Squeezebox Touch

[VPI]

Maybe I should try using this thing again. I used it once and got mad because of network security stuff at the office and never turned it on again. I hope the server software upgrade also upgrades the terrible on device server software as that was a pain to use with attached memory cards.

[recstar24]

Sorry for the long bump...my touch detects and SD card just fine but when I plug in my portable USB drive it doesn't sense/detect it whatsoever. It's a basic WD 250 gb portable thing, I believe formatted in FAT32

[Beefy]

If it is USB powered, perhaps it is not able to spin up due to power draw issues? I have a Seagate portable unit that would sometimes flake out with my Squeezebox Touch, but works perfectly from my docking station's USB port.

Oh, and I'm not sure what disk format the Squeezebox requires, but I would strongly recommend reformatting to something other than FAT32. I do know that NTFS is A-O-K.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Beefy

[recstar24]

Thanks!

[Beefy]

I should add...... you should be able to hear and feel the drive spin up when plugging it into the USB port, so that one should be quick and easy to check.

[deepak]

I could never get a hardrive plugged straight into the Touch to work 100% of the time with the hardrive sizes that hold my entire music collection. Sometimes it would work, other times it would fail to recognize the drive. Maybe things have improved with the many firmware updates, but I stopped trying and stick to my dedicated server.

[VPI]

I gave up as well. Mine has been unused now since about the second week I owned it.

[n_maher]

I basically use it as a remote for my library. The USB works well for sampling new stuff with a complete library rescan, but that's about it.

[Beefy]

FWIW, I now use an AC-powered 320Gb USB drive, and it is 100% reliable. Admittedly, it is a bit of a chore to disconnect, copy music on, then wait for a re-scan...... but for me, the USB drive is still better than running the server on a separate PC all the time.

[Salt Peanuts]

That's too bad about the USB drive not working well or consistently with Touch. That was the only reason I was thinking of replacing my good ol' Squeezebox 3 so I don't have to have a computer running as a server for it all the time.

[Dreadhead]

I use mine with a server and just have it do Wake on Lan so the server is asleep all of the time (draws about 4 watts when sleeping). It's about a 1 min delay on start up but that way I get everything backed up to the cloud with Backblaze etc.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Dreadhead

[Salt Peanuts]

^ I'd forgotten about wake on LAN. I'll see if it works with my old iMac, which is acting as the server right now.

EDIT - And, of course, my ancient iMac can't wake on network access over wireless. Argh. Perhaps it's a good thing it's screen's slowly dying.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Salt Peanuts

[CarlSeibert]

If you're feelin' adventurous: soundcheck's Squeezebox Touch Toolbox 3.0

How did that work out?

[Grahame]

If you are still interested in using the touch with an external USB drive, the best thread I have read on the matter is

Touch with USB drive : mastering TinySB Lots of useful info. Of particular interest are Treepleks Posts Where he describes how to use the SD card (or usb drive) filesystem as extra virtual memory / swap space. Impressive. Hopefully someone can configure it as an app , so it will "just work" and you wont have to brush up on your command line skillz.

[Spychedelic Whale]

I have read that the Touch doesn't work very well with high amount of albums over the lan with the search and listing being laggy, is this true for the last version?

Edited February 29, 2012 by Spychedelic Whale

[Spychedelic Whale]

I use mine with a server and just have it do Wake on Lan so the server is asleep all of the time (draws about 4 watts when sleeping). It's about a 1 min delay on start up but that way I get everything backed up to the cloud with Backblaze etc.

Do you have to keep paying the 4$ a month to keep having access to the files uploaded or only to upload new files ?

[mrarroyo]

I have about 2,000 "albums" and the Touch sees them fine over wifi.

[Dreadhead]

Do you have to keep paying the 4$ a month to keep having access to the files uploaded or only to upload new files ?

it's cloud based backup hosting so you're paying for both access and hosting. That said you don't have to worry about losing your files for any reason short of a major war or massive internet attack

[Spychedelic Whale]

I have about 2,000 "albums" and the Touch sees them fine over wifi.

That's nice, I read somewhere that it was only good if you had the computer next to you so you can make playlists.

it's cloud based backup hosting so you're paying for both access and hosting. That said you don't have to worry about losing your files for any reason short of a major war or massive internet attack

I guess its better than to buy 4x2TB drives but if I don't pay one month for some reason my data is lost ?

Edited March 1, 2012 by Spychedelic Whale

[jpelg]

I guess its better than to buy 4x2TB drives but if I don't pay one month for some reason my data is lost ?

They sell off your data to the highest bidder on that new show "Internet Storage Wars"

[Dreadhead]

That's nice, I read somewhere that it was only good if you had the computer next to you so you can make playlists.

I guess its better than to buy 4x2TB drives but if I don't pay one month for some reason my data is lost ?

I'm assuming that they have some grace period but I don't know. I assume you can check their FAQ. I signed up when my Drobo had a error and stayed on with the fan off and ate one of the hard drives, I had images of losing all my family photos and the $ is worth the peace of mind. As an added benefit I can now pull down my lossless audio files from work so I don't need to remember to take my portable drive home.

[Spychedelic Whale]

ok got my SB today, I'm adding music to the library but this is ridiculously slow. Taking about 5 seconds per album, isn't possible to use another 3rdparty server that interacts with foobar library for example ?

[blessingx]

How are you 'adding to the library'? If you just point the Media Server to your directory it should be much faster. Even over LAN.

[deepak]

ok got my SB today, I'm adding music to the library but this is ridiculously slow. Taking about 5 seconds per album, isn't possible to use another 3rdparty server that interacts with foobar library for example ?

You will only need to scan your library one time. Subsequent scans whenever you add music to it will be faster, as it only scans for new music.

[n_maher]

You will only need to scan your library one time. Subsequent scans whenever you add music to it will be faster, as it only scans for new music.

Careful, while it's true that you can have it setup to only scan for changes there's also the option to do a full scan each time (IIRC). I always make sure that I have it setup to only scan for changes to avoid the long scan time debacle.