On my RPi3 with LE 9.2 .8 I have three USB drives with media. In an attempt to achieve smoother playback with other things going on in the background (e.g. file copies) I created an advancedsettings.xml file to extend the playback buffering capacity:
<advancedsettings>
<cache>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<memorysize>139460608</memorysize>
<readfactor>20</readfactor>
</cache>
</advancedsettings>
This works fine! But now I've created another problem. Depending on bit rate and file size, an MP3 file is often cached in its entirety and then plays from the cache, and the next file is only read when the end of the previous one is reached. This usually takes more than three minutes, so after 3 minutes of non-activity the USB disk powers down. This means that during a playlist with multiple MP3 files the disk powers up and down many times, which I fear will cause excessive wear-and-tear on the disk.
Is there a way around this? Can the USB power-down timeout be changed? Yes, I could reduce the cache size, but that will not always work (e.g. in the case of low bit rate MP3s) and negate the benefits of buffering that I was trying to achieve in the first place.
Suggestions, anyone?
// FvW