[Tyson]

Hi all,
I solved an incredibly annoying problem recently - I was getting skips/stutters when I listened to my FLAC files via my Squeezebox Duet.  I thought the problem was due to wireless dropouts or poor buffer performance on the part of the server and/or controller.  But it was actually due to the fact that I had started to re-rip all my music to (very large) FLAC files stored on an external USB 2.0 hard drive. 

I noticed that my smaller .ogg files did not have the problem at all, and that the FLAC files also did fine if I moved them to my Laptop's internal hard drive and streamed them from there.  So the stream from the USB connected external HD was the culprit. 

The solution is very simple - check your laptop and your external HD for eSATA connectors (they are labeled).  If both have it, you are in luck, simply buy an eSATA cable and hook it up that way, done.

If your laptop does not have an eSATA connector, you can buy a plugin card.  My Toshiba laptop has an ExpressCard Slot, but some laptops have an PCMCIA slot, so just double check yours before heading out to the computer store (or newegg.com). 

If your external HD does not have an eSATA connector, you will have to buy a new HD, no way around that.

Hope this helps others that might be having the same frustrations.

[DSK]

Hi all,
I solved an incredibly annoying problem recently - I was getting skips/stutters when I listened to my FLAC files via my Squeezebox Duet.  I thought the problem was due to wireless dropouts or poor buffer performance on the part of the server and/or controller.  But it was actually due to the fact that I had started to re-rip all my music to (very large) FLAC files stored on an external USB 2.0 hard drive. 

I noticed that my smaller .ogg files did not have the problem at all, and that the FLAC files also did fine if I moved them to my Laptop's internal hard drive and streamed them from there.  So the stream from the USB connected external HD was the culprit. 

The solution is very simple - check your laptop and your external HD for eSATA connectors (they are labeled).  If both have it, you are in luck, simply buy an eSATA cable and hook it up that way, done.

If your laptop does not have an eSATA connector, you can buy a plugin card.  My Toshiba laptop has an ExpressCard Slot, but some laptops have an PCMCIA slot, so just double check yours before heading out to the computer store (or newegg.com). 

If your external HD does not have an eSATA connector, you will have to buy a new HD, no way around that.

Hope this helps others that might be having the same frustrations.

Tyson, sounds like it may just have been your specific external USB2 drive or laptop USB handling issues. I have been using 2 external 500gb USB2 drives for the last couple of years without a single hiccup or dropout.

Strangely though, one of these external drives has both eSATA and USB2 connections. When I bought it I hooked it up via the eSATA on my motherboard and it worked but was very slow. I backed it up across to the other external USB2 drive and it took approx 14 hours. I changed it to USB2 and it did the copy in approx 4 hours. So, I left it as USB2 ever since without any problems. This is the WD MyBook, the other is a Lacie.

EDIT: I should add that some of my files are uncompressed WAV files and these never have a problem either.

[Tyson]

I'll be picking up an eSATA card tomorrow from CompUSA, which should (for my setup), answer this question definitively.  Oddly enough, when I had 300g and 500g external HD's, I didn't notice a problem either.  Now that I have dual 1TB HD's and 15 foot USB cables connecting, I have the problem fairly frequently.

[DSK]

...Oddly enough, when I had 300g and 500g external HD's, I didn't notice a problem either....

Strange ... was that on the same laptop?  Plus your 1tb drives probably have a 32mb buffer whereas my 500gb'd only have 16mb IIRC.

Let us know how you go.

[Tyson]

Only 16mb buffer on mine. 

[whubbard]

I think the 15 Feet of USB cable is the bigger issue...

[Tyson]

Actually, after further troubleshooting, it was NOT the USB 2.0 connection causing the problem (cause it started doing the same skipping with files loaded to my laptop's internal HD).  On a whim I disabled the one app I know can be a resource hog - Norton 360.  Music played PERFECTLY, immediately.  Been perfect ever since.  So I uninstalled Norton and am using Windows Firewall and AVG instead, much lower resource usage.

[Crimson]

I wouldn't have thought that USB 2.0 doesn't have the bandwidth. After all, the 1.411 mbps bandwidth required for stereo 16/44.1 RBCD is well covered by the theoretical max throughput of 480 mbps of the USB 2.0 specification.

As to other processes running concurrently when streaming music, I even have my internal wireless card turned off in my machine.

[ted_b]

Norton is a notorious Slim Server (Squeeze Center) culprit.  About a year ago I meticulously removed all my Norton stuff (clean up regedit, etc.) and went with Trends Anti-Virus and it's been very clean and uninterrupted.  I'm sure there are some with even a smaller, less intrusive footprint, but Trends is great.

Tyson, maybe time to change the title of the thread so people can learn like we did.  Glad the problem was solved.

[woodsyi]

I think Bob the bartender also had issues with either Norton or McAfee.  I am going to move my Squeeze Center to my audio PC which has AVG.  It's a 2.2 GHz dualie running XP with 2 GB memory.  I will see if I can run random through all of my 1 TB flac files.  I have not been able to....

[DSK]

I've had zero problems with NIS 2008 and now NIS 2009. Sure, it doesn't have the smallest footprint around but it has got progressively better since the resource pig it was in 06/07. I don't even know it's there ...which is more than I can say for the CA internet security product which was total crap IMHO.

[ted_b]

DSK,
You've been lucky I guess.  Norton (and McAfee) haters all over the squeezebox forum.  All say the same thing; too intrusive, bottleneck.

[EDS_]

FYI - I downloaded a Norton update last week that cut resource usage by maybe 80%.  Very effective.