Announce: piCorePlayer 8.0.0

[Narcos]

Squeezelite is fine alongside LMS.
Possibly on a 512MB Pi you would separate them but try it for yourself and be pleasantly surprised.

Can you please elaborate on what you mean by “possibly on a 512MB Pi”, I have two RPI4, 8gb & 4gb. Hence I’m curious to know, My plan was/is to use both the RPI’s, one as server and one as a client.

[Grumpy Bob]

Can you please elaborate on what you mean by “possibly on a 512MB Pi”, I have two RPI4, 8gb & 4gb. Hence I’m curious to know, My plan was/is to use both the RPI’s, one as server and one as a client.

The earlier models of Raspberry Pi had far less memory than your Pi4 devices (some early versions as low as 256Mb). I guess that's what he's referring to.

I too use separate devices for LMS and players, mostly so the storage device and server are elsewhere in the house that my main listening areas.

Robert

[Paul Webster]

The earlier models of Raspberry Pi had far less memory than your Pi4 devices (some early versions as low as 256Mb). I guess that's what he's referring to.

Yes. Also some current models have 512MB - for example Raspberry Pi Zero 2W
https://www.raspberrypi.com/document...revision-codes
The models with less memory have, historically at least, had less powerful processors as well.
So running LMS, Squeezelite on them does work but can be a bit slow - especially if you have a very large library.
If you then try to run Jivelite on it as well then more memory is used up - especially where video memory is stolen from main memory.

The general guidance has been to run LMS on a wired connection so that can sometimes limit its location.
If it is in a cupboard under the stairs then it might not be a convenient place for a player (although some run audio cables over a long distance).

My approach has been to always have a player on the LMS system.

[hoverdonkey]

Yes. Also some current models have 512MB - for example Raspberry Pi Zero 2W
https://www.raspberrypi.com/document...revision-codes
The models with less memory have, historically at least, had less powerful processors as well.
So running LMS, Squeezelite on them does work but can be a bit slow - especially if you have a very large library.
If you then try to run Jivelite on it as well then more memory is used up - especially where video memory is stolen from main memory.

The general guidance has been to run LMS on a wired connection so that can sometimes limit its location.
If it is in a cupboard under the stairs then it might not be a convenient place for a player (although some run audio cables over a long distance).

My approach has been to always have a player on the LMS system.

Thanks Paul, and others, for your advice, useful to know, as not easy to do quick A-B swaps in this instance! I recently bought a Pi 4 2GB to be my main streamer so will try LMS on that pCP build.


Next part of the puzzle... we (the family) have been used to LMS (DietPi) + SSD-USB boot drive + Pi 3B+ + ethernet. All running smoothly and speedily. As a stopgap, I am currently on LMS (pcP) + (fast) SD + Pi 3B + ethernet. There is marked lagginess, e.g. with art loading. I suspect much of that is due to SD vs. SSD (i.e. rather than 3B vs. 3B+). So, when I move to the Pi 4, will the SD be enough or would I do better to spend more £s, either on a USB 3 drive (cheapest option) or SSD-USB again (pricier)?

[agburnsky]

Next part of the puzzle... we (the family) have been used to LMS (DietPi) + SSD-USB boot drive + Pi 3B+ + ethernet. All running smoothly and speedily. As a stopgap, I am currently on LMS (pcP) + (fast) SD + Pi 3B + ethernet. There is marked lagginess, e.g. with art loading. I suspect much of that is due to SD vs. SSD (i.e. rather than 3B vs. 3B+). So, when I move to the Pi 4, will the SD be enough or would I do better to spend more £s, either on a USB 3 drive (cheapest option) or SSD-USB again (pricier)?

You were asking Paul, but I'll share that I've used a sandisk fit usb flash drive for years with a pi3 and pi4 both running LMS and squeezelite as a player, also on wifi and it works great, never notice any lag in displaying artwork or other performance issues. With the capacity of good quality usb flash drives that are available today, I think they are an excellent way to store media. I have used both a 128 GB and 256 GB usb flash drive and then I don't worry about my music files on the SD card when updating versions. The key is to use good quality SD and USB drives. The USB3 port on pi4 with a USB 3 rated flash drive really speeds up transferring files, but the USB2 was more than adequate storing music for LMS. As many on the forum advise, it is what works best for you, many options.
Anthony

[hoverdonkey]

You were asking Paul, but I'll share that I've used a sandisk fit usb flash drive for years with a pi3 and pi4 both running LMS and squeezelite as a player, also on wifi and it works great, never notice any lag in displaying artwork or other performance issues. With the capacity of good quality usb flash drives that are available today, I think they are an excellent way to store media. I have used both a 128 GB and 256 GB usb flash drive and then I don't worry about my music files on the SD card when updating versions. The key is to use good quality SD and USB drives. The USB3 port on pi4 with a USB 3 rated flash drive really speeds up transferring files, but the USB2 was more than adequate storing music for LMS. As many on the forum advise, it is what works best for you, many options.
Anthony

Many thanks, good to know that USB drives work well for both Pi 3 & 4, SD must be my bottleneck. My music is on NAS, so I'm only asking for the LMS database to be snappy, so USB should work for me, I'll give it a whirl.

[hoverdonkey]

Further to my previous post, I had a thought, probably a stupid one. Can LMS be forced to run entirely from RAM? That way the type of boot media would have no effect on performance? Or is there not enough RAM?

[paul-]

LMS uses a local cache for its music library that can get rather large, and uses alot of space when "optimizing" the database. A Pi is not going to have enough ram. If you only stream from internet radio, then not as much will be cached, but then it's not affecting performance either.

[hoverdonkey]

LMS uses a local cache for its music library that can get rather large, and uses alot of space when "optimizing" the database. A Pi is not going to have enough ram. If you only stream from internet radio, then not as much will be cached, but then it's not affecting performance either.

Ah, okay, thanks for explaining.

[Paul Webster]

Or is there not enough RAM?

and to give you an idea about how big they can get

tc@pcp:/usr/local/slimserver$ ls -lrt Cache/*.db
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff    157296640 Jan 19 15:50 Cache/library.db
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff     40751104 Jan 20 15:47 Cache/persist.db
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff    734211072 Jan 21 16:30 Cache/artwork.db
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff     15515648 Jan 23 17:19 Cache/cache.db
-rw-rw-r--    1 tc       staff    1028743168 Jan 23 17:49 Cache/imgproxy.db

and I am sure that there are people with larger libraries.
Plus ... on an incremental scan you need double the space for some libraries because LMS scanner makes a copy while working on it