Rouse HDD when playback is resumed even when the buffer is not empty yet

2022-01-08 22:58:36

I store music on a separate HDD which can be unused for long time. Sometimes it happens that I pause playback for a few hours, the system waits for some time minutes, and then turns HDD into power saving mode. When I resume playback, it starts to play immediately, because player's buffer was full. But foobar2000 doesn't try to rouse HDD in advance. It tries to read next chunk of data when buffer is almost empty, and it causes a long hiccup, because OS needs some time to wake the HDD up. foobar2000 could try to read a byte of currently playing file right after I resume playback, so the system would have some time to wake the HDD up before the next chunk of data is really required. So, if the foobar2000's buffer is big enough, the system will have enough time to wake the HDD up while foobar2000 plays something from its buffer.

Re: Rouse HDD when playback is resumed even when the buffer is not empty yet

Reply #1 – 2022-01-09 00:21:20

Try to increase buffer in File->Preferences->Advanced->Playback->Buffering->Read ahead for local files

Re: Rouse HDD when playback is resumed even when the buffer is not empty yet

Reply #2 – 2022-01-10 06:42:29

With bigger buffer, it will play a bit longer before HDD will start to turning on. I can hear when the HDD starts to work. It starts just after a few seconds of playback, right when playback is stuck. Before this, it seems like foobar2000 plays contents of the buffer.

Re: Rouse HDD when playback is resumed even when the buffer is not empty yet

Reply #3 – 2022-01-30 11:25:20

The player could try to read end of current file or beginning of the next file to wake up the HDD after long pause, to avoid the potential hiccup.