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Thread: Using an SSD HD as your music Library to replace your USB HD

  1. #1
    Join Date: Jan 2019

    Location: Liverpool

    Posts: 277
    I'm Andrew.

    Default Using an SSD HD as your music Library to replace your USB HD

    I have a stand alone Logitech Media Server installed on a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB using Max2play as the distro . Over the years i have always used a standard USB HD as the music storage connected to the Pi by USB . I have changed for a 1 TB unit to the current 2 TB one as I ran out of memory using about 1.3 TB at the moment for around 62000+ Flac tracks .

    Now around two years ago the use of SSD HD items was being advised for the silent operation , faster access speeds and immunity to shock . At that time they were limited in storage capacity and also for me too expensive . i looked again about a year ago but while the storage had increased and the prices had dropped at £550/600 for a 2TB one this was a little too expensive for me for only a very slight improvement i would expect .

    Then on Saturday night after a late night browse I ran across a thread saying that this was much more a cost effective upgrade . Well at first the prices were £350/400 which is lower but still a little too much . Then an Amazon Offer dropped in and I was surprised a Crucial X8 TB SSD at £174.99 but also available on five payments with no interest . This was too tempting so even before my brain had clocked it my finger hit the button .

    Arrived today and it is very small and feels nice and sturdy . I now have the long job of copying all the music files from one HD to the new one which will take around 23 hours so no putting it in place and hearing and seeing the results till late Tuesday or possibly even Wednesday morning. I have done this for reasons of more secure long term reasons than any performance gain but we will see what happens. As the SSD has no moving parts then it should be able to access faster and of course it will silent (not that i have ever noticed any noise from the USB HD which is right next to me now) . If anyone has done this switch any tips advice and comments would be appreciated .

  2. #2
    Join Date: Apr 2008

    Location: Cheshire, UK

    Posts: 2,829
    I'm Clive.

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    I've been using a 1TB SSD for a couple of years. It works fine and is faster to re-index and lower power (if powered via USB). Does it sounds better...I can't say I noticed but I changed a couple of years ago so I forget. Your transfer time seems slow, are you using USB3?
    Last edited by Clive; 01-02-2021 at 15:05.
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  3. #3
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: W Lothian

    Posts: 99,005
    I'm Grant.

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    sounds like its coming off of usb2, in which case there will be no speed improvements. usb3 should copy that over very much quicker than that you state.
    Regards,
    Grant .... ؠ ......Don't be such a big girl's blouse

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply-doesn't-work
    .... ..... ...... ...... ................... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....
    FIIO K7 BT, M11 PLUS, BTR7, KA5 - OPPO BDP-103D - PANASONIC UB450 - PANASONIC 4K ULTRA HD TV - PIXEL 6 - AVANTREE LR BLUETOOTH - 2* X600 SOUNDCORE - HEADPHONES INCLUDE, FIIO, NURAPHONES', FOCAL, OPPO, BOSE, CAMBRIDGE, BOWER & WILKINS, DEVIALET, MARSHALL, SONY, MITCHELL & JOHNSTON - 2*ZBOOK'S- MERCURY BD ROM, ROON, QOBUZ, TIDAL, PLEX, CYBERLINK, JRIVER - MULTI HDD'S -

    Oh my god! There's nothing wrong with the bidet is there?

    “Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy".

    “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”

    "You don't have free will. You have the appearance of free will.”

    “There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!”


    ***SMILE, BE HAPPY***

  4. #4
    Join Date: Feb 2010

    Location: Moved to frozen north, beyond Inverness

    Posts: 2,602
    I'm Dave.

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    Quote Originally Posted by struth View Post
    sounds like its coming off of usb2, in which case there will be no speed improvements. usb3 should copy that over very much quicker than that you state.
    Is the unit something like this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT2...08C3XVP2P?th=1

    It ought to be very fast if the hardware connections aren't bottlenecking things. Not that it really matters so much for playing the tracks, but for backing up and copying to other systems, the higher transfer rates are a definite plus.
    Dave

  5. #5
    Join Date: Jan 2013

    Location: Birmingham

    Posts: 6,772
    I'm James.

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Bencat View Post
    I have a stand alone Logitech Media Server installed on a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB using Max2play as the distro . Over the years i have always used a standard USB HD as the music storage connected to the Pi by USB . I have changed for a 1 TB unit to the current 2 TB one as I ran out of memory using about 1.3 TB at the moment for around 62000+ Flac tracks .

    Now around two years ago the use of SSD HD items was being advised for the silent operation , faster access speeds and immunity to shock . At that time they were limited in storage capacity and also for me too expensive . i looked again about a year ago but while the storage had increased and the prices had dropped at £550/600 for a 2TB one this was a little too expensive for me for only a very slight improvement i would expect .

    Then on Saturday night after a late night browse I ran across a thread saying that this was much more a cost effective upgrade . Well at first the prices were £350/400 which is lower but still a little too much . Then an Amazon Offer dropped in and I was surprised a Crucial X8 TB SSD at £174.99 but also available on five payments with no interest . This was too tempting so even before my brain had clocked it my finger hit the button .

    Arrived today and it is very small and feels nice and sturdy . I now have the long job of copying all the music files from one HD to the new one which will take around 23 hours so no putting it in place and hearing and seeing the results till late Tuesday or possibly even Wednesday morning. I have done this for reasons of more secure long term reasons than any performance gain but we will see what happens. As the SSD has no moving parts then it should be able to access faster and of course it will silent (not that i have ever noticed any noise from the USB HD which is right next to me now) . If anyone has done this switch any tips advice and comments would be appreciated .
    Just bought a Crucial SSD to replace the HDD in my Macbook Pro. Lightening quick access speed and my files sound better from the SSD via Audirvana than they did from the HDD.
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  6. #6
    Join Date: Jun 2015

    Location: Powys, Wales

    Posts: 334
    I'm Sandy.

    Default

    Beware...
    SSDs give up the ghost without warning, unlike HDDs which play up a bit before dying. I have replaced all my HDDs with SSDs and the speed improvement is undeniable, but bear in mind that you MUST keep everything backed up.

  7. #7
    Join Date: Sep 2017

    Location: Dublin

    Posts: 506
    I'm Pavel.

    Default

    I've been using SSDs almost exclusively since 2009 and the only SSD that ever died on me was the first one I bought - the technology was pretty new and unreliable back then.

    Obviously it doesn't mean that you shouldn't make backups, in fact there are only two types of computer users: those who back everything up and those who haven't lost their data... yet.

  8. #8
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: W Lothian

    Posts: 99,005
    I'm Grant.

    Default

    my 2 zbooks have internal ssd's. i keep all programs on these and music and films on ex hdd's. works fin and usb 3 with hdd is plenty quick enough really.. my hdds are about 6/8 tb, but still very affordable. everything is backed up
    Regards,
    Grant .... ؠ ......Don't be such a big girl's blouse

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply-doesn't-work
    .... ..... ...... ...... ................... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....
    FIIO K7 BT, M11 PLUS, BTR7, KA5 - OPPO BDP-103D - PANASONIC UB450 - PANASONIC 4K ULTRA HD TV - PIXEL 6 - AVANTREE LR BLUETOOTH - 2* X600 SOUNDCORE - HEADPHONES INCLUDE, FIIO, NURAPHONES', FOCAL, OPPO, BOSE, CAMBRIDGE, BOWER & WILKINS, DEVIALET, MARSHALL, SONY, MITCHELL & JOHNSTON - 2*ZBOOK'S- MERCURY BD ROM, ROON, QOBUZ, TIDAL, PLEX, CYBERLINK, JRIVER - MULTI HDD'S -

    Oh my god! There's nothing wrong with the bidet is there?

    “Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy".

    “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”

    "You don't have free will. You have the appearance of free will.”

    “There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!”


    ***SMILE, BE HAPPY***

  9. #9
    Join Date: Jan 2019

    Location: Liverpool

    Posts: 277
    I'm Andrew.

    Default

    Okay copy of my music files is finished now . The slow copying is because it is from the 4 TB USB HD plugged in to my laptop and the USB 3 socket is broken so has to be USB 2 . I plug the Cruxial CX8 SSD in to my Raspberry Pi 4 and that has USB 3 so the transfer from that to streaming should be quicker .

    Turned off my LMS removed the USB HD replaced it with the SSD HD and then did a full rescan after first mounting the SSD HD . The scan took pretty much the same as the USB HD used to and I have not noticed anything in the way of speed gains.

    Now the crazy part that i find very hard to believe the sound is most definitely better and not by a little . I know that the digital files on both HD's are identical and i know that when they were ripped they were checked to be perfect digital copies of the original digital file on the CD . There is no way they should sound anything but the same , maybe they do and are the same and this is just my brain playing tricks . End result is i am not bothered for as long as it lasts will just enjoy what i hear . I am not encouraging anyone else to do this nor wouldI have any confidence that someone else would hear it . But for me at least it exists and makes my music sound more real and more enjoyable with the most improvement to many of the poor recordings / masterings (but great music ) that I have . It does not make them sound like a polished sound of say Yello but it does make them easier and more enjoyable to listen to .

    Thank you all for your warnings on the possible failure of the SSD it is noted . I have three separate USB HD Drives all backed up with my full music Library as I rip new CD's they are copied to all . One is attached to my router , one attached to my PC and one is kept safe and not plugged in so if something zaps the Network and gets the others that one will still be there. I also still have all of the physical CD's as well so if the very worst happens I can always rip everything all over again.

  10. #10
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: W Lothian

    Posts: 99,005
    I'm Grant.

    Default

    Timing, jitter etc may be a factor in ssd's favour. But using a reclocker or similar on output should nullify that.
    Good it's all working well
    Regards,
    Grant .... ؠ ......Don't be such a big girl's blouse

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply-doesn't-work
    .... ..... ...... ...... ................... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....
    FIIO K7 BT, M11 PLUS, BTR7, KA5 - OPPO BDP-103D - PANASONIC UB450 - PANASONIC 4K ULTRA HD TV - PIXEL 6 - AVANTREE LR BLUETOOTH - 2* X600 SOUNDCORE - HEADPHONES INCLUDE, FIIO, NURAPHONES', FOCAL, OPPO, BOSE, CAMBRIDGE, BOWER & WILKINS, DEVIALET, MARSHALL, SONY, MITCHELL & JOHNSTON - 2*ZBOOK'S- MERCURY BD ROM, ROON, QOBUZ, TIDAL, PLEX, CYBERLINK, JRIVER - MULTI HDD'S -

    Oh my god! There's nothing wrong with the bidet is there?

    “Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy".

    “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”

    "You don't have free will. You have the appearance of free will.”

    “There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!”


    ***SMILE, BE HAPPY***

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