[myview]

Dear James and all experienced users of the BDP-1,

I have had 3 drives connected to my BDP-1 and all were operating without problems.  The 3 drives are: 500GB Hard Drive inserted at the back + 2 USB Thumb Drives of different capacities inserted at the front.  I use Mpad on an iPad 2 as a remote control for the BDP-1.

With my music collection growing, I bought a new Buffalo MiniStation Extreme 1 TB Hard Drive (call it the 4th Hard Drive) and loaded it with 800GB of music files.  The BDP-1 was powered off before I inserted this 4th Hard Drive at the back panel.  The BDP-1 was then powered up and the display showed "updating" for 15 minutes before the updating was completed.  The display now showed "Bryston BDP-1".

2 Scenarios happened:
1)   When I did not exit the Mpad Apps when the 4th drive was added (with BDP-1 powered down)…
I played a track using the Mpad.  The music came on while the "updating" process was taking place.  But minutes into the track, the music started to become a little distorted (kind of a stutter - I don't know how else to describe it).  When the "updating" process was completed, the music was halted suddenly and at the same instance, I was kicked out of Mpad.  When I restarted Mpad, in the “Browse” tab, it showed only the earlier 3 drives and not the 4th which had just been added.  Strangely however, through the navigation keys on BDP-1, I was able to browse and see all 4 drives.  When I went on to (from the front panel) try to play a track from this 4th drive, the front display froze.  No music.  In fact, the BDP-1 just stalled and pressing the navigation keys got me nowhere.

I had no choice but to power down the BDP-1 and power it up again.  The “updating” went on for another 15 minutes again and the same problem as I have described occurred again.

2)   When I exited the Mpad Apps when the 4th drive was added (with BDP-1 powered down as well)…
When the same 15-minute “updating” process was finished, I opened the Mpad as I normally would but Mpad just would not connect to the BDP-1.

Any ideas how I can resolve this?

Thank you

[James Tanner]

Dear James and all experienced users of the BDP-1,

I have had 3 drives connected to my BDP-1 and all were operating without problems.  The 3 drives are: 500GB Hard Drive inserted at the back + 2 USB Thumb Drives of different capacities inserted at the front.  I use Mpad on an iPad 2 as a remote control for the BDP-1.

With my music collection growing, I bought a new Buffalo MiniStation Extreme 1 TB Hard Drive (call it the 4th Hard Drive) and loaded it with 800GB of music files.  The BDP-1 was powered off before I inserted this 4th Hard Drive at the back panel.  The BDP-1 was then powered up and the display showed "updating" for 15 minutes before the updating was completed.  The display now showed "Bryston BDP-1".

2 Scenarios happened:
1)   When I did not exit the Mpad Apps when the 4th drive was added (with BDP-1 powered down)…
I played a track using the Mpad.  The music came on while the "updating" process was taking place.  But minutes into the track, the music started to become a little distorted (kind of a stutter - I don't know how else to describe it).  When the "updating" process was completed, the music was halted suddenly and at the same instance, I was kicked out of Mpad.  When I restarted Mpad, in the “Browse” tab, it showed only the earlier 3 drives and not the 4th which had just been added.  Strangely however, through the navigation keys on BDP-1, I was able to browse and see all 4 drives.  When I went on to (from the front panel) try to play a track from this 4th drive, the front display froze.  No music.  In fact, the BDP-1 just stalled and pressing the navigation keys got me nowhere.

I had no choice but to power down the BDP-1 and power it up again.  The “updating” went on for another 15 minutes again and the same problem as I have described occurred again.

2)   When I exited the Mpad Apps when the 4th drive was added (with BDP-1 powered down as well)…
When the same 15-minute “updating” process was finished, I opened the Mpad as I normally would but Mpad just would not connect to the BDP-1.

Any ideas how I can resolve this?

Thank you

Hi,

I think the Buffalo drive is asking for too much current.  Does the problem go away when you disconnect that drive?
Also just connect the Buffalo drive to the bottom rear USB port on its own and see if that works.

james

[myview]

Hi,

I think the Buffalo drive is asking for too much current.  Does the problem go away when you disconnect that drive?
Also just connect the Buffalo drive to the bottom rear USB port on its own and see if that works.

james
[/quote]

Hi James,

I did what you suggested: plugging this new drive into the bottom rear USB port on its own (all other drives were removed from the BDP-1).  I powered up the BDP-1 and the "updating" process took the usual 15 mins.  After the "updating" is completed, the BDP-1's front panel showed that the drive had been detected.  I could navigate through the albums via the front panel buttons but once I tried to play any track, BDP-1 would stall/hang.

I tested your hypothesis that it's a power/current issue by plugging the new drive to a powered USB hub which in turn was plugged into the bottom USB port at the back of the BDP-1.  The problem as described in the last paragraph also occurred.  Conclusion: it's not because of power/current.

Also, interestingly, whenever this new drive is plugged into the BDP-1, either directly or through the powered USB hub, it somehow prevents the BDP-1 from communicating with Mpad. (Message on Mpad: Not connected to MPD Server).  Once this new drive is unplugged, MPad works normally again!  I was able to reproduce this problem consistently.

Any other suggestions how I may resolve this problem?

Thank you

[Marius]

HI,

the very same problem I experience(d before) with two 1tb passports. there seems to be some very distinct and at that point fragile balance of power when drives are connected. If you reach that point, the Bdp-1 can't handle all tasks at the same time. Updating or loading files when playing results in the distortion you mentioned.

Only real solution on this end is waiting for the updating to be finished, although that sometimes takes very long.

If the updating is finished, everything goes well.
This was one of the reasons I pointed the Bryston team to Theremin, an app that has the option to updated only selected maps/folders. Works quit well.

Thanks,
Marius

[James Tanner]

If it is only a specific drive causing the problem. I think we have to look at the drive in question. What drive exactly is it and we will pick one up for testing.

I highly recommend Seagates and Western Digital drives with the BDP. Also keep them around 1TB in size.

James

[Marius]

Hi James,
Because of your recommendation, I bought 2 of those 1Tb Passports. Still the issue arrises. Might it have something to do with percentage full of the drives? I've still got some space left (223 and 402 GB respectively), but the more tracks are loaded, the more the issue arises.

a third Passport is connected to my Timecapsule as iTunes repository and works quite a bit faster. Copying files to the Timecapsule (which is what I always do as a backup for the Hdd attached to the BDP1) is way faster than copying to the BDp1, both wired and wirelessly.

Marius

If it is only a specific drive causing the problem. I think we have to look at the drive in question. What drive exactly is it and we will pick one up for testing.

I highly recommend Seagates and Western Digital drives with the BDP. Also keep them around 1TB in size.

James

[James Tanner]

Hi James,
Because of your recommendation, I bought 2 of those 1Tb Passports. Still the issue arrises. Might it have something to do with percentage full of the drives? I've still got some space left (223 and 402 GB respectively), but the more tracks are loaded, the more the issue arises.

a third Passport is connected to my Timecapsule as iTunes repository and works quite a bit faster. Copying files to the Timecapsule (which is what I always do as a backup for the Hdd attached to the BDP1) is way faster than copying to the BDp1, both wired and wirelessly.

Marius

Hi Marius,

Not sure but I have two 1TB drives connected on 2 of my BDP-1's and no issue.  I think I have to point out though that if very large libraries are required or drives that need to be powered from the BDP-1 then the BDP-1 is probably the wrong product for that customer.

james

[Marius]

Hi James,

Please tell me you're joking: I've yet to rip more then 90% of my music collection....
There's got to be some solution somewhere with the BDP1   

is your 'or' a typo and do you in fact mean 'very large libraries are required on drives that need to be powered from the BDP-1"?
Then self powered drives could provide the solution for large libraries?

Marius

Hi Marius,

Not sure but I have two 1TB drives connected on 2 of my BDP-1's and no issue.  I think I have to point out though that if very large libraries are required or drives that need to be powered from the BDP-1 then the BDP-1 is probably the wrong product for that customer.

james

[James Tanner]

Hi Marius

I guess I mean a bit of both. The BDP-1 was never intended to replace a system that had many thousands of digital files and powering the large driVes needed for such using the internal USB power buss. I would say once you get past about 60,000 files things start to slow down when it comes to managing that large a playlist.

I have a 2 TB POWERED drive and a 2TB Western Digital Passport buss powered drive which seems fine but I think that's about as big as I would recommend with the BDP-1.

James

[PRELUDE]

I was just talking about this with a friend yesterday when he asked me,how I am going to store all the music in the hard drive and this was my answer.
I told him that I do not intent to force or mix every thing together and would like to keep it organized right now from beginning.So I will buy like 5 hard drives or more if I have to @1T max and use each for a genre of the music and mark it up and do not see a good reason that I have to connect them all at the same time to BDP-1 even if I can.Let's say I have all jazz in one and all rock in another one so If I am in mood for rock I just connect the rock one and listen to it.

[James Tanner]

I think one of the other issues I see these days is a lot of people collect digital files and store them on huge harddrives but never actually listen to but a few of them.

I mean when it says "you have 400,000 songs and 2.5 years of continuous music"  what's the point

James

[terrycym]

Adding my comments for what it's worth.
I have lots of issues like experiences above.
At first I was very frustrated due to lack of reliability and stability but now I live with it.
I just copy what I want to listen that night to a 16mb thumb drive, wait 10 minutes while the BDP-1 updates, usually make a cup of tea, and listen to the music which does sound great BTW.

I though the promised BDE would fix these issues but I suppose that will never happen.

[Marius]

Hi James,

I try not to boast about my collection, but having been collecting from day 1 of the Cd's existence , I just have quit a few. Since you gave us a machine that a) makes them sound better when ripped and played on the BDP1 and b) aims at the future of the music industry, I would have hoped the BDP1 would indeed be that machine where one could locate several thousand music files on.
I don't play all my cd's every day or year, and never play 2 years continuously. But it sure would be great if one could, just with entering a search in Max/Mpad, find that file you haven';t played for over a longtime....Furthermore, I don't think it is only about many file, but also about very large files. Since modern hires files get bigger and bigger, I sincerely hope you want to solve this issue.

You believe and state the CD-days are counted and stop producing your wonderful BCD1, and now make the BDP1, the machine you always talk about as the digitalfiles- cdplayer. But now you say it was never designed to be just that?

If the software of the BDp1 is hampered when having a very large library, I hope you will take that away soon.

Thanks,
Marius

I think one of the other issues I see these days is a lot of people collect digital files and store them on huge harddrives but never actually listen to but a few of them.

I mean when it says "you have 400,000 songs and 2.5 years of continuous music"  what's the point

James

[Marius]

Hi James,

Maybe this helps: from the beginning of my exploration with the BDP1 I encountered these problems (and reported them). It started out immediately with my Lacie 500gb drive. Updating/transferring files and playing never went well at the same time, resulting in the distortion mentioned by me and others.

The drive was far from full, so space-questions couldn't be the reason for the distortion issue. Not a question of specific drives either if you ask me, since it also happens with the Passports. The LAcie is working very well ever since I replaced it with the Passports, doing other tasks, and never fails. I believe the Lacie was not the reason for the BDP1-issues after all.

Maybe the specific design/chips you use in the BDP1-filehandling- transport, as mentioned by Chris in the post about throughput speed could be the culprits?

Marius

If it is only a specific drive causing the problem. I think we have to look at the drive in question. What drive exactly is it and we will pick one up for testing.

I highly recommend Seagates and Western Digital drives with the BDP. Also keep them around 1TB in size.

James

[myview]

Hi James,

The drive is the Buffalo Ministation Extreme Hard Drive: http://www.buffalotech.com/products/portable-hard-drives/usb-30/ministation-extreme-hd-pzu3/

Mine is the 1TB version and it seems to have some compatibilty issue with the BDP-1.

If it is only a specific drive causing the problem. I think we have to look at the drive in question. What drive exactly is it and we will pick one up for testing.

I highly recommend Seagates and Western Digital drives with the BDP. Also keep them around 1TB in size.

James

[James Tanner]

Hi Marius

The issue with large drives are power requirements if powered from the internal buss and the mother board in the BDP is only capable of so much processing power. To allow for many more drives and quicker respose would require a much larger power supply and a much greater processing ability from the motherboard. That would mean a rebuild and I guess the BDP -2?

James

[SHV]

I have four 1 T drives in an OWS powered enclosure connected to the BDP-1,  in addition to several thumb drives and the system functions with out problems.

Steve

[Marius]

Hi James,

Thanks for your reply. The thing is that the distortion issue also arises with a 500gb drive. I do respect the bdp1 specification and power demands.
I would think that the forum members asking about this distortion and other drive issues are reason to investigate further, developing the BDP-1....not waiting for the version 2 please...

thanks, and always prepared to assist in this quest,

Marius

Hi Marius

The issue with large drives are power requirements if powered from the internal buss and the mother board in the BDP is only capable of so much processing power. To allow for many more drives and quicker respose would require a much larger power supply and a much greater processing ability from the motherboard. That would mean a rebuild and I guess the BDP -2?

James

[alexone]

Hi Marius

The issue with large drives are power requirements if powered from the internal buss and the mother board in the BDP is only capable of so much processing power. To allow for many more drives and quicker respose would require a much larger power supply and a much greater processing ability from the motherboard. That would mean a rebuild and I guess the BDP -2?

James

...would that include an upgrade for everyone who already owns a BDP-1?

al.

[James Tanner]

...would that include an upgrade for everyone who already owns a BDP-1?

al.

Hi Al

That's a tough one - without knowing what the changes would entail it is difficult to say.

James