[Milhouse]

I found this interesting link ..
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-...477-3.html

It seems indeed the sandisk extreme 64gb is a good choice

A good choice only if you don't mind paying twice the value of your Pi for a marginal improvement in performance!

Benchmarks are interesting, but the reality is that you probably won't notice much difference between a competent £15-£20 USB3 Flash drive and this SanDisk Extreme 64GB which seems to retail for closer to £50.

Once you've cached all your artwork - which you can automate so that it doesn't continually interrupt your library browsing - most other frequent file system updates are likely to be to the SQLite database files. I'm not sure if these updates take the form of random writes or sequential writes, but with my £20 USB3 drive (which isn't exactly stellar when it comes to synthetic 4K benchmarks - see results above) I've not had any performance problems using it with my Pi.

[xbs08]

Did a quick video playback start times tests on MKV and AVI (and YouTube) and video playback starts whithin 4-9 sec on both flash drives.
Playback starts faster when I stream from PC rather than USB/ROUTER. Both are SMB shares.

Other interesting thing I've noticed is that after aligning the USB 3.0 and running CrystalDisk 4k test ONLY the read/write increases quite a bit (+5500 RR 4K) still the USB 2.0 is faster while browsing the library than USB 3.0.
UI is a little faster with USB 3.0 vs. USB 2.0.

Is OE EXT4 using Journaling?
If so, can I disable it? How?

TIA

[Swifty]

Very interesting discussion - @xbs08 how do you align the usb ?

I have two Sandisk extreme USB3.0 16gb and my list browsing is very sluggish on OC'd 1000/500/500 Pi's (main menu performance is good, just seems to be media lists).
I've run the texture cache utility but I'm not sure if I used all the right switches.. my DB is running on my server (MySQL) but my performance doesn't seem to be anywhere near Popcornmix's video (I am running the Aeon MQ5 skin, but from what I'm led to believe it's supposed to be as light as amber on resources)

As as aside, what is the recommended AdvancedSettings.xml to use for MillhouseVH's gotham builds, any tweaks we should be using?

[popcornmix]

I am running the Aeon MQ5 skin, but from what I'm led to believe it's supposed to be as light as amber on resources)

What has led you to believe that? I think you should try Amber to be sure the skin isn't the cause of the sluggish behaviour.

[Milhouse]

As as aside, what is the recommended AdvancedSettings.xml to use for MillhouseVH's gotham builds, any tweaks we should be using?

Nope.

[Swifty]

Thanks guys, I will check out Amber to be sure.
I had read somewhere that MQ5 was heavily optimised and some people commented it worked well on their Pi's, but I'll try Amber just to check if it's something fundamentally wrong with my setup

[xbs08]

Formated using gparted (linux) (i.e don't use Windows to format USB/SD Cards) but there's also a gparted live cd if you can't use linux.
On windows you can use HGST align tool.

[Swifty]

Ok, I stand corrected.. Amber is WAY quicker in the lists than MQ5 - Thanks gents!

@xbs08, thanks for the info, may take a look at this to see if I can eek out some more speed.

[kortex]

I found this interesting link ..
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-...477-3.html

It seems indeed the sandisk extreme 64gb is a good choice

A good choice only if you don't mind paying twice the value of your Pi for a marginal improvement in performance!

Benchmarks are interesting, but the reality is that you probably won't notice much difference between a competent £15-£20 USB3 Flash drive and this SanDisk Extreme 64GB which seems to retail for closer to £50.

Once you've cached all your artwork - which you can automate so that it doesn't continually interrupt your library browsing - most other frequent file system updates are likely to be to the SQLite database files. I'm not sure if these updates take the form of random writes or sequential writes, but with my £20 USB3 drive (which isn't exactly stellar when it comes to synthetic 4K benchmarks - see results above) I've not had any performance problems using it with my Pi.

How do you automate the art work caching ? Not sure my configuration is correct as it is the default settings

[Milhouse]

How do you automate the art work caching ?

See my signature.

[kortex]

thanks it works indeed better after caching stuff
I'll schedule cron jobs latter to automate that

[doveman2]

Just bought a Hama Probo 16GB USB3 and it seems to be the best all-rounder stick I've had so far. It's nice and compact as well, which is useful for fitting it into my RPi's DIY case.

This is it in a USB2 port:


This is in a USB3 port:


and for comparison, this is my Sandisk Ultra Class 10 8GB SD:

[disrupted]

@doveman2: thank you for sharing your experience! especially useful for new users who don't know which stick is a good choice :)

[xbs08]

Make sure you format the pendrive using Linux/GParted for proper aligment.

[doveman2]

I just used MiniTool Partition Wizard in Windows. What difference would it make?