Comments on: PiDisk – adding the music services

By: Philip Eastburn

Philip Eastburn — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 16:34:02 +0000

Thanks for your reply John, which I just spotted. My pidisk has been wired to router since February and is ‘out of the way’ so based on your advice I’ll leave it there. I’m having trouble installing Bubbleserver though. Java is installed (Minimserver running fine) and I’ve been following instructions on developer’s website but no luck to date.

By: John Reekie

John Reekie — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 04:33:45 +0000

Hi again, if I recall correctly you would use raspi-config to set up the Wifi. Bear in mind that Wifi is much less suitable than Ethernet for a server, even if it seems to be working there is high and variable packet latency. But I suppose it can’t hurt to try 🙂 (Sorry for the slow response.)

By: Philip Eastburn

Philip Eastburn — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 16:16:36 +0000

Hi John, thanks for your reply. Not quite sure exactly how I did it but the existing FLAC files are now showing in Mac Finder as content of the pidisk and I can point Minimserver at the folder with FLAC files. This website seemed to provide the solution: https://raspi.tv/2012/how-to-mount-and-use-a-usb-hard-disk-with-the-raspberry-pi. Particularly cd /media pidisk then ls -l to show the top level directory. One drawback is that pidisk can’t be accessed if I unplug ethernet from router. I assumed that ethernet connection wouldn’t be required as RPi3B+ had wifi capability. I will investigate further.

By: John Reekie

John Reekie — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 12:18:23 +0000

Hi Philip, I’ve never used an NTFS formatted drive with the Pi. What path does the drive mount at – and is that what you added to minimserver?

By: Philip Eastburn

Philip Eastburn — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 09:52:48 +0000

Correction to my post: 200 GB of FLAC files. Wanted to use disk with these already stored rather than a new blank disk to save time having to transfer large amount. Additional point: there is a large question next to pidisk icon in Finder window though I can still connect as registered user.

By: Philip Eastburn

Philip Eastburn — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 18:07:39 +0000

Hi John,
I have a NTFS drive (Maxtor M3 1TB) with 20GB FLAC files. Prompted by commenter Jim Hardy above I set up a pidisk skipping the formatting step. I used Buster lite. It worked apart from the pidisk has no content – the 20 GB of FLAC files aren’t showing up. When I copied some files across via Finder as recommended they do appear as content for pidisk and are available through Minimserver. If I plug the drive back into Mac the 20GB of FLAC files are there. I’ve searched for answers but no luck. Any ideas before I start again with a new drive formatted as ext4? I using RPi 3B+ so assume the USB has enough current for the Maxtor drive? regards Philip

By: John Reekie

John Reekie — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 13:31:09 +0000

I’m not sure what you mean, if you had a large enough SD card you could store the music files on that. Or you could use something that has an “internal” drive like the ODroid HC1/HC2 – https://www.hifizine.com/2018/02/droidisk-an-inexpensive-compact-music-server/
HTH (?)

By: Joffie

Joffie — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 15:47:25 +0000

Hi.

Is there a way to run the RPi sever without adding an external drive?

Thanks

By: John Reekie

John Reekie — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 10:02:28 +0000

Hi, I suggest get a Raspberry Pi and try Volumio and other distros for yourself 🙂 You can use USB to output to a DSP crossover with USB input, or get an SPDIF HAT like the HifiBerry to output to a crossover with digital input.

By: Samazar

Samazar — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 14:52:43 +0000

Dear John, I ‘m glad I found Hifizine and your DIY articles are excellent. I’m hoping you can steer me in the right direction. I’ve been looking for a way to make my own wireless music pre-amp processor that has the following features:-

1. Ability to incorporate 2.1 channels with a sub-out XO set at 80Hz. (Adjustable XO would be cool).
2. The ability to match L,R and Sub levels.
3. Integration with Spotify and Tidal where streaming can take place directly to the unit and controlled from a phone app such as 4Stream. Is this app free ? – Is it intuitive and easy to use ?
3. The option to stream from a mobile device or tablet via AirPlay or Bluetooth (Is AptX available/).
4. Any new way to stream music from a mobile/tablet via Wifi in a lossless manner ?

I could then use this with an outboard mini 2 channel class-D amp. Would be awesome to integrate the amp module too so it all sits in one nice little case.

Your input and advice will be appreciated.