SD Cards

[crap...@gmail.com]

Since I bought my B2 a few months ago (having enjoyed my JB7 for over 10 years) I have been following this group daily and have contributed occasionally.

It appears to me that a huge proportion of problems are caused by a corrupted, faulty or worn SD card.

If I am correct, why on earth hasn't Brennan changed the B2 so that the SD card is no longer required? If Martin is the programming genius we are told and also wants to make the product as user friendly as possible, it seems downright odd to continue to build it around a problematic piece of kit.

Thoughts anyone?

DG

[Rearwing]

My initial thoughts in order would be: a) i have had a B2 for seven years and have only changed the SD card once, when i decided to change to the available B2B software to enhance the machines capability. In part this might be because i only use the B2 for its core purposes and tend to use my more sophisticated hifi equipment to do more complicated tasks. And, b) Why does this forum seem to attract the passive aggressive response? My interactions with Martin have all been positive and have enhanced my respect of both his engineering and computing skills.....come back to me when you have designed and created something as successful and critically supported. All SD cards and hard drives will fail over time, it is not if, but when. Grow up!

[Mike W]

So DG, had a quick search, couldn't find, other than you disingenuous comment, any reference to being told "Martin Brennan genius programmer". Maybe you could direct us towards such statements.

Suggestions for improvements, additional features are welcome, personal jibes are not.....

Should you not be happy with the B2, its designer, architecture or operation then there is a healthy second hand market for them.

[crap...@gmail.com]

Come on  people, I asked a question based on fact. Something I have been wondering for while. If the best you can do is object to my choice of words, turn of phrase or 'tone of voice', why do you bother?

I thought this forum was for a free exchange of views.

By the way, as I watch my father dying of Covid-19, I am perhaps a little less careful with my wording than usual. But your pathetic self righteous attitudes say more about you than they do about me.

[Rearwing]

Ok, let's look at establishing facts, i have had no SD card failures, i changed card to enable a free update to a revised software; so from my perspective the SD card model works well. 

The SD card failures, as written about on the forum, are potentially reflecting a small proportion of the B2's in circulation; therefore we cannot extrapolate from this that there a "huge proportion" of problems are caused by a corrupted, faulty or worn SD card.

Brennan has recently released a software update that when applied relieves stress on the SD card.

SD cards, SSD's and HDD's will fail, so it is good practice to have back ups and replacements.

And now from "facts" to opinions: 

"If Martin is the programming genius we are told" in my opinion is a passive aggressive response that subjectively implies a cheap jibe. 

"But your pathetic self righteous attitudes say more about you than they do about me." No, they don't, they still say the same thing about you.

"I thought this forum was for a free exchange of views." Oh, the irony, all i am doing is expressing my views in response to yours.

I have no problems with your wording, or your opinion, but i question your understanding of what constitutes a fact.

[Daniel Taylor]

My understanding is that the CPU board used in the B2 is not designed in-house, but rather uses an off the shelf Raspberry Pi board - to save on cost.  The R.Pi board uses the micro-SD card.  To change that would incur costs that such a small company cannot support.

For the individual who is worried about corruption, or who uses the SD card for analog recording, it's advisable to replace the card with one that's rated for heavier use.

[crap...@gmail.com]

Daniel Taylor, thank you for your constructive response. Much appreciated.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi All,

Just to add some figures to help keep the debate on a factual basic I have the following points to offer.

I have responded to 605 issues on this forum over the past 18 months.  I have kept a log of those issues, along with a classification and breakdown of the root cause of each issue.

Of those 605 issues, 31 were caused by a failure of the SDcard amounting to about 5% of the issues.  Also, since Brennan produced a software upgrade in Feb 2021 to specifically reduce wear on the SDcard, the number of reported failures is reducing now.

A much larger proportion of the logged issues were fixed by offering operating or technical advice and guidance, at 210 issues (35%).  Advising to run a software upgrade amounted to 56 issues (about 10%).

There are many other classifications that were not a problem with the Brennan, so to say that the SDcard is a 'huge proportion' is not borne out here.  I have two active B2s (the older one is almost 5 years old) and two BB1's and have never had an SD card failure.  I suspect that a number of failures are caused by incorrect power down procedure, as many of these issues are fixed by re-flashing, indicating that the SD card is not faulty but rather has become corrupted.

I think that SD card failures might be further reduced if the CD Ripping process was improved.  At the moment, if the B2 tries to rip a non-standard CD it can freeze and this could cause SD card corruption.  I have no figures to quantify this but I have had five freezes in about 5 years and each time it was during a ripping session.  Fortunately a power down and up recovered my B2 each time.

I have gone onto the Cocktail Audio forum and that does seem to have similar types of issues reported.  One difference that I did note was that some of their software updates have 'bricked' their units which seems to require a return of the unit to the factory for repair, so I'm very happy with the present Brennan set up, as you can recover from any situation except for a genuine hardware fault.

Regards,

Peter.

On Thursday, 19 August 2021 at 10:46:18 UTC+1 crap...@gmail.com wrote:

[crap...@gmail.com]

Thank you Peter. Interesting stats.

[David L Raines]

I have purchased a total of 4 Brennan B2 units (3 for my clients, 1 for me).  I have had SD Failure on one of them.  What I've done as preventive measures is simply change the SD card on all of the units with SanDisk Endurance model MicroSD Cards.  For $10 I think it's worth the investment for a better SD card over the stock one.  

[PMB]

Hi All,

If I remember correctly Linux (or perhaps the Raspberry Pi firmware) was writing to the SD Card on a regular basis and if this was interrupted by a power down, for example, it could cause corruption. Some while back (2020) Martin changed the software to minimise writes to the card which should greatly improve SD Card life.

I think the most important things are to power down correctly - with the B2 paused, press and hold the Play/Stop button until 'saving' is displayed before releasing the button and wait for the clock to be displayed again before powering off - and waiting sufficient time (say 30s) between power off and on.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Paul,

The issue was at Linux level, where Linux was mounting the root file system (located on the SD card) with a parameter called 'atime' set (log all file access times).  This was causing all file access times to be written back to each file every time it was accessed.  Changing this mount parameter to 'noatime' stopped the access time logging, thus greatly reducing the write activity to the SD card.  It is the write activity that wears out the card.

Regards,

Peter.