But if you would like to better understand what piCorePlayer is, just go to the project's home page and read the description of the three options available.
Generous offer from sodface, but if you still want to pursue pcp, to just add to what RobbH mentioned, just follow the two how to links, yes you will be building a player, but eventually you will be given the opportunity to add LMS. You can then turn off the player (as I do) for LMS Server only
Are you in the US? Do you need a screen on the server or can it be "headless"? I've got extra hardware I don't need. I can preload it with the latest Alpine Linux and LMS and send it to you for free. I'll give you my cell phone number for support if you need it. Not trying to insult your tech skills, just offering.
I'm missing something. Those instructions are to build a player. I have players--i need the server side.
Sorry, I can see how that can be confusing. piCorePlayer was first created (i think) as an easy-to-install Linux distribution that would turn a Raspberry Pi single board computer into a Squeezebox-compatible player. Hence the name. It has gone through several versions since then, and now includes the capability to install and run LMS. By default, it is still a player, but you can turn the player off and just use LMS.
Just check the first three steps at the "getting started" link, then go to the second link in my previous post, which covers installing LMS.
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