RAM disk vs large Squeezelite buffer?

[koko6969koki]

Thank you for the fast answer!

You said "low buffer but enough RAM". How is this exactly working? 

Set a RAM disk size that's appriopriate (e.g. 1 or 2 album size), but use a smaller buffer for squeezelite. Because all your playing music is already in RAM, there's little point in creating another buffer (just going to add more processing time).

The idea behind using large Squeezelite buffers was to try them instead of RAM disk.
I don't intend to use both at the same time.
I wanted to try what works best in my case.
The one advantage that large Squeezelite buffers have over RAM disk is that I can just browse and play music using a simple Android control app on my tablet.
There is no need to go back to Snakeoil OS interface and use file browser for file transfers to RAM disk each time when I want to play something different.

I did some initial tests yesterday and the results look promising.
I have installed nmon http://nmon.sourceforge.net/pmwiki.php on my Snakeoil NUC and via SSH I was able to monitor disk I/O activity during music playback.



At the beginning of each track played, there is only a single burst of disk activity that seems shorter than one second (maybe it is that short because files are loaded to RAM buffer from SSD)
and after that there where no further signs of any disk activity during the whole playback time. Yay!

Ok, RAM disk has an (slight?) advantage that all the files in the playlist are loaded to RAM before I start playing them, so there is no disk activity at the beginning of each song while it is being loaded in the buffer.
But in a real life usage, does it matter that much, since the loading time of one song is less or close to one second?

I have tried very long files, used some of my recordings that are almost two hours long (disk activity during loading was of course longer),
and tested the buffer by randomly jumping backward and forward over the player time line.
There wasn't a smallest sign of disk activity at any point, so I can assume that the files are fully loaded and playing 100% from RAM?

Now, the question is are there any other benefits of using the RAM disk over the large custom Squeezelite buffers?

I have yet to fully test the sound quality differences.
The first impressions are that there is (maybe!) more 3D space and air, and that the presentation is more relaxed and finely layered.
But maybe this is just me expecting to things sound better!

I have to listen more!