Raspberry Pi, Volumio and a USB HDD: suggestions & tricks to avoid file corruption or deletion

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#1

Hi everyone,
with this topic I hope we can find together tips and tricks to minimize the risk of corruption and deletion of music files when using a USB HDD as a container for those files.

For example, is it better for music files to be read-only? If so, what is the chmod value to assign to them?

Since the episodes of file corruption have often occurred to me when restarting or after shutting down the system, what do you recommend to do when you need to shut down or restart?
Is there a way to make a graceful and safe shutdown of the system?

This is my setup:

Volumio Version: 2.861
Hardware: Raspberry Pi 3 b+ with Kuman SC07C Raspberry Pi HiFi digi+
HDD (containing only the music library): WD 4TB Elements Desktop, USB 3.0 (powered with its own power supply).

#2

Don’t worry, I’ve had my Volumio running for about two years now, USB portable drive connected to the Raspberry Pin 3B+, taking power from the R Pi. I’ve never had any concern about the integrity of the music files.

#3

Well, lucky you.
The problem exists, though. I’m not the only one who has encountered this kind of problems.

#4

Maybe I have identified the problem, I think that these episodes of file corruption happened because my HDD is formatted in exFAT. I will try to use a more stable format, like EXT4.

#5

That should help.
I shutdown every time I’m finished listening to my hifi.
Never have any problems.
Problems, like can’t communicate, occur if i leave it running for days/weeks…

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#6

Use FAT32.

#7

I think EXT4 is much better than FAT32, less limits, more efficiency and for several other reasons

#8

I always try to power down Volumio before I switch off my hifi but I sometimes forget. This usually results in having to reboot the RPi next time it’s switched on but that’s all. I’ve never had a problem with files getting corrupted on the USB flash drive. As I understand it, as they are only ever read, they won’t get corrupted but I stand to be corrected.

#9

I eventually formatted the hdd in EXT4 and so far, after several switch on and off I haven’t found any problems.