Can I use a USB external drive as a music server?

enfield_freddy

1: see below


2: a file system that will work on an external drive , that can be seen by Linux 3.7.1.8 and can also be seen by a windows 7/8 machine


3: no I did,nt , I stated that the NTFS file system used by Microsoft was not seen by a Linux system , in this case Linux 3.7.1.8
as you suggested using a file format called ntfs-3g , I asked you on 2 occasions for a commonly available program (free) that was able to do this.


4: better things to do that watch 50 yr old footage on youtube


you have failed to reply with an answer , therefore your idea (although possible) is not a viable option , and as such the 2 options I suggested are better.


one needs anger management when someone butts in with a non viable / stupid idea

Fightsback

enfield_freddy wrote: »

1: see below


2: a file system that will work on an external drive , that can be seen by Linux 3.7.1.8 and can also be seen by a windows 7/8 machine


3: no I did,nt , I stated that the NTFS file system used by Microsoft was not seen by a Linux system , in this case Linux 3.7.1.8
as you suggested using a file format called ntfs-3g , I asked you on 2 occasions for a commonly available program (free) that was able to do this.


4: better things to do that watch 50 yr old footage on youtube


you have failed to reply with an answer , therefore your idea (although possible) is not a viable option , and as such the 2 options I suggested are better.


one needs anger management when someone butts in with a non viable / stupid idea

Yeah right, sort it yourself then.

NTFS-3g a file format :rotfl:

enfield_freddy

well if you look at my earlier post you will see that I have sorted it , without resorting to build a Linux computer to do a simple task.


your suggestion of ntfs-3g , whilst factually correct , was of no assistance in this situation






MacFUSE

gjchester

enfield_freddy wrote: »

the thing streams quite well , the 512m memory one might be better , or even the 1g memory one the Pi is about 700 MHz , that's on par with my dlink nas drive.

The Pi Wired Ethernet adapter is wired to the USB bus, think of it like a onboard USB to Ethernet adapter.

For that reason it can't do Gigabit speed network links, and the Ethernet performance can be dragged down by poorly performing USB devices. Even with a perfect setup USB2 would be limited to about 20meg a second one way, but its a half duplex format so speeds may well be halved in actual use your more likely to see less than half that in actual use, I'd be expecting up to 5MB/sec. Remember that the same USB Bus has to get the data from the drive and to the PI to then be routed back to the network connection so that slows transfers down too. Ext4 formatted partitions tend to be better performance wise on Linux based systems so even the format of your hard drive can affect speeds, and if you need to maintain compatibility with Windows then that puts in a bottleneck too.

Most dedicated NAS's will be far faster, a "real" NAS will not have this limitation, however there a lot of other variables to do with how your network is set up that could also affect speeds, as could the speed of the hard drives in the NAS, status of the drives and what other traffic is on the network at the time.

If a Pi based NAS is as fast as your D-Link one then you may need to check the D-Link is OK, or you may have some other problems on your network slowing it down, or the D-Link is a poor NAS as such...

Back to the OP Music streaming should be fine on a PI, but its heavily dependent on other factors both on the network and in how the system is set up.

enfield_freddy

gjchester, I agree with you , except that it has never been sold as a gigabyte link. possibly a usb drive that has its own PSU might be better


yes the dlink dns 310l , is a disappointment , and I would not recommend buying one , I use the recommended WD red drives , and have tried single and in raid , built to a price , but not the best.


for the use , and the cost I think a Pi is a good idea , and I think the limitations you mentioned have in fact been resolved on the Pi2? , dunno , because I hav,nt checked. but I know that they improved the USB output power over the models


anyway I have give my suggestion to the OP , and I think it will be more effective than going down the router/usb route.


and by doing some setup last night I have come up with a way of setting one up , if you don,t understand Linux

gjchester

enfield_freddy wrote: »

I think the limitations you mentioned have in fact been resolved on the Pi2? , dunno , because I hav,nt checked. but I know that they improved the USB output power over the models

Depends how you look at it. The Pi v1 had 2 USB ports and the Wired Ethernet on the USB Bus, The B+ and Pi v2, have 4 USB ports and the Wired ethernet on the one USB bus, so the USB bandwidth is potentially spread over more devices.

That said the CPU is faster and so can process data faster, all depends what its doing...

enfield_freddy

cheers , I agree


back to the OP ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

adouglasmhor

enfield_freddy wrote: »

very possibly , however that does not seem to be one of the options to format a drive in the currant windows editions or indeed in the partition tool I suggested , please elaborate as to which commonly available (free) PC programme offers this choise , as I would like to try this method out.


*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS-3G , cant see windows listed there , and can see a bad comment already


"Benchmarks show that the driver's performance via FUSE is comparable to that of other filesystems' drivers in-kernel,[8] provided that the CPU is powerful enough. On embedded or old systems, the high processor usage can severely limit performance.[9] Current versions often show 100% CPU utilization on dealing with big files on fragmented NTFS file systems.[10] Also, caching support is very poor."


however the other 2 options I stated seem to work well , and or corse if you format in fat32 , you can use the drive in a conventional PC if needed

How in god's name can you code in linux if you can't even spell. Currants are fruits of the ribes cane, knowledge not knolage. I have a sore head now.

enfield_freddy

dyslexia rules KO ,


if that's your best shot , I give in


no more tech help from me , if this is the attitude of readers on here

adouglasmhor

enfield_freddy wrote: »

dyslexia rules KO ,


if that's your best shot , I give in


no more tech help from me , if this is the attitude of readers on here

I am dyslexic, you are just using it as an excuse making things harder for genuine dyslexics.