2TB SSD for B2

[stevenh...@googlemail.com]

A question for Paul really or any Brennan Tech-heads among you please.

I have had a B2 for two and a half years now and it's still going strong.
I suspect, as a lot of users here, I still get the odd occasional crash. Whether that is caused by the Pi PC processing or rather or as I believe, the HDD having trouble keeping up. 

I use high quality flac files which are ripped on PC to save wear and tear on the B2 unit, plus the files are checked for ripping errors before being moved across.

My question is, I'm thinking of replacing the 2TB HDD and adding a 2TB SSD, something like a Crucial MX500 2TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter) Internal SSD | CT2000MX500SSD1 | Crucial UK

Would this be suitable please?

[Daniel Taylor]

The 2.5 inch / 7 mm form factor is compatible.

Since you already have a 2TB disk, I don't understand your desire to change to SSD.  Seems like a waste of money to me.

[stevenh...@googlemail.com]

Sorry Daniel, I think I sent a reply straight to you rather than on here.

Thank you for replying.
The SSD is a lot faster than a HDD, even if the HDD is a 7200 rpm model.

The access to the drive is faster and hopefully there is less chance of freezes/crashes.

[Mark Fishman]

A Red Book compliant audio CD carries music at a rate of 1.4 megabits per second. If you are ripping CDs and converting them to FLAC then when you are playng them back your data rate *from the hard disk* is going to be less than that. The RPi expands them back to their original bits, so you are playing the full 1.4Mbps. For any modern hard drive, that's child's play.

If the HDD is having trouble reading CD-rate data then either the files are incredibly highly fragmented (not something you'd get in normal operation of a B2) or the disk is failing, and in either case I think you'd see more than "the occasional crash".

But by all means put in an SSD. If nothing else, the B2 should run slightly cooler and be a little more immune to (physical) bumps and bruises. Just keep backups of your music. When SSDs fail -- and they do -- data recovery is often impossible.

Crucial is a decent brand. I have a couple of their 500GB SSDs.

[Daniel Taylor]

Most of the freezes and crashes we see can be attributed to the B2/R.Pi's difficulty in doing more than one thing at a time.

[stevenh...@googlemail.com]

Thank you Mark.

One thing I regularly do, as you suggest, is back up the B2 as I have 1.3TB of music data on there and I couldn't imagine ripping that lot again. lol

As Daniel just said, I'm wondering if it's the Pi at the heart of the B2 that causes problems then. I totally agree with you, unless the HDD was faulty in some way, it shouldn't have trouble any reading music files. I find the B2 has problems though when I try and skip several tracks at a time sometimes. Even though a software based player on a PC or CD player can easily handle this, the B2 doesn't seem to be able buffer all the information. This is why I first thought an SSD may help, but with the limitations of the Pi at the heart of the B2,  I think I will take the advice from both of you and enjoy my Brennan how it is.

Thank you Mark and Daniel for your replies.