[TheWalkman]

I just installed PlexPi on a spare Rasp3 yesterday and love it.  Thanks for putting this together Robbie.

My music library is on an external 128gig thumb drive but don't particularly care to have the thumb drive  hanging off of the rear.  

My total music library is around 20 gigs.  I'm running the pi off of a 128 gig Samsung micro SD card with, obviously, LOTS of spare memory.

I read about not using the internal SD card as the music/ media library because accessing will wear the card out.  

So how is an internal microSD card more susceptible to wear than an external thumb drive?  

(Besides, my Samsung card has a five year warranty so if it wears out, I get a new card and reimage it.)

What am I missing here, folks?

Cheers

[Robbie Ferguson]

Hey TheWalkman. Cheers - glad you're enjoying PlexPi!

Yes, people are correct in stating that storing the media on the SD card will reduce its life span... they have a limited number of cycles, as do usb flash drives. Both of those options have a significantly lower read/write lifespan when compared to an external USB SDD or HDD.

It doesn't sound like you're afraid of wrecking a card, and you know the caveat that if you use it for media, it'll wear out faster than if you don't use it for media. So by all means, with those warnings, go ahead--no reason why not... you want portable/easy/compact, not 50 years lifespan 

As always, just make sure you always have a second (and third) copy of all the files that mean a lot to you.

PS - You can also use CIFS to mount a NAS share. Just sayin' 

Have fun!

[TheWalkman]

Thanks, Robbie.

I'm in the process of copying the files to my SD card now.

I actually have a couple of NAS servers sitting around and one thing I really like about the Pi is that there is no fan noise and it's eco-friendly with 5 - 10 Watt power draw etc.  I also have another Volumio server running now with a HiFi Berry DAC+ and am comparing the two.  

Though I see you did a show on Volumio some time back, I never really found a compreshensive comparison between the many Pi media server options - Plex, Kodi, Volumio, etc. so I'm trying them out one at a time to see which works for me.

Regarding the memory card, considering the fact that I probably use my media server a couple of hours a week - max - and the fact that I have my music library copied to several extra  thumb drives (and duped on the Volumio server as well) I'll take my chances on a memory card biting the dust 10 years from now.  They'll probably be giving 128 gig cards away for free with a pack of bubble gum by then.

On a larger note, I have to say, it's been really fun getting my feet wet again with the PI.  It's been decades since I last  used Unix (didn't particularly miss it, frankly) and I'm just amazed at what a great little tool the Pi is.  

When I was a kid, we begged and pleaded to get a little time on a mainframe based timesharing system.   That seemed like magic.  That ultimately lead me to get a degree in Computer Science.   Now, to see that virtually anyone can have a powerful and fully functional little PI on their desk for $100 is mind boggling to me.   Ah, to he a bright-eyed 14 year old again!

Keep up the good work.

[Robbie Ferguson]

Ha! Yeah, welcome to the modern age where "STEM" education ... hands-on tinkering and creating ... is approachable on even a limited budget!

Quickly for you:

PlexPi: server. stream your media to your other devices (eg., phone, tablet, computer, tv) and play the video/audio on those devices.

Volumio: player. play music out of the sound system connected to the Pi, but control it from your other devices. The sound does not come out of the devices you're using to control it.

Kodi: player. play video on the device it's installed on.

.... that's why PlexPi exists. Someone asked why make PlexPi when Rasplex exists, and then deleted their comment so I guess they figured it out... Server vs. client/player. PlexPi is a server.

Hope that helps

Have fun!!