squeezebox and home network

Thanks Coffee_nudge and Mimberman. If using FLAC lossless compression will save disk space without negative impact on audio quality, then I am all for it. My actual disc collection is around 600-800 which I hope will continue to grow. So I need quite some storage space. I have no idea what Raid storage so I will do some research.

I have an 4-5 yr old spare Notebook in storage and I planned to use that and get an extrnal storage hardware (harddrive or Raid) thru USB connection and network the whole house. So I can connect Squeezebox thru Cat5 that way. From computing stand of view, will this work? Since all I need is storage space and minimum processing power, so I figuered a old notebook should work. right? Thanks again.

If you are interested in RAID storage, look at the buffalo terastation--1 terabyte (1000 GB) of storage. Think of it as four 250 GB drives. In a RAID 5 configuration, you only get about 700 GB of storage, but if any individual drive fails, you can recover all of the data. The terastation is about $1K.

Other benefits of a terastation: (i) its designed to be on 24/7; (ii) its a NAS--network attached storage--so you can just plug it into your network and "see" the drive from any machine (i.e., its a file server); and (iii) if you go the squeezebox route, the terastation apparently can run slimserver, which is needed for squeezeboxes to function.

Do the CAT5 cables connect to a patch panel in your basement? Might want to ensure the panel is wired up. My house came pre-wired, but the panel wasn't connected. You will also need a network switch or router (get a switch) to complete your network--one that does DHCP. Mebbe $50 or so.

Good luck!

First, I cannot discern any difference in audio quality between FLAC compressed files and uncompressed files. There are several other threads that talk about this, so you can do a search and find a lot of discussion about FLAC.

Second, Using a 4-5 year old notebook may or may not work with Squeezebox and its software Slimserver. Assuming you are using Windows operating system, I seem to recall that you need to be running minimum of a 733Mhz Pentium on Windows NT/2000/XP. So you might want to check the specs on your notebook.

I know Squeezebox can also be run from a Linux system, but I don't know anything about Linux.

Cheers,

I just got a modified SB3 from Redwine Audio.
Setup with the wireless option was pretty straightforward.
There should be no issue with using wifi unless you have some inteference in your setup.
The internet radio is a nice feature with Slimserver.
I used Itunes to rip audio to my hard drive. (I use EAC when making CD copies).
Right now trying AAC @ 192 kbps as that is what I used for transfer to my IPOD.
May re rip using WAV or FLAC for use with the SB3 as sound qaulity would be better.

Too early to assess sound quality of SB3. Still breaking in.

Thanks again for everyone's input. Edesilva, Thanks for the recommendation on the Raid. I have the Leviton's Advanced Home Telephone and Video Panel down in the basement. http://www.leviton-lin.com/catalog/BuildPage.aspx?BuildPageID=572

I need to find out how that thing works first as the builder didn't give me any manual or instrucion for it. 1 Terybite might be too big for me for the moment and so I will get something that about 1/4 of that capacity and as my cd collection grow, I can increase the capacity and it will only get cheaper. Thanks.

rich