Hello friends,
I have a question about storage media for my Vero V.
I currently stream HD and SD content from a dedicated NFS mini-server with connected NVMe, SSD, and USB flash drives. This works well but I would like to move the media to a single 2.5" 5400 rpm HDD on a less powerful, but hopefully sufficient, NFS server (raspberry Pi 4) so I can repurpose the other components. Due to the high cost now of storage I’m trying to optimize what I have rather than paying inflated prices. Also having all media on 1 dive would be preferable to being split across 3 drives.
Would the 5400rpm HDD be OK for streaming data to the Vero V? I know my NVMe is overkill and but don’t know if SSD/USB is preferred or if I would be OK w/ a large single HDD.
The NFS server(s) are connected by 1gig ethernet to my firewall/router/switch and the Vero V connected by a strong Wifi signal.
thanks.
If you already own the 2.5" drive then just transfer to that, skip the RPi and plug it directly into the Vero V. You can use the Vero itself to act as the file server (it will be as fast if not faster as a file server as the RPi). The only thing to note is that bus powered hard drives often exceed the power rating of USB-A ports. PC’s typically don’t care because they are overspec’d in this regard but SBC’s generally do. If this is an issue then putting a powered USB Hub inbetween is the solution. If you have not yet purchased the external 2.5" drive I would very strongly suggest to instead purchase an external 3.5" self powered drive. They don’t care what they are plugged into and tend to last longer and be more reliable.
As for the question of speed this should be a non issue regardless of path you take. The content most people play is under 15Mb/s. Really big big rips top out at something like 120Mb/s. Both a RPi 4 and the Vero can saturate the majority of their 1000Mb/s connection.
Thanks for the quick response. My only concern with that is I use the Vero remote at about a 5 meter distance. When I have tried using USB storage, there is interference and the remote is very unstable. Found using storage on a separate device frees up the USB3 interference.
The interference is coming from using the blue USB 3 port. If you plug your storage into the black USB 2 port this shouldn’t be an issue but it will slow down the max file transfer speed a bit. There is a few ways to get around the issue. One is to use a high quality USB 3 cable with a bit of length so the hard drive itself can get a little bit is distance. The higher quality cable will hopefully have more shielding and keeping the drive a bit away from the Vero helps any interference from the hard drive enclosures USB away from the internal receiver in the Vero. Alternatively you can contact support@osmc.tv with your order details and ask about getting another receiver that you can plug in externally for the OSMC remote. You can then plug a USB extension into the black USB 2 port of the Vero, plug the new receiver into the end of that and place that end of the cable physically some distance from the Vero and hard drive that you have plugged into the blue USB 3 port. This may also allow you to place the remote receiver higher which can also improve remote performance. Both methods I’ve used in testing to get 20’+ distance on the remote without dropping any key presses.
Fantastic, thanks so much for the great advice. I will give each of them a try to see which yields the best results in my environment. Nice to hear you have had success w/ both.
Also, thanks for sharing the power issues with USB powered HDDs on SBCs. I have always used them on desktops and wasn’t aware of the SBC limitation on the port power. I’m sure I would have struggled to understand why the SBC wasn’t seeing/mounting the HDD. You saved me hours of frustration!
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For full clarification, the issue does not alway present itself as not mounting. Sometimes it is intermittent slow mounting or dropping out randomly and coming back. It is not always so black and white. The best practice for someone wanting to run a bus powered drive would be to find the full specifications for the drive and look at the max power draw number (NOT average or typical) and note that if it is near or over 500mA it is in excess of USB 2 specs and if over 900mA it is over USB 3 specs and you would need to run it through a powered hub that is capable of supplying a higher current draw.
Great to know. Thanks for the clarification.
I like the solution you presented of using an external receiver positioned up higher and connected to the USB2 port. And to connect the powered HDD to the USB3 port. Will give that a try once I get the new receiver from customer service.