2. pc-audio
  3. 1323215150

External HD question

I currently have a 2TB external drive connected to a little netbook that streams to an Airport Express (then to a DAC Magic/Brio-R). Sounds great.

I would really love to cut the streaming out of the picture. I would really also love to *not* have a laptop--however small--sitting next to my stereo (not to mention that it is my understanding that XP is not great for a direct connection).

What is the minimal product I would have to buy to accomplish as-direct-as-possible of a connection to my DAC? I imagine it would have to have some sort of operating system, GUI, and inputs/outputs...I have been told that some Logitech products may do this, but frankly, I am trying to keep everything of very good quality.

I am afraid that a chorus of people is going to say either "get windows 7 and suck it up" or "get a mac mini." Isn't there some tiny little box out there that fits my description without paying for a new mac?

As always, I am sorry if I have duplicated anything from a previous post--I tried to search around.
dcowen1234

Showing 2 responses by rbautista

rbautista
97 posts
 
I think you may want to look into the SqueezeBox Touch. I've had great success with it. You would still need to keep your netbook but you can at least store that away in another room to stream your music to the SB Touch. Then with an Android or "i" device, you can control the touch with an app.

It may sound complicated at first to setup, but it straightforward. Keep your external connected to you laptop, install Logitech Media Server, and start up the SB Touch and connect to your network. Once the SB Touch is done booting, you just go to "My Music" and point it to the your Logitech Media Server.

Once you get all that up and running, then you can look into SoundChecks TT 3.0 Mod to furthur refine the SB Touch.
rbautista
97 posts
 
Sufentanil,

Yes you can run the server software on certain NAS devices, but the NAS device may be under powered if you want to use the optimal settings. For example, it's recommended to have the server stream the FLAC as PCM so the SBT doesn't have to do the work. For some, streaming native FLAC as opposed to PCM the difference was minor.

Dcowen1234, I tried using the SBT built in server to use the external HD and I don't recommend it. You'll just end up frustrated. That was the first thing I tried and ended up hating it. Scanning the library took too long and sometime it would crash. Once it crashed, it would have to scan again since it didn't run all the through the first time. I ended up reviving my old Dell Pentium 4 computer with XP and installed the Logictech Media Server and haven't run into any issues since them.
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