Pi2AES/Volumio - keep killing the SD card

So, I am now listening to Roon/Ropieee. While I don't like the price, I do like the UI. Thanks again for all the input.

 

I see that you got Roon working and you might no longer be interested in UPnP, but for reference here is how you can use it for Qobuz from PC or Mac:
https://www.hifizine.com/2019/07/stream-qobuz-to-anything/

 

From what I understand, there is actual wear on the memory cells and they only have a certain number of times that they can be written to before they are worn out. This is true of all memory, but more so with multi-level cells. The average life of an single-level-cell is 3 to 10 times that of an MLC, depending on how many levels of multi-level-cell.

If you read up on MLC, its kind of scary. It used to be that hard drives were all SLC, but these days you have a lot of MLC SSD drives that will eventually have the same issues.

If the problem is corrupted, then a format should cure the problem, but it you have software that writes to the same cells over and over, it could be wear.

 

I was wondering why my Volumio stopped working after shutdown. And the SD card was fried.

So now I know.

 

A couple of thoughts to remember.

I'm not sure how Volumio is configured, but if the Pi you are trying to shut down controls attached music files, it is a server and needs to be shut down correctly. Picoreplayer has no problem with pulling the plug on a player configuration, but needs to be shut down correctly for the server. Happily, the Picoreplayer doesn't kill the card if the server power is pulled, but may need resetting from time to time.

I have had to replace a few SD cards, but the life is a year or more. Even that is more often than predicted by published read/write life specs. I do leave 3 of my 4 Pi's on 24/7.

Leaving them on 24/7 is fine, but the Pi will run a bit hot and some components on the Pi can fail over time. I lost my first Pi after about 5 years. Michael suggested turning the Pi on it's side to promote air flow over board mounted components. I have also added a couple of cheap heat sinks to the main chips, drilled a couple holes in the case to improve air flow, and removed the case panel on the USB, etc end. But then those last steps are probably overkill.

 

First, get the SD Card Formatter from the SD Card Association.

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

This software will rescue some cards! I use PiCorePlayer and Squeezelite for my endpoints, and the OS runs out of RAM, so it is tough to kill the Card, bonus less writes. My LMS server is on a UPS because I do not want to rebuild things due to power issues. Of course, remember to shut down properly if you do not know. As far as Heat, the server is in an open-sided case sitting vertically for drafting air. With heatsinks on the Pi 4, I am typically at 35C there. Big heatsinks are your friend on the endpoints—entirely passive cooling.

 

Keep in mind storage cards are many gigabytes and the data written to logs and such is in kilobytes, so wear isn’t often going to be an issue even if you run your system 24/7.

While I can’t speak specifically to Volumio, in general just make sure you power down the system correctly to prevent corruption of the directory structure and you should be good for years of use.

 

I lost a regular PNY card running moOde when the power went out at my house. The card was still recognized, and moOde could boot, but it was locked into read-only mode. I've tried numerous ways to format the card in my Windows and Linux laptops, etc, but no success.

I have since placed my pi2AES running off a UPS. I'll have to look into Picore Player.

 

Presuming that wear leveling operates correctly.

I know that Octoprint installs on 3D printers can do very poorly on some SD cards because the log files write to the exact same cell over and over. It corrupts the card way faster than you might expect for the actual volume of writes.