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New server for my squeezebox?

P

pqpq

pfm Member
I've been using various squeezeboxes for around 11 years with no significant issues, but my ancient, cheap-as-chips HP server now seems to be struggling, both in terms of maxed out capacity (3x2TB drives + the original 250MB drive) and processing capacity (it now stutters with hi-def files and takes an eternity to display anything in the menu system such as artists etc.).

The server sits in the attic next to the router and all but one of my squeezeboxes use a wired network.

I really can't complain after all this time, but it seems like I now need to replace the server. The replacement doesn't need to be particularly small or quiet but I need to be able to set it up to run LMS despite not being terribly technically minded, it needs more capacity than I currently have and I think more grunt.

So is there a go-to solution for this? Or will any server with a big enough capacity do the job? Or am I completely out of date and should be looking at something else?

I live in the middle of nowhere in rural France, so getting tech help is not usually possible.

Thanks!
 
I use an HP Microserver, now about 10 years or more old. It runs Vortexbox 2.5 which is a dedicated music and ripping server implementation of Fedora 25. The Linux is more efficent than a windows OS so easily handles server functions. Also comes with LMS version 8.2
 
Your system sounds quite similar to mine - I now use PiCore Player to run LMS, with files stored on a cheapo NAS. (That’s the five second answer!) A friend of mine in France has something similar - if you needed assistance by email I could ask him if he would be prepared to help.
 
Well any pc will happily run LMS. My first question is what are you using them for?

If its essentially music then I would install Daphile on something like a Dell Optiplex. I would not focus in on specific NASes to be honesty they are expensive and under powered.
 
@pqpq

I suggest asking this question on the slimdevices forum.

If you give the exact model of HP server that would help

In principle, a raspberry pi 4b (4gb) would most likely fullfil your requirements and allow you to maintan the use of the HP as storage for your music files :)

ronnie
 
Thanks all :)

To answer the various questions:

I use the server mostly for music. It also has file back-ups but that doesn't occupy much space.

The server is an HP Proliant Microserver.

I know a guy who could sort this out for me, but I know if I gave him the server it would sit in his office for the next 6 months - he doesn't do urgent. He proposed changing the processor and replacing the original small drive with a 2TB to make a total of 8TB - which would solve both the current problems. However I'm not capable of doing either of those things and I don't want to be without it for 6 months... There's a problem with the server in that it has a long forgotten password, so a geeky friend who was staying didn't manage to do anything with it - I can do some stuff from my PC without the password via homeserver console, but he couldn't do what he reckoned needed to be done.

I'm not especially computer savvy, so all the solutions which require me to tinker are probably beyond me - like doing something via a raspberry pi or changing the operating system. When I originally set the server up, someone from here very kindly talked me through it (loading windows homeserver and then LMS), and between us we got it working - and it's been plodding happily away ever since. That's why I figured just buying a new server might be the simplest solution.

I think I'm a member of slimdevices - I'll post my question there in a day or two, but it seems better to see how things pan out here before asking the same question elsewhere.
 
Thanks - but those instructions fill me with dread. Obviously the layout is easy to understand, and in fact has only one additional box to what's there now. But in the instructions, already in the second paragraph I don't know what a "boot console" is (although I recognise the sort of script) and what's below reminds me of endless frustrating hours I've spent trying to do something when the menu options in the instructions don't match what I see in front of me. I don't understand enough to be able to work stuff out - I can only follow the recipe. In addition this wouldn't solve the capacity problem I have - I need to swap the small drive of the server, but becasue that's where the operating system is, it won't let me do it. This wouldn't matter much if it wasn't my main way of listening to music. If I get stuck with it not working I'll be tearing my hair out....
 
You can add more disks to the microserver than just the 4 in the caddies:

https://paulroberts69.wordpress.com...-optical-drive-bay-on-an-hp-microserver-n40l/

I had 6 running in mine - one using the extra Sata connection on the board, and one the eSata socket on the back.

The added disc will run faster if you install a modified bios, but don't think you have to do so. But you will need to be able to access the existing bios I think - is that what the long lost password is required for?

To add - if it is the original Windows Home Server, or WHS2011, both are now long unsupported by Microsoft, so no updates (and could be a security risk too).
 
If the server/network has worked well previously streaming your music, then it should still do so now. Have you tried rebooting the Network devices and the Server itself? Also, the Server software might need updating, the OS and LMS. I recently updated LMS on an old laptop and it made a worthwhile difference.
 
Any regular PC should be able to run LMS easily (the N36L, N40L or N54L HP microservers are more than up to the task).

If you don't feel like setting up a Raspberry pi, but are more confortable with a regular Windows (or Mac) machine, you could download and set up the LMS software on it, and install storage disks on this machine (they could be of any type - internal conventional drives, USB3 external drives, SSD ones, etc... you could also store your music on another machine which would act as a plain vanilla file server).

You might also be able to expand the capacity of you micro server by adding USB2 drives to it... or get someone to clone the stock 250GB drive on a larger one (using a desktop PC), and then extend the original partition... It is also possible to add a 5th standard SATA drive to these good old microservers (using the space which was initially planned for a CD drive). There may be some size constraints on the disk drives or partition which the OS on your micro server can recognize (2TB should not be an issue, but Windows Home Server 2011, for instance, doesn't work perfectly with larger partitions)
 
The user manual (assuming you don't have one already) is here

Could it be something as simple as the CMOS battery needing replacement? If so, page 72

I haven't delved in, but there seem to pages upon pages on diagnsotics and high-level management, including password reset, etc. Perhaps this will get you past the forgotten password?

It seems it will hold up to four 4Tb drives, so extra capacity would appear to involve merely installing larger drives than your 2Tb ..
 
I’m an utter doofus when it comes to IT, or rather the software side of things so I can’t help much with any suggestions as to a new server (I’m an electronic engineer)… you say your current server is in a loft space. Have you opened it up and cleaned the fans and heatsinks? If it’s stuttering suddenly and didn’t before, it might be over heating and thermal throttling due to being clogged up with dust.
 
Thanks all, much appreciated, although I think much of it is beyond me, especially as I can't get help if it goes wrong. So:

Adding disks, well I could physically do that, it looks straightforward enough, but not the stuff about getting the system to see the disks. If I can just plug one in the back and it works, that would be fine of course. I know 2TB is the limit per drive for this server and while I understand what you mean by cloning the small disk and why you might do that, I wouldn't do it myself and have no-one who could do it for me.

Yes, I wondered about that, if it worked before why not now. Well maybe becasue the library has become too big and the server is pretty much full? It gets restarted from time to time because I go away sometimes, and becasue it gets glitchy from time to time, and switching it off and on again cures it. I could look again at updating things, but I seem to remember that always failing in the past. I'll look again. In any event it will be a very old version of WHS so I guess not supported now anyway.

Yes, it absolutely could be the CMOS battery after all this time, but according to the instruction manual, replacing it resets BIOS - if that makes it fall over I'm screwed.

Yes, it is absolutely filthy. Cleaning it (which I have done but not for ages) seems like a good idea.

That Core32 thingy looks like it could be good for me, I like plug and play. None in stock unfortunately and I'm not clear what file storage solution would work for me, but it's a possibility.

I really appreciate all the help here - but I have no help to hand and I know from bitter experience that tinkering with software will end with me wasting time I don't have and my music system falling over - followed by me throwing money at the problem. These days I prefer to avoid the intermediate frustration and just go straight for the money since I'll have to spend it anyway.
 
pqpq said:
Thanks - but those instructions fill me with dread. Obviously the layout is easy to understand, and in fact has only one additional box to what's there now. But in the instructions, already in the second paragraph I don't know what a "boot console" is (although I recognise the sort of script)...
Click to expand...
Fair enough. Really, programmers only have themselves to blame for scaring people off. I think that some of them don’t realise, but others do it deliberately out of a sense of superiority. Mind you, there are folk in all walks of life like that. If I had been writing those instructions I would have used the word ‘screen’. In that context, it comes to pretty much the same thing. And everyone knows what a screen is...
 
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Do you actually have 6TB of music (huge amount!) and do you have any back up currently?

I'm tending to think the simplest solution is to get a new (or s/h) PC running Win 10 and install LMS on it. Install a large hard drive and copy all the music over.

You don't really need a new server, and there's no low cost equivalent of Homeserver now, so it would mean learning and setting up a new operating system - and Windows server versions are very expensive and overkill, and other (maybe free) linux based software probably too complex. Win 10 is quite adequate and probably easiest if you are already familiar with it.

It really doesn't need to be a high spec PC. Really I see no reason why the old microserver should not still be up to the task - so first try a clean up on that?
 
It's not 6TB but it won't be too far off. There's stuff other than music on the server, but not that much, maybe 1TB. Yes, it is backed up but only 1 copy, spread across 2 external hard drives. And yes, I have a lot of music!

I am reasonably happy sorting out a PC based solution and I'm currently using windows 10. I don't know whether I could re-use the 3x2TB drives in the server, or would it have to be one enormous drive? And as it's going to be on most of the time, I guess a PC which isn't too power hungry would be good.

I also like the idea of the polyvection core32 linked to above. It seems it will act as an interface between my squeezeboxes and the file storage without me having to fiddle with anything. It will also mean (I think) that the BBC stuff which stopped working on my squeezebox years ago will work again. No stock though unfortunately.

I agree that the homeserver ought to be OK still, but I can't fix it and don't know anyone who can. If I find an alternative way of doing this, I can of course give it to my very slow computer guy and it will return in 6 months all sorted out. I will give it a clean in the meantime though. Actually, someone above pointed out that the OS it uses will now be a security risk as it's no longer supported, so maybe not such a great idea, especially as it seems there's no contemporary, budget replacement. It's OK though, the server has lasted 11 years and cost less than £100!

I need to do something. The Nubiya Garcia currently playing is pretty much unlistenable becasue of the buffering.
 
In your shoes the first thing I’d do is buy an 8TB USB Disk and make a new full backup copy of all your music.

HP Microservers running WHS were fab in their day but now out of support and no longer receiving Microsoft security updates as has been mentioned (we deployed loads, mainly as PC backup targets for business clients but have removed them all and replaced with NAS boxes).

A Win 10 PC sounds like your best bet, a refurbished Dell OptiPlex can be had for very reasonable money. For storage use the new 8TB USB Disk for now and then move on to a NAS (QNAP/Synology or your HP repurposed with FreeNAS when you can get some IT assistance).

Out of interest if you attach a USB Disk with music on it to the HP, does that stutter when played?
 
Assuming the machine used to work fine, and all you've probably done is load more music onto it, there are three likely points of failure:

1) HD problems - without knowing the age of the drives, this might be an issue
2) Memory issues - if you've loaded more music onto the server, it's possible that it's low on memory and swapping. This can cause intermittent problems which would be interpreted as stuttering, slow loading of track details etc
3) Network issues - if the machine to SB connection is having issues then you might get drops


Tackling these in reverse order, there is a 'check network connection' thing in the SB settings which you can check to confirm you've got plenty of bandwidth to the server. Try this when you are having problems. It's possible that the issue is something else on the network loading the server and your streaming being pushed down the priority list, or an actual network issue. Hard to diagnose unless you start seeing a pattern. Obviously, if you know there is no other traffic on the network and you have issues, then it could be a cable issue or the machine itself. Look at the flashing lights on the switch when you have issues, is there lots of traffic on a port you aren't expected (e.g, another machine is running a backup at the time for example)

Memory issues - it's very cheap and easy to upgrade the memory in the machine. If you know what the model is, you can do online and order more memory for it. Replacing it is popping the lid with the machine off, pushing some clips to release the old memory, and install the new. It's the easiest and cheapest way to improve performance.

HD issues - what are the age of the drives? If they are a number of years old, maybe getting a new 8Tb drive and just copying everything across and using that would be a good idea.
 
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