There's been a little discussion about which storage devices to use with a Raspberry Pi running Moode, which is probably applicable to any RPi audio player setup.
I may have found something helpful. There's a Windows freeware called USBDeview that displays a lot of info about connected USB devices. One of the things it displays is power consumption for each USB device. That could be useful for verifying the actual current draw from the various USB storage drive types.
Find Out How Much Power USB Devices Need - gHacks Tech News
NirSoft USBDeview
Now to the question at hand -- Will it cause problems if I use a big honkin' 2TB USB hard drive directly connected to my Raspberry Pi music player?
Let's see if we can whip up a current budget for the setup.
How much current does the RPi3 (CPU) draw by itself?
- Up to 700mA possible, but probably 480mA under max loads.
- Power Consumption | Raspberry Pi Dramble I don't know if they included the onboard WiFi and Ethernet network card for the Raspberry Pi 3. Let's say they did not, so we'll add another 70mA to make 550mA.
How much current does the uSDcard use in use?
- Apparently these can use up to 100mA during reads/writes.
- Power consumption to write to SD card?
How much current does the DAC HAT need?
- According to specs for the Allo Boss DAC, if you power it from an external supply, that supply needs to be rated 5V 100mA minimum. So let's say 100mA.
- Allo.com - Boss DAC
How much current does a USB HDD draw in use?
- About 400mA or so under load (5VDC * 400mA = 2W)
- https://superuser.com/questions/117...of-2-5-laptop-external-hard-drive-connected-t
- https://community.wd.com/t/my-passport-ultra-current-draw/165894
How much current does a USB SSD draw in use?
- Looks like about 2W under load, or 400mA, so about the same as a USB HDD.
How much current does a USB thumb drive draw in use?
- Looks like 1W at most, or about 200mA (5VDC).
- http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/All-Sa...-Consumption-for-USB-Flash-Drives/td-p/359161
Most of the 5V SMPS used with RPi3 are 5VDC at 2A (or 2.5A), nominal 10W to 12.5W capacity.
Power consumption added up:
RPi3 + onboard NIC = 550mA
uSDcard = 100mA
Allo Boss DAC = 100mA
That's 750mA of power supply current capacity needed for the CPU+boot disk+DAC.
That leaves about 1.25A for your storage, assuming 2A available from the power supply. So yes, any USB 2.0 compatible HDD should work.
If you use a thumb drive (200mA) instead of the HDD (400mA) you're adding 200mA of headroom available from your 2A power supply. Whether that would ever be needed is debatable.
Did I do that right?
Are those figures valid?
--
I may have found something helpful. There's a Windows freeware called USBDeview that displays a lot of info about connected USB devices. One of the things it displays is power consumption for each USB device. That could be useful for verifying the actual current draw from the various USB storage drive types.
Find Out How Much Power USB Devices Need - gHacks Tech News
NirSoft USBDeview
Now to the question at hand -- Will it cause problems if I use a big honkin' 2TB USB hard drive directly connected to my Raspberry Pi music player?
Let's see if we can whip up a current budget for the setup.
How much current does the RPi3 (CPU) draw by itself?
- Up to 700mA possible, but probably 480mA under max loads.
- Power Consumption | Raspberry Pi Dramble I don't know if they included the onboard WiFi and Ethernet network card for the Raspberry Pi 3. Let's say they did not, so we'll add another 70mA to make 550mA.
How much current does the uSDcard use in use?
- Apparently these can use up to 100mA during reads/writes.
- Power consumption to write to SD card?
How much current does the DAC HAT need?
- According to specs for the Allo Boss DAC, if you power it from an external supply, that supply needs to be rated 5V 100mA minimum. So let's say 100mA.
- Allo.com - Boss DAC
How much current does a USB HDD draw in use?
- About 400mA or so under load (5VDC * 400mA = 2W)
- https://superuser.com/questions/117...of-2-5-laptop-external-hard-drive-connected-t
- https://community.wd.com/t/my-passport-ultra-current-draw/165894
How much current does a USB SSD draw in use?
- Looks like about 2W under load, or 400mA, so about the same as a USB HDD.
How much current does a USB thumb drive draw in use?
- Looks like 1W at most, or about 200mA (5VDC).
- http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/All-Sa...-Consumption-for-USB-Flash-Drives/td-p/359161
Most of the 5V SMPS used with RPi3 are 5VDC at 2A (or 2.5A), nominal 10W to 12.5W capacity.
Power consumption added up:
RPi3 + onboard NIC = 550mA
uSDcard = 100mA
Allo Boss DAC = 100mA
That's 750mA of power supply current capacity needed for the CPU+boot disk+DAC.
That leaves about 1.25A for your storage, assuming 2A available from the power supply. So yes, any USB 2.0 compatible HDD should work.
If you use a thumb drive (200mA) instead of the HDD (400mA) you're adding 200mA of headroom available from your 2A power supply. Whether that would ever be needed is debatable.
Did I do that right?
Are those figures valid?
--
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I am afraid that software does not show current consumption but the maximum consumption the device reports to the usb controller.
You can get the same figure directly from linux on RPi:
E.g. Under Linux, how can I tell the real power consumed by a usb device - Super User
You can get the same figure directly from linux on RPi:
Code:
lsusb -v|egrep "^Bus|MaxPower"E.g. Under Linux, how can I tell the real power consumed by a usb device - Super User
Yes indeed, why not supply the hard drive with its own clean power and isolate it from the RPi's (noisy?) 5V supply?
Good question! Yes, of course this would be better. So would feeding the DAC with its own psu.
What kind of Y-cable is used to connect an external USB bus-powered hdd to a 5V power supply? I'm behind the curve with all this external stuff, having always been a desktop PC user first, laptop/mobile user second.
The one and only objection I can think of to having a separate psu for the pi, hdd and DAC is the clutter and wires, especially since the DAC I use doesn't have a headphone amp, which requires yet another psu. That's all fine for a setup that won't be moved, but I also use this pi with separate headphone amp as my hotel room/travel music box (RPi3 with onboard storage, headphone amp with RCA-3.5mm cable, and headphones). Two psu's is quite enough when traveling.
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I noticed something unexpected on Moode 3.8.4. When I change the Theme color from the default Emerald to Slate or Turquoise, etc., only a few onscreen controls change to the newly chosen theme color, while the tabs and selected titles remain displaying with Emerald highlight. That's different from how it worked in 3.7. Is this a known issue, or am I once again doing something wrong?
Minor issue, I know. FWIW, I preferred it when all the onscreen controls changed to the selected theme color, rather than some but with the tabs always showing in Emerald.
Thanks!
Minor issue, I know. FWIW, I preferred it when all the onscreen controls changed to the selected theme color, rather than some but with the tabs always showing in Emerald.
Thanks!
Theme color - Change in behavior in 3.8.4?
I noticed something unexpected on Moode 3.8.4. When I change the Theme color from the default Emerald to Slate or Turquoise, etc., only a few onscreen controls change to the newly chosen theme color, while the tabs and selected titles remain displaying with Emerald highlight. That's different from how it worked in 3.7. Is this a known issue, or am I once again doing something wrong?
Minor issue, I know. FWIW, I preferred it when all the onscreen controls changed to the selected theme color, rather than some but with the tabs always showing in Emerald.
Thanks!
I noticed something unexpected on Moode 3.8.4. When I change the Theme color from the default Emerald to Slate or Turquoise, etc., only a few onscreen controls change to the newly chosen theme color, while the tabs and selected titles remain displaying with Emerald highlight. That's different from how it worked in 3.7. Is this a known issue, or am I once again doing something wrong?
Minor issue, I know. FWIW, I preferred it when all the onscreen controls changed to the selected theme color, rather than some but with the tabs always showing in Emerald.
Thanks!
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