Music Server vs. PC vs. Transport vs. ?

Brontotx - one of the very cool things about SLIM software is that it is open source - the apps you are describing are most likely just that.

The flip side is the "hard to get working" part. This is also true of EAC which is the "awesome" PC ripping software that is shareware (or freeware) from Germany. Here to it takes a lot of time and know how to get the most out of it.

While iTunes for the moment does not appear to be as good a solution for the PC folks as it is for the Mac, there are huge benefits in terms of ease of use, tech support etc. After all over 100M iPods have been sold, all running on iTunes. Besides the fact that I am personally very pleased with it, that is why I point most newbies at it.

BTW SLIM is coming out with a major whoel number release (V7) - it will be interesting to see what they have done to make it an easier to use and more lovable interface.

If you have a big collection and plan on running slimserver on a NAS, the new MySQL based Slimserver needs more CPU power than the Infrant ReadyNas NV+ has if you plan on doing cover art. I too bought from Aegis but bought a Thecus N5200Pro (5x750gig drives in Raid 5) which has a 1.5ghz Celron and supports 5 drives which is 3x faster than anything Infrant makes and also has 1 more drive. It does require more setup so not for those who are not PC networking savy.... The Infrant is more friendly than the Thecus... but the performance of the Thecus is stunning (Faster than any of my XP or 2003 servers over gigabit by 2-4x the speed)

Hi Brontox,
No problem about the Crimson. It has a new home. I'm still firmly committed to the server concept. I'm trying out another USB DAC, but I've also auditioned a purpose -built PC running into an MSB Platinum DAc that was stunning. The second option allows for digital room correction in the digital domain, prior to the DAC. That is a solution that marries different technologies in an interesting way. For thtose that are interested, my dealer will be exhibitng with Rockport at CES. Unfortunately I can't go, but I'd be love to hear from anybody that will be there.

David Shapiro

Cytocyle - while my day of reckoning with a large music library (~1,200 CDs) on a ReadyNAS NV+ is still a few weeks away, the information contained in the "Artwork Setup" section of Slimserver's help section suggests that memory is the issue, not CPU performance. Specifically, this section states:

"Artwork for large song libraries places a significant memory load on the slimserver. There are references to the cover art kept in memory of the SlimServer for each song. This can add up fairly quickly.

The SlimServer stores, in memory, the path where the artwork can be found for each song. Long path names and many songs can cause the SlimServer to use more memory than is phycially installed on the server. This can have any of a number of impacts, from slow performance to complete failure of the SlimServer to run. The raw artwork file is read on demand, so artwork file size has no impact on the SlimServer itself.

You can turn off the artwork scan completely to save memory usage."

While I agree that your Thecus setup is decidedly faster, Slimserver's warning regarding memory and art work was the reason I upgraded the memory to 1 GB on my NV+ from the standard 256 MB. I will know soon enough whether this will prove sufficient (I'm sure hoping so as I really don't care to deal with a "complete failure").

You are also correct about the ease of the NV+ setup - it took me maybe all of ten minutes.

Brontotx: I didn't mention that I was going to be recording HDTV across my gigabit network to the NAS so speed was extermly important plus the extra 750gig of space the extra drive provided. I would not recommend the Thecus NAS's for the weak at heart..