Slimserver 6.5.X performance on Infrant X6 units?

[Slaine]

I've put off upgrading to the latest RAIDiator release for quite a while due to concerns about the performance of Slimserver 6.5.X on my X6 Rev. A unit. However, I've started to run afoul of some of the bugs in the Slimserver 6.3.1 release, so I'm contemplating upgrading soon.

I'd appreciate any feedback people can provide concerning their experiences with this combination of hardware and software. If it's a bad idea, I'd sure like to know before I upgrade rather than after.

Any and all comments are welcome.

[Kaizen]

Hi

I have a Rev A X6 and I think it's a lovely piece of hardware. It#s still running with the original 256MB of RAM. I have threatened numerous times to upgrade my RAM to improve the performance of SlimServer but other feedback suggests it's not worth it.

I am running with some 50k tracks and I am happy (not over the moon), just happy with the performance. I have however, yet to see any consume grade interface that has impressed me.

To answer your question, I am running SlimServer Version: 6.5.1 - 10479 and am VERY happy with its performance, features and stability. I am however not a very damnding user but I do ask for rock solid stability which I've found in this release.

I hope that helps.

[Heuer]

I am running an NV using SS6.5.1.2. Performance is fine for normal listening but the web interface is all but unusable - 40 seconds to display Artiists for example. Remote works fine though. I have upgraded to 1gb of RAM but it made little difference to SS web interface.

[Slaine]

Hi

I have a Rev A X6 and I think it's a lovely piece of hardware. It#s still running with the original 256MB of RAM. I have threatened numerous times to upgrade my RAM to improve the performance of SlimServer but other feedback suggests it's not worth it.

I am running with some 50k tracks and I am happy (not over the moon), just happy with the performance. I have however, yet to see any consume grade interface that has impressed me.

To answer your question, I am running SlimServer Version: 6.5.1 - 10479 and am VERY happy with its performance, features and stability. I am however not a very damnding user but I do ask for rock solid stability which I've found in this release.

I hope that helps.

Yeah, that helps quite a bit actually. Appreciate the response.

[Slaine]

I am running an NV using SS6.5.1.2. Performance is fine for normal listening but the web interface is all but unusable - 40 seconds to display Artiists for example. Remote works fine though. I have upgraded to 1gb of RAM but it made little difference to SS web interface.

Heuer, did you ever run Slimserver 6.3.X on your NV unit? And if so, was the SS web interface dramatically better?

[Heuer]

Yes I started off with 6.3.1 and web browsing was really quick and very usable. The change in performance was caused by the use of MySQL in 6.5 while 6.3 used SQLLite or some such.

This is the problem with Open Sandles Software - the geeks pour in functionality and test it on their high performance overclocked PC's!

If you can live without some of the added functionality of 6.5 then 6.3.1 is the best choice for the NV using the SS browser. Balance of how much time you spend in the browser compared to listening to the music I suppose.

[Slaine]

Yes I started off with 6.3.1 and web browsing was really quick and very usable. The change in performance was caused by the use of MySQL in 6.5 while 6.3 used SQLLite or some such.

This is the problem with Open Sandles Software - the geeks pour in functionality and test it on their high performance overclocked PC's!

If you can live without some of the added functionality of 6.5 then 6.3.1 is the best choice for the NV using the SS browser. Balance of how much time you spend in the browser compared to listening to the music I suppose.

Given that I don't use the web interface a whole hell of a lot, I decided to go ahead and upgrade. It went fairly painlessly and the Squeezebox units themselves seem to be largely as responsive as before.

The web interface is definately slower, but not outrageously so. It takes 10-20 seconds for the Artists list to populate for instance, so I can live with that.

Many thanks for the comments and observations posted.

[Kaizen]

Hi

Adding to my previous post, I generally try to avoid the web interface as I find it too slow. I can live with it, just, when I need to do any form of system maintenance.

Beyond that, everything is done via the SqueezeBox.

[markearly]

Unfortunately, I purchased the ReadyNAS to be a Slim Devices Slimserver to our home's 3 Squeezeboxes supporting a DIY whole house sound system. The ReadyNAS Slimserver is so slow as to be un-usable for playlist creation or even general browsing.

Trying to get my iTunes library and playlists to work on the ReadyNAS as a workaround for poor native ReadyNAS/slimserver playlist creation has been very frustrating. There seems to be a bug in the ReadyNAS Slimserver (v6-51) which will not let you blank out the "Music Library Location" server setup field once it has a none blank value. And I have not figured out how to clear the entire ReadyNAS Slimserver database as a work around yet.

At this point I am not inclined to recommend the ReadyNAS for anyone who wants to stream music files to their Squeezebox system and I think it is a growing market....to bad for Infrant. Yes the MP3s will play but managing any moderate sized music collection is just too much of a headache on the ReadyNAS/slimserver interface. The basic NAS file server stuff works quite well though, thank-goodness otherwise I would have returned my ReadyNAS by now. I worry that an otherwise good product like the ReadyNAS will suffer as more and more general users discover problems with iTunes/slimserver music issues when ReadyNAS is the slimserver host.

Wish this situation would improve, but Infrant and Slim Devices seem to be in a finger-pointing battle with users like us caught in the middle. Now that Infrant is a NetGear company I wonder if the problem will improve (more resources) or get worse (corporate blackhole)?

[Kaizen]

Unfortunately, I purchased the ReadyNAS to be a Slim Devices Slimserver to our home's 3 Squeezeboxes supporting a DIY whole house sound system. The ReadyNAS Slimserver is so slow as to be un-usable for playlist creation or even general browsing.

I absolutely agree with you on this. For working with music the SlimServer interface is poor. It's not much better when it runs on a PC either though.

I have yet to find a really good solution to this. The really clever people on this forum have hacked some interesting SQL-based solutions together but that's too complex for general use.

What I'd really like is a Rhapsody or Pandora service that scans my own collection of music. Music IP and Filter promise to do this but I've not been too impressed and both need a PC to be on all the time.

Trying to get my iTunes library and playlists to work on the ReadyNAS as a workaround for poor native ReadyNAS/slimserver playlist creation has been very frustrating.

Yes, I share your pain.

Wish this situation would improve, but Infrant and Slim Devices seem to be in a finger-pointing battle with users like us caught in the middle. Now that Infrant is a NetGear company I wonder if the problem will improve (more resources) or get worse (corporate blackhole)?

I'm actually very happy with my ReadyNAS, it does the streaming piece very well (both to my SB3 and TViX for video). Not to mention its primary function as a RAID box. To me, the biggest problem lies with the SlimServer software itself. The interface needs to be so much slicker before it can have any mass appeal.

[Slaine]

Unfortunately, I purchased the ReadyNAS to be a Slim Devices Slimserver to our home's 3 Squeezeboxes supporting a DIY whole house sound system. The ReadyNAS Slimserver is so slow as to be un-usable for playlist creation or even general browsing.

Trying to get my iTunes library and playlists to work on the ReadyNAS as a workaround for poor native ReadyNAS/slimserver playlist creation has been very frustrating. There seems to be a bug in the ReadyNAS Slimserver (v6-51) which will not let you blank out the "Music Library Location" server setup field once it has a none blank value. And I have not figured out how to clear the entire ReadyNAS Slimserver database as a work around yet.

Have you tried using Moose as an alternative to the Slimdevices web interface? It's noticeably faster and easier to use (although it's not entirely stable). I haven't really messed around with its playlist editing abilities however, so I can't comment on that.

You can download it here: http://www.rusticrhino.com/drlovegrove/

[markearly]

Slaine,

Thanks for the recommendation. I will try using Moose as an alternative and report back if my experience mirrors yours so that others might give it a go.

Does anyone know how to zero out the Infrant hosted Slimserver database? Not just rescanning the music folder, I've tried that. I want to blank out some of the Slimserver BASIC SETTINGS config fields that I can not seem to clear. Is there a procedure for un-installing Slimserver from the Infrant ReadyNAS and then re-installing it?

Thanks.

[ComradeX]

Adding my two cents to an old thread....

Here it is 9/07 and I'm still on Raidiator 3.00c1-p2 and SS 6.3.1. I have a rev A X6 with 512mb, and this combination continues to run great, so I never upgraded.

Since SS went to MySQL I've been concerned that ongoing progress would leave my box behind. From what I read here, the latest Raidiator and SS 6.5.2 would probably work OK, possibly except for the web interface. I dont use the web interface much except when playing a random playlist, to see what's coming. In any case, if it's there I like it to work, but I've never tried Moose, maybe that's better. I have a relatively small library with <5000 songs, curious how big it needs to get before you have performance problems.

At some point I'll probably have to upgrade for some reason. To all you guys working on Raidiator 4 and new&improved Slimservers, dont forget us early adopters!

[sander]

My take has always been the web performance is crappy, irregardless of version. The only real performance benefit that you can make is adding more memory for larger libraries.

I ran SS 6.x on my home workstation for a year until I got the NV+, and it was generally still slow, but people who run faster NAS (like Thecus) or custom boxes have said the web interface is instantaneous on those. The reality is Mysql and SS are a bit much for the old cpu on the readynas, but the performance from the Squeezebox has generally been very good for me.

I have an NV+ 1GB ram, and almost 20x the number of songs and the database performance via lazy search is almost instantaneous. Moose is a little slower, but very usable (it really copies all the data locally to your machine, and just sends commands to the SS anyway).

One of the stated goals for SS7 is performance optimization, but they're really working on this whole new interface, so I'm not sure how much faster if any it will be.

I'm still running raidiator 3 and SS 6.5.1 (to keep the Logitech logo out my living room for a little longer) but I may upgrade to the newer version which is supposed to stream better.

Hope that helps.

[Kaizen]

Hi

I am running 6.5.2 on a RevA X6 with 256 MB of RAM.

As has been posted above, the performance of the web interface has always been poor. I have over 50k tracks in my collection but I'm still really happy with my SB3. LazySearch works fine but it can be a touch slow when doing a song search.

I've seen the threads listing the Infrant competitors but I'll probably make the leap and get an e61 ThinkCentre from Lenovo when it's released due to it's lower power consumption. At the same time I can put the box to other use.

All in all, the support I've had from Infrant has been sublimely good. The X6 is a lovely little box and I eagerly await whatever lies beyond the NV+.