#243488 - 07/12/2004 00:01
How best to do whole house music?
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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I know there's been some discussion on this topic before, but I had some specific questions that I haven't seen discussed here, so I'd like to start the discussion again.
Basically, now that I've transferred every CD I own to FLAC (about 400GB worth), I'm trying to figure out how to listen to my music around the house. I've been casually glancing at solutions to this "problem" for a few weeks, and I'm not quite enamored with any of them.
There are probably over 100 devices out there that will play music outside of the computer, but as far as I've seen, all of them either a) also attempt to be a storage vault for all of your music (AudioRequest, Rio Central, HP DEC, etc.), or b) expect to play music that's stored on a PC somewhere (TiVo HMO, SqueezeBox, SoundBridge, Rio Receiver, etc.).
The a) group would be fine if they could support enough drive space, and also act as a server to something in the b) group (without being restricted to only one particular device in the b) group). I think those requirements knock out the Central, and maybe the other a) options as well. My problem with the b) group is that I don't want to dedicate a PC to the task of storing music. Generally speaking, computers use way too much electricity, and give off way too much heat and noise. I want to have music available 24/7, but don't want to leave a computer running 24/7. Even if I could use something like wake on lan to start the computer up only when needed, it's still overkill for the little work it's actually doing to serve the file.
My main objection to the dedicated PC is electricity (my bill's WAY too high), but it's also that my regular PC doesn't, um, work all the time. I semi-regularly take it apart to goof with it or reconfigure things, which would leave the rest of the house un-musiced. Even just a periodic reboot would screw up what someone else in the house might be doing with the music.
So, the way I see it, my solution lies with the idea of separating the storage layer from the presentation layer, but having some separate storage box instead of a PC. Then, the options are plentiful as far as what to use for playing boxes.
So, here are my questions:
1. Does anyone know of any box that I could throw a couple of hard drives in that could just connect to the ethernet and talk SMB?
2. Barring that, is there a board or kit to set up a really low power linux PC? (Doing this would let me run a SlimServer, or Rio server, or UPNP AV server, and potentially allow a much wider choice of playing boxes)
3. Is there any other solution that I haven't thought of that meets the criteria above, plus the additional criteria of being easy and cheap (ideally $100-$150 sans drives)?
(Note: I'm not at all interested in video storage for this application. I've only got one TV that I actually watch, and I'm in love with my TiVo, so I'm not even thinking about HTPC or video archiving or any of those things yet. That being said, if the storage box had TV out or something and could do double duty as a playing box, that'd be cool. But, I'm afraid that it won't do that job as elegantly as a stand-alone playing box would, yet would add significantly to the expense, and to my time (picking out some jukebox app to run and getting it configured).)
I'd be very interested to hear anything anybody has to say on the subject, or any thing that they themselves have done to get their music around the house
Thanks in advance,
Aaron
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#243489 - 07/12/2004 02:45
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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How about something like the Linksys NSLU2 ?Just add a couple of USB hard drives and you're done.
_________________________
Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962
sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.
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#243490 - 07/12/2004 03:36
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: genixia]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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I had seen that before, and kind of dismissed it. I did a quick scan of the user's guide from the Linksys website and couldn't determine whether it spoke SMB or required some client side software. So, I just assumed it wouldn't work and moved on.
So, since you mentioned it, I looked around again to find that, yes, it does speak SMB, and it actually does run Linux (and replacement firmwares exist). I haven't found any reference to anyone running a Rio Receiver server or Slim server on it, but I would assume it's possible. Even if not, some of the playback boxes I'm looking at (like the Roku HD1000 or the Audiotron) just scan an SMB share, so that works.
Here's the problem I have with the NSLU2, now: It's not a single box. To put 500GB of storage on it would mean I would have the NSLU2, its power supply, two hard drive boxes, two USB cables to connect them, and possibly power supplies for the two hard drives (since I have no idea if the hard drives I would use exceed the power available on the USB ports). That mess would not be nearly as elegant as a single box would. I wouldn't be able to as easily move it from one spot to another, or pick the whole assembly up and take it to work (where my library currently resides) for the initial loading of music. Sure, I could always duct tape all the pieces together, but I think I'll keep looking a little bit further.
Having said all that, the NSLU2 really comes close to what I'm looking for. So, anyone know of something like that in a single box?
Other solutions I've looked at: Mini-ITX boxes like the Shuttles seem attractive, but they seem to be designed with the idea to cram the most powerful system possible into the smallest space. Plus, they're usually super loaded with all sorts of things I don't need or want for this application. The ones from SolarPC look good, but the cases aren't big enough to hold two normal size hard drives unless I spend too much, and even then I get a 2U case much bigger than what I need. There are lots of SBC boards that might work, but I don't know anything about what cases might be available for them and whether any of those would work. In addition, an SBC is probably too expensive since it's geared towards vertical markets.
So, any other ideas? Here's a nearly meaningless incentive: I'll PayPal $5 USD to whomever suggests the solution closest to whatever I finally end up with.
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243491 - 07/12/2004 05:17
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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I'd be tempted to build a PC anyway. In a typical modern PC, the typcial energy users are:
1) CPU. GHz+ processors are hungry. Good news - for file serving a couple hundred MHz is plenty. Use a low end P3 or higher end P2, and you'll cut this consumption to the point where passive cooling (ie no fan) is a possibility.
2) Graphics. Modern 3D cards are getting to be as powerful as the CPUs. Good news - you don't need it. Any built-in or cheap 2D capable card is enough to configure your beast, and if you're not running GFX intensive programs you won't use much power at all.
3) Hard Drives. hdparm is your friend. Set the spin down to a few minutes.
4) Power supply inefficiencies. Roughly proportional to outputted power. Since you won't be using much power the power wasted here isn't much either.
You should also look at embedded boards on ebay. The embedded world often has strict power requirements so you'll find other options, eg the NS Geode (basically a P2 MMX compatible CPU) that has low power requirements. Many are linux compatible, but you should do your research first. Beware that the board is often the easiest part to get - most of them use 0.1" IDC headers for nearly all their cabling so you'd need to source or make cables to connect a keyboard or other peripherals. Also beware of power supply requirements - they can usually be satisfied by a standard PC supply but you'll probably need to rewire it.
_________________________
Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962
sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.
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#243492 - 07/12/2004 06:37
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: genixia]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/01/2002
Posts: 2009
Loc: Brisbane, Australia
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The Via EPIA stuff ( here) is also pretty low power. Include things like spindown as genixia suggested and you'll get about as low power as possible given you want reasonably instantaneous access to 100s of gigabytes of music.
And if you can underclock them you'll save more power.
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#243493 - 07/12/2004 08:22
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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enthusiast
Registered: 06/03/2003
Posts: 269
Loc: Wellingborough, UK
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You could pick up a single-slice Acorn RiscPC with Ethernet from Ebay for around 150 GBP, install 2 HDDs (there are three internal spaces so you can choose between CD or floppy) and install ArmLinux. The PSU is huge but only 70W.
Make sure you get one with Ethernet as the Ethernet module was not a standard item and are now hard to source (and for £50-£100, rather expensive).
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#243494 - 07/12/2004 08:46
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
Having said all that, the NSLU2 really comes close to what I'm looking for. So, anyone know of something like that in a single box?
You can use Lacie Biggerdisk gear to get your two drive boxes down to one. (Assuming the NSLU2 deals with >128G disks, but if it doesn't you're in trouble either way.) And it wouldn't surprise me if there were next to no electronics in an NSLU2, and you could mount it inside the Biggerdisk somehow. Failing that, of course you don't have to carry the NSLU2 with you to work for initial loading, only the Biggerdisk.
Otherwise, I'd say get a VIA mini-PC (http://www.mini-itx.com), underclock it (I have a Pentium 200 that's way overpowered as a Rio Receiver server), and think about getting Sonos boxes (http://www.sonos.com) -- if their PC-side software lives up to its online demo, it's the best I've seen in this game. In particular, it's the only one I've seen that lets you collect clients into synchronised zones and do proper running-order editing on each zone from a central location. Plus it'll allegedly do other neato stuff, like stream any client's line-input out of any other client's output. The only issue with Sonos is that it's not UPnP -- if you want UPnP, the easiest way is to put Windows XP on your server (probably not then underclocking it), and Windows Media Connect, and get Netgear MP101s as the clients.
Peter
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#243495 - 07/12/2004 09:07
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: mdavey]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
You could pick up a single-slice Acorn RiscPC with Ethernet from Ebay for around 150 GBP, install 2 HDDs (there are three internal spaces so you can choose between CD or floppy) and install ArmLinux.
OP is in the US, where getting a RiscPC would be somewhat harder. And for that sort of money you could buy vintage Sun kit and run SparcLinux on considerably more reliable hardware.
Quote:
Make sure you get one with Ethernet as the Ethernet module was not a standard item and are now hard to source (and for £50-£100, rather expensive).
Ah, but think of all the hard work that went into the RiscOS drivers for those Ethernet modules! (Well, ANT EtherM and Ether3 at least.)
Peter
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#243496 - 07/12/2004 09:15
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I'm sure this isn't quite what you wanted, but how about this: http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/tera-itx/
_________________________
Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#243497 - 07/12/2004 10:11
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: peter]
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enthusiast
Registered: 06/03/2003
Posts: 269
Loc: Wellingborough, UK
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Quote:
OP is in the US, where getting a RiscPC would be somewhat harder. And for that sort of money you could buy vintage Sun kit and run SparcLinux on considerably more reliable hardware.
Many of the ebay sellers will ship to the US at cost (although waiting for spares to turn up from Europe could be frustrating). All my Acorn machines are still running and are still stable - Acorn kit seems as reliable as Sun kit to me. There is also the advantage of having very nearly the same CPU and OS as the Empeg.
I will concede that there are strong merits to using Sun kit, especially the coolness factor  You'd have to go pretty far back in time to find a Sun box with a 70W PSU, though: SPARCclassic, SPARCclassic X, SPARCstation LX or ZX; or some SPARCstation 4s (50W). Edit: also, these Sun boxen can be picked up for $30-$70 in the US so that fits his 3rd criteria (criterion?) much better.
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#243498 - 07/12/2004 12:08
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: mdavey]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
All my Acorn machines are still running and are still stable - Acorn kit seems as reliable as Sun kit to me.
My RiscPC is completely stable under RiscOS but sig11s under load in Linux. I'm sure Linux is just stressing it more.
Quote:
I will concede that there are strong merits to using Sun kit, especially the coolness factor You'd have to go pretty far back in time to find a Sun box with a 70W PSU, though
Only fairly new Suns (Ultra 5 and newer? newer than any of mine, anyway) have IDE (or PCI for adding it). And 70W PSU isn't really the issue -- it's not like it draws 70W the whole time. A 150W PSU with a load of 40W isn't going to draw much more current than a 70W PSU with a load of 40W, especially if its fans are on thermostats.
Peter
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#243499 - 07/12/2004 12:12
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Quote:
the NSLU2 really comes close to what I'm looking for. So, anyone know of something like that in a single box?
There are lots of them. Check out this list of them at NewEgg. If that URL expires for some reason, NewEgg->Shop by Category->Modem and Network Devices->Network - Hard Drives.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#243500 - 07/12/2004 12:46
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: peter]
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enthusiast
Registered: 06/03/2003
Posts: 269
Loc: Wellingborough, UK
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Quote:
My RiscPC is completely stable under RiscOS but sig11s under load in Linux. I'm sure Linux is just stressing it more.
Interesting. Of course, it is totally Schrodinger until you perform a core dump analysis (to determine whether it is a hardware or a software fault)
Quote:
Only fairly new Suns (Ultra 5 and newer? newer than any of mine, anyway) have IDE (or PCI for adding it).
Yes. Ultra 30 was the first, in May 1997 followed closely by the Ultra 10, Ultra 5 and Ultra 60 (though not necessarily in that order). IIRC, PCI and IDE were added at the same time, although I guess you might be able to get an SBus IDE card for older machines.
Quote:
70W PSU isn't really the issue -- it's not like it draws 70W the whole time. A 150W PSU with a load of 40W isn't going to draw much more current than a 70W PSU with a load of 40W, especially if its fans are on thermostats.
Okay, but the newer Ultras (e.g. U5) have 400W PSUs to support the chipset, expansion bus and IDE drives, and typically run at around 300W.
To ADW: How do you feel about SCSI disks?
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#243501 - 07/12/2004 12:52
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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addict
Registered: 09/06/1999
Posts: 559
Loc: Newfoundland, Canada
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This probably isn't the kind of solution you want, but it works for me. Buy a set of big speakers and run it at blast!
_________________________
12 gig empeg Mark II, SN: 080000101 30 gig RioCar SN: 30103114 My blog
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#243502 - 07/12/2004 12:58
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: mdavey]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
Interesting. Of course, it is totally Schrodinger until you perform a core dump analysis (to determine whether it is a hardware or a software fault)
No, it fails in different places each time. It's hardware.
And I wasn't really pushing Sun as a good solution for a media server -- an old-model but decent-brand PC would be cheaper and quieter -- but I reckon they're better value than RiscPCs if a secondary goal here is playing with honourable antiques or with Linux.
Peter
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#243503 - 07/12/2004 13:11
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
NSLU2
OK, I've just found the NSLU2 Linux pages, and their package list goes busybox, DAAPd, ntpclient, nano, nethack.
I like their sense of priorities 
Peter
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#243504 - 08/12/2004 05:50
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: Shonky]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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Lots and lots of replies! This is great! I'll try to address as much as I can. Quote:
The Via EPIA stuff (here) is also pretty low power.
I had looked in general terms at mini-itx boards and found them to be overkill. Now that I'm looking specifically at the EPIA boards, I do believe one of them might work for me. There are quite a few, however, so the key would be to find the one with basically the least features at the least price, and then find a modest, unassuming case capable of holding two drives.
I did also find some mini-itx boards using the Geode (like genixia suggested), but couldn't find prices. The other Geode boards I saw were SBCs that were way too costly.
Either way, assuming I could find a suitable case (one that doesn't have neon or anything, and has the right venting to run this thing fanless), I'm kind of leaning towards a EPIA solution right now.
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243505 - 08/12/2004 06:30
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: peter]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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Quote:
You can use Lacie Biggerdisk gear to get your two drive boxes down to one.
The Biggerdisk (or even the Bigdisk) seems to be the best looking and most efficient way of putting >1 drive into a single external enclosure. The drawback is that I don't think I can get it bare, so I may be spending more that way than just finding some ugly 2 drive USB box.
Quote:
And it wouldn't surprise me if there were next to no electronics in an NSLU2, and you could mount it inside the Biggerdisk somehow.
The other 2 drive USB boxes I've seen are big, ugly things that take up as much more space than you'd think two drives would. The space probably has something to do with a power supply, but it seems like there would be plenty of room to mount NSLU2 guts into one of those...
Quote:
...and think about getting Sonos boxes (http://www.sonos.com)
Um. Whoa.
I hadn't seen that one yet. So, uh, yeah.
There's the slight little problem that I don't have a couple thousand dollars to actually put these where'd I'd want them, but I'd like to get over that if possible. This causes me to rethink what's even possible on the presentation/playing side, and even if I don't buy it, I'll now look at all other solutions in a slightly different light.
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243506 - 08/12/2004 06:35
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: wfaulk]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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Quote:
Quote:
the NSLU2 really comes close to what I'm looking for. So, anyone know of something like that in a single box?
There are lots of them. Check out this list of them at NewEgg. If that URL expires for some reason, NewEgg->Shop by Category->Modem and Network Devices->Network - Hard Drives.
I knew a few of these existed, but didn't really know how many. The problem with all of these, though, is that they're all 1 drive. To hold my FLAC library, I'd need ~400GB, and if I had a playing box that didn't grok FLAC, I'd also keep a lossy version of the library for maybe another 60GB. The only way to hit that capacity now is with two drives.
There is one in the list that will hold two drives (the LaCie), but for nearly $1000, I'll keep looking.
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243507 - 08/12/2004 06:43
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: mdavey]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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Quote:
To ADW: How do you feel about SCSI disks?
I used to cry myself to sleep because I couldn't upgrade the HD in my Mac at the same price my friends could upgrade their Intel machines. Seems the situation's much worse today. Since my choice is a 250GB EIDE drive for $120, or a 180GB SCSI drive for $320, I don't think SCSI's much of an option.
I don't know anything about Sun machines, but I'm not at all opposed to learning. However, it seems that the costs of SCSI would negate any savings from going that far back in time hardware wise. And, if newer, IDE-capable hardware doesn't offer a compelling advantage over the mini-ITX machine, I'll save the "hack a Sun box" desire for another day.
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243508 - 09/12/2004 00:25
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Some of the newer workstation-class Sun boxes are IDE. The Ultra 5 and Ultra 10 I know are, right off the top of my head.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#243509 - 09/12/2004 01:32
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: wfaulk]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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Quote:
Some of the newer workstation-class Sun boxes are IDE. The Ultra 5 and Ultra 10 I know are, right off the top of my head.
And my friend ebay indicates that those two don't really cost a whole lot either.
So, excuse me whilst I Google for basic things like "can the case hold more than one drive?", "will I have any trouble compiling any of the music server softwares for it?", and stuff like that.
edit: Maybe not. Methinks that these two are just too big for what I want. If something like the IPX did IDE, then I'd be in.
Edited by adavidw (09/12/2004 02:08)
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243510 - 09/12/2004 02:14
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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The Ultra 10 is basically a mini-tower case. The Ultra 5 is a desktop, under-monitor type case. Not as thin as the SparcStation 5/10/20 pizza-boxes, though, but the same in the other dimensions, give or take. Sun hasn't made tiny cases in quite a while.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#243511 - 09/12/2004 06:46
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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enthusiast
Registered: 06/03/2003
Posts: 269
Loc: Wellingborough, UK
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Quote:
Quote:
Some of the newer workstation-class Sun boxes are IDE. The Ultra 5 and Ultra 10 I know are, right off the top of my head.
So, excuse me whilst I Google for basic things like "can the case hold more than one drive?",
The Ultra 5 can hold 4 drives, typically floppy, HDD, CD and space for a 3.5" drive above the floppy. Of course, you could swap out the CD or floppy for an HDD. The Ultra 10 can hold 3 HDDs plus CD and floppy without modifications. Again you could sacrifice the floppy and/or CD for more HDD capacity. Also, not all Ultra 5s and Ultra 10s have a CD in its slot, so check the specification carefully.
The Ultra 30 and Ultra 60 tower units use a kind of HDD sled design that requires a bracket (known as a SPUD bracket) to be fitted to the drive. The SPUD bracket is great for servicing - you just power down the box, whip out one drive and pop in the replacement - but can be difficult to obtain (Ebay is good) unless you want to buy your drives from Sun.
You can pick up a 400MHz or 440MHz Ultra 5 off Ebay for around £150. Less for a slower speed (eg 270MHz) CPU. Make sure you buy from someone offering a guarantee as intermittent hardware problems, although rare, do crop up from time to time especially on 400/440MHz CPUs.
Quote:
"will I have any trouble compiling any of the music server softwares for it?"
Most people run the Solaris OS on their Sun boxes, which is Sun's version of SysV (AT&T) Unix. Solaris is particular well known for its rock solid, high power and very scalable kernel, and rock solid NFS and TCP/IP implementations.
There is also SparcLinux, which is particularly popular on older tin as each new version of Solaris assumes slightly more powerful hardware than the last (a huge oversimplication, but we don't have enough space here for the details).
Any popular Linux program (think Perl, Sendmail, Apache web server and the like) will have been written to also compile on Solaris. Fringe stuff with only a few developers can be made to compile on Solaris by a proficient developer (assuming that developer has access to the source). Only particularly lazy code will fail to compile on SparcLinux if it compiles on x86.
Quote:
these two are just too big for what I want
As Bitt said, the Ultra 5 case dimensions are roughly those of a standard PC under-monitor case. The Ultra 10 case dimensions are roughly those of a standard PC half-height tower case.
Edited by mdavey (09/12/2004 06:49)
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#243512 - 09/12/2004 06:54
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: mdavey]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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Quote:
As Bitt said, the Ultra 5 case dimensions are roughly those of a standard PC under-monitor case. The Ultra 10 case dimensions are roughly those of a standard PC half-height tower case.
I'm still holding on to the dream of being able to assemble a box that's barely bigger than the two drives in it. However, if I can't do that for some reason and I have to settle for something desktop size, I'd like to pursue this Sun thing since it lets me kill two birds with one stone: I can build my music storage box, and tackle a new-to-me hardware/software combo at the same time.
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243513 - 09/12/2004 07:07
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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enthusiast
Registered: 06/03/2003
Posts: 269
Loc: Wellingborough, UK
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You are just fighting on too many fronts - low power - ideally <150W
- small form factor - not much bigger than two drives, single box
- budget - less than $150 (before disks)
- capacity - 400GB minimum, must be IDE
- tech - something new to learn or something cool to own
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#243514 - 09/12/2004 07:16
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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enthusiast
Registered: 06/03/2003
Posts: 269
Loc: Wellingborough, UK
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Quote:
I'm still holding on to the dream of being able to assemble a box that's barely bigger than the two drives in it.
Hmm. Sun Ultra 5 isn't ideal beacuse of the power requirements. Acorn isn't ideal because of the difficulty of obtaining one with a network card and in the US. Mini-ITX are too expensive really. Network drives have too many boxes for 400GB or are too expensive.
Can anyone think of a set-top-box or network computer that is inexpensive and can be made to take two drives? Or a printer server? Or any other off-the-wall ideas?
Anyone know anything about old HP or IBM or Apple kit that might do the job?
Edit: Hmm, I now find myself wanting to do the same. Damn you, adavidw!
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#243515 - 09/12/2004 17:20
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: mdavey]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Other companies make spud brackets these days. They're not terribly expensive. On the other hand, that's SCSI-only (with SCA connectors), so the drives themselves are expensive.
Edit: Hmm. A company called Silicon Gear used to make them, but it looks like they might be out of business these days. Also, assuming you can get to the drive physically without shutting the computer down, you don't need to power it down in order to swap out hard drives. It's not technically supported (actually, I think it has been for the last few years), but I've never had a problem doing it in the last eight years or so.
Edited by wfaulk (09/12/2004 17:26)
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Bitt Faulk
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#243516 - 09/12/2004 19:40
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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old hand
Registered: 15/02/2002
Posts: 1049
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In my opinion, you should do the following:
Find somebody you know who has an old Pentium 133 laying around (or anything faster, of course). You can probably get one of these for free since somebody will have one laying around in a closet or something. Cost: nothing
Buy a ATA133 IDE controller card for the thing for about $30 which will allow you to use big disks with minimal fuss. You might also need an ethernet card.
That's it. Small, quiet, cheap, reliable. If the thing works after all these years, it will probably keep working for a very long time (failure rate of electronic devices decreases exponentially -- if its lasted this long it will probably last quite a while yet). If it doesn't, you can get another one for nothing.
Install some flavor of linux and use software raid to make a big partition. I used raid0 but I wish I had put an extra disk in and did the redundancy thing.
As someone else mentioned, hdparm in linux lets you spin down the drives.
Install Samba, and it speaks SMB.
That's it. Total cost: about $30-50 depending on whether you need an eithernet card. I used a Dell mini-tower for my first one of these. I found that a P133 could play mp3s on the console and on 3 client machines running winamp while simultaneously having new songs uploaded to it. It was plenty. I'm using another machine now, but anything like a 133 or above should be fine.
FWIW,
Jim
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#243517 - 09/12/2004 23:18
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: mdavey]
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stranger
Registered: 15/11/2001
Posts: 47
Loc: Silicon Valley
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Get a Kurobox [aka Linkstation] . People have it running Slimserver and some other stuff. No Jreceiver, I don't know how the Java front is on it. I'm running a Debian chroot image right now, hope to make it a dedicated FLAC ripping machine soon.
- low power - 17W
- small form factor - holds one drive (can attach more via USB2.0)
- budget - $160 for Kurobox, ~$250 for Linkstation with 120GB
- capacity - sorta check, add your own IDE disk to Kurobox
- tech - hey, PPCs are cool
Its like a NSLU2, but beefed up. Specs
Heck, be like this guy and get a couple.
Edited by shawn (09/12/2004 23:23)
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#243518 - 09/12/2004 23:45
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: shawn]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Excellent link. I was looking at the Linkstation a few weeks ago but didn't like the price. i only wanted it as a portable drive. Running slimserver on it is a great idea and makes for a really killer music stream when combined with a Squeezebox or Roku Sound Stick.
Bruno
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#243519 - 10/12/2004 01:52
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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addict
Registered: 03/08/1999
Posts: 451
Loc: Canberra, Australia
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Quote:
Either way, assuming I could find a suitable case (one that doesn't have neon or anything, and has the right venting to run this thing fanless), I'm kind of leaning towards a EPIA solution right now.
I would back you up on this inclination; I'm running a VIA EPIA M 10000 in a Morex 3677 black case for my firewall (SmoothWall). The motherboard still has a fan on board since I haven't yet felt the need to replace it with a Zalman Silent Northbridge Cooler (as I've done on my gaming machine since its chipset fan decided to die slowly, horribly and with the most irritating amount of noise possible).
Of course, this case is probably a bit small for what you want; you might need to go for something a bit larger, like the Morex 2699 in Anonymous Beige or Stealth Black. A word of caution, though - I found I had to put a 2200uf capacitor across the input leads of the power supply (inside the box) to provide enough start current for the board to start up. But since this power supply is more than capable of powering the board and two drives (a standard full-height CD and a 3.5" drive, when I was initially installing SmoothWall) and is completely silent, I think it's just the ticket.
I look on the extra features of the VIA boards - the video out, the gobs of spare processing power - as just futureproofing. It's much better to get something like this that's relatively new and have it last for years, than to continually have to scrounge parts for your ageing 286 because you need another ISA card for more drives. Anyway, it's up to you, of course.
Hope this helps and that parts are available,
Paul
_________________________
Owner of Mark I empeg 00061, now better than ever - (Thanks, Rod!) - and Karma 3930000004550
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#243520 - 10/12/2004 02:37
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: TigerJimmy]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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Quote:
Find somebody you know who has an old Pentium 133 laying around
I myself just happen to have an old Pentium 133 lying around. Problem is, it's attached to a motherboard which is rather large, which is in turn attached to a case which is rather large. The whole assembly tends to make a lot of noise, and in my mind, noise=power draw. Even if it's not drawing a lot of power, it's still too noisy and big for my tastes.
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243521 - 10/12/2004 02:40
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: shawn]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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Quote:
Get a Kurobox
I've just barely come across the KuroBox in my research, and it is indeed cool. The one part where it doesn't work for me is that it only holds one drive. However, that's still one more than the NSLU2 holds. So, even if I put one in it and one via USB2, that's still less duct tape than the NSLU2 needs.
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243522 - 10/12/2004 04:58
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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stranger
Registered: 15/11/2001
Posts: 47
Loc: Silicon Valley
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Yeah, it only holds one drive, so that may be a problem for 400GB. Some people are working on a Gentoo or Debian installation from scratch. So far, I've just been running it from my chrooted Debian install (kinda like my Empeg). I can't add kernel modules yet (so no CDROM access for ripping) but it serves most of my purposes (DHCP, NTP, DNS, SMTP, HTTP, SNMP, SMB, LPR -- any other acronyms??) out the box with Debian and apt-get. Plus, it has double the memory and a more powerful processor than the NSLU2. Its a little more expensive, like you said, it already holds the HD, so one less box to hassle with. Checkout the gmane group which mirrors a Yahoo group for much more info.
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#243523 - 10/12/2004 09:00
Re: How best to do whole house music? KuroBox
[Re: shawn]
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enthusiast
Registered: 06/03/2003
Posts: 269
Loc: Wellingborough, UK
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Quote:
budget - $160 for Kurobox, ~$250 for Linkstation with 120GB
Also, they seem to have the Empeg design philosophy - put lots of pads on the board for things that we have no intention of fitting but others may. For instance, it has one USB port, but there are pads for another one at the front. I wonder if a second Ethernet port could be hacked?
The IDE is interesting. I wonder what happens if the IDE and drive power cables are replaced with ones that have two drive connectors - does the OS correctly handle master & slave (I can't see why not)? There is only enough space in the box for one drive, though - so a new box would be needed. Pity that either a case mod or bare board isn't available.
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#243524 - 10/12/2004 18:54
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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old hand
Registered: 15/02/2002
Posts: 1049
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Well, fair enough. That old Dell 133 I have is very quiet and is in a mini-tower form factor. Holds two disks easily, 4 if you convert 5.25 bays to 3.5. The old P133s don't have a CPU heatsink, so the noise is coming from the PSU, most likey. If you can find an old machine that is small enough for you, you could always spend $40 or so on a very quiet PSU. Check out silentpc.com for some options.
Just my $.02.
J
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#243525 - 11/12/2004 21:09
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: TigerJimmy]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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Quote:
Check out silentpc.com for some options.
Hmm. That doesn't seem to be the kind of website I want (it's some consulting/venture capital firm or something). Any other website recommendations? I've got silentpcreview.com and mini-itx.com and things like that. Any others worth reading on a regular basis for someone trying to get into this stuff?
_________________________
-Aaron
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#243527 - 12/12/2004 03:23
Re: How best to do whole house music?
[Re: adavidw]
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old hand
Registered: 15/02/2002
Posts: 1049
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Hmmm. I'll try to find that URL... Sorry, that was off the cuff.
Jim
Well, it's been a while since I've looked at those sites, and they've changed. I think silentpcreview.com was the one I was thinking of. I think I may have been thinking of this article, which is now rather old.
It seems to me that Mark Lord's new network server (the one in the tin cookie box) is fanless and silent as well. I don't remember the details of that machine.
You can put your 3.5" IDE drives in acoustic enclosures ( this place sells them) that reduce their noise. That, combined with something like mlord's machine might be the ticket.
I have the music server in a closet with my network server/firewall machine, so I don't really care about the noise. What I want to do (time and $$$ permitting) is to make a completely silent cookie-tin like computer with a flash drive and wireless that just NFS mounts the music partition from the server in the other room. The other alternative is to buy a squeezebox and install that server software on my existing machine.
I've been using mp3blaster as my linux console mp3player. I wanted a console player so I didn't need a big machine running X and a mouse, etc, etc. This player has some really cool functions, in my opinion (shuffle groups, for instance). You can make mp3blaster work with lirc (linux infrared remote control), so that you can control it with a standard remote (or even the empeg remote, I suppose). I haven't done that, but if/when I make the silent little flash-drive player machine, I will probably get that working.
I really think that linux with software raid and Samba is the answer, at least for the server side. You can use the server as the player, if it is quiet enough, or use a variety of different players, from Windoze machines with Winamp, to squeezeboxes, or other linux client-only player machines.
Jim
Edited by TigerJimmy (12/12/2004 03:45)
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