Please excuse this newbie question...

Here at home, I have a dedicated fileserver with 60gb of RAID storage, and over 1600 audio CD's, which I am slowly going through and ripping with EAC & LAME (giving me currently 28 gigs / 5100 songs, about 35% done). I also gave my wife an iPod for xmas, but that's another thread :-)


Now that I've got a second unit (10gb) on order, I can see in the future wanting to basically mirror my in-home server on my empeg unit. So that gives me this question: Is there a technical restriction on how large a hard disk the unit will recognize, and is there is an upper limit on how many files the unit Mk2a (12mb) will support?

I can expand my home server, but I am aware that there is a 128gb limit (I think that's the correct size) on drive size addressing on the Raid Controller.

I've only had my empeg for a couple of months. But some users have 2x48GB IBM drives.. for a total space of 96GB's.

I haven't seen anyone talk about a limitation on the drive size.

The only drive size limit is the 128GB per-drive limit of the original-style IDE drive register set.

The 2.2 kernel series used in the player does not support the new extensions for addressing drives larger than that size (although I could hack them into the player's kernel someday).

I don't know what the "max files" limit is -- that depends entirely on how the player builder software issued the "mke2fs" command to create the filesystem.. but that too is hackable.

Cheers

-ml

There was talk over a maximum playlist size in this thread (versions 1.0x) . I seem to recall that this particular data partition was increased since 2.x beta but I can't seem to find where I read that.

and is there is an upper limit on how many files the unit Mk2a (12mb) will support?

I believe that the upper limit on files *per drive* is 131,072 based on this thread.

You can find out how many files (inodes) you have free by issuing a "df -i" command on your Empeg player. I can't imagine a situation under which 131,072 MP3's would fit on a single drive anyway. However if you had a LOT of small files on the music partition, this could become full.

It's not technically correct to say there's a 1:1 ratio of files to inodes, but it's close enough for these purposes.

I believe that the upper limit on files *per drive* is 131,072 based on this thread

-i131072 means that there's an inode for every 131072 bytes (128 kByte) on the partition, not 131072 inodes in total...
From the mke2fs man page:

-i bytes-per-inode
Specify the bytes/inode ratio. mke2fs creates an
inode for every bytes-per-inode bytes of space on
the disk. The larger the bytes-per-inode ratio,
the fewer inodes will be created. This value gen­
erally shouldn't be smaller than the blocksize of
the filesystem, since then too many inodes will be
made. Be warned that is not possible to expand the
number of inodes on a filesystem after it is cre­
ated, so be careful decided the correct value for
this parameter.

For a partition size of say 18GB there are 18*1024*1024/128 = 147456 inodes.

Each tune will require two inodes (one for the mp3 file and one for the tag file). As the average size of files in total probably falls somewhere between 2 and 3 MB and there's an inode every 128kB I don't think the risk is very high that you'll run out of them...

Now, the hack in which there's a hierachy of symlinks built, corresponding to the existing playlists - that one could consume a lot of inodes. Still, unless you keep each tune in a [bleep]load of playlists, there still shouldn't be a problem. (Note: I might totally have misunderstood how the symlink tree works - haven't used it myself)

/Michael

Hmmm well 131072 is close enough to 147456 for government work. :) It's been a while since my operating systems class. Since I have 18GB drives I noticed that *my* number of Inodes was really close to that 131072 number so I thought it was an absolute number (not a ratio.)

Thanks for the correction.

Incidentally, since the empeg can have two drives, it's the retail player with the largest potential storage capacity. Without hacking, and providing manufacturers create them, you should be able to install two 128GB drives. Of course the largest announced 2.5" drive is still IBM's 60GB Travelstar (are they available retail yet?)

Bruno

I checked yesterday and the 60 gg's do not appear to be available.

Post 2.0 release, we're likely to be moving to 2.4 series kernels; we have been working on this incrementally. I suspect we'll probably make it to 2.4 before >128GB 2.5" drives become available.

These are, obviously, famous last words... but all the other projects we've been working on, bar the car player & rio receiver currently run 2.4 (and the receiver will run 2.4 with my latest patches)

Hugo

how many projects are you working on or is that i could tell you but i would have to kill you

Ooooo I count 2 new car products in the last couple of months... concepts only, obviously, but fully working concepts. Don't ask for details, I would have to kill you. You'd drool first, though.

New machine architectures for the kernel - about 5 or 6... all of which I can't tell you about either ;)

Hugo
(sorry, being a tease)

OEM, does that mean going to companies like Visteon or Delfi (sorry, I donly know of US auto electronics suppliers) with a finished product or going to companies like Sony with technology components that would then be integrated into product lines?

Please let me whipe the drool from my chin. I'd like to die with a little dignity.

We're talking to lots of people from car manufacturers to aftermarket car stereo makers and everyone inbetween. You'll hear more soon, fingers crossed!

Hugo

OEM this could me the next deal from the empeg guys could be even better buy a empeg car product and get a free CAR

But serioulsy it doesn't take a genius to realise that if you got the HSX jumped up and down on it to fit into a different shaped box and then shoved it in a car it would be better than a empeg all you would need to figure out is how to update the software and cddb but burning it onto a cd rom might work.

OEM this could me the next deal from the empeg guys could be even better buy a empeg car product and get a free CAR

Hmm.. Maybe a 2CV or a Trabant

Well there's an idea.

Rob

From your minimal response Rob I guess thinfourth2's pretty much hit the nail on the head . No?

I got it right

Do i get a free prize

Or have a wireless option to add files and create updates while it is still parked in your drive!

(WAY off topic, but I found another use for my 802.11 card: Play Unreal against my co-workers in a map I made of our work environment. Our work place is actually pretty interesting for Deathmatch (the addition of undergound tunnels didn't hurt either)

Hugo did leak details about the canned Mark 3 a bit ago, and thats probably what went to the OEM design phase.

It was basicially a car version of the HSX player. It wasn't removable, but had a removable drive. The unit also had a USB host like the HSX player, for ethernet or wireless...

I'm sure the empeg will show up in cars down the road. Now if only we knew what else they were working on, considering they didn't do the portable HD player that is going to be announced at CES.

Hehehehehe.

Thats the car the, polish people sleeps in here in Norway at summmer picking strawberry. (true)

TommyE

Thats the car the, polish people sleeps in here in Norway at summmer picking strawberry. (true)

Trabi is still used in Poland? They mass-produce older Fiat models (like that tiny Fiat126). Well, second-hand Trabi from ex-East Germany probably sells for next to nothing (or used to)

We prefered Fiat derivatives here in Croatia (600, 750, 1300/1500 and later 127 and 128 derivatives produced in Serbia, 125 and 126 from Poland and 124 derivative (Lada) from Rusia). West German cars were status symbol, and there was a spattering of French ones. There were, though, some East German Wartburgs (midsized - for Europe - sedan and station wagon with 3-cylinder 1000ccm two-stroke engine) to be seen around.

I will refrain from more ancient-car talk outside off-topic forum, I promise!

It looks like you know the makes.
What you wrote clears one thing up. Some friends and I was in Turkey a couple of years back. There all the Taxies / Cabs where newer Fiat models. Models that I haven't seen in Norway since I was a kid. They were exactly like the 20 year old Fiats, except they where brand new.

TommyE

In Turkey they now make just 10-15 year old Fiats (Tipos and Tempras), only new . A few get imported here, too; they are quite cheap and rather solidly built, only a bit crude by todays standards (says former 2CV owner )...

In Romania you will find new 30 years old Renaults (model 12 a.k.a. Dacia), in Serbia 20 year old Fiats (127 and 128 derivatives a.k.a. Yugos - our American readers might remember smaller of two models ), in Brazil and Mexico original VW Beatles...