I was pretty anxious to get my hands on a Logitech Squeezebox - and particularly the Classic one. Since I'll be moving to a new place soon I'd like to move my server (which now sits next to my stereo, is connected to it by RCA jacks, and runs MPD) to a closet, but that means I'll have to find another solution to access my music library over the network. The Classic seemed like the perfect solution. The newer models have too many bells and whistles and costs a lot more. But the Classic, being sold by only a few shops now, seems on the verge of being phased out, so I decided to wait no longer, buy it, and set up the whole thing. The plan was to add a real NAS (like the Qnap TS-219p, which can run Debian and has an advertised power consumption of ~ 20W under load) to complete the setup and have a power-efficient and centralised music playback solution.

Unfortunately the Classic did not live up to my expectations. I had visions of a PC-less playback solution, and I was thrilled - until I read the manual. Then it slowly became clear that there was still a web interface (an ugly one at that) and - even worse - that you *needed* it for some functionality. I am for example unable to wipe active playlists, but I'm quite sure that's just me and the option is hidden somewhere. However, while my google skills rarely fail me, this time they did. I thought the Classic was a popular device but maybe the public that Logitech is targeting here isn't really the one I'm part of. The manual is not very talkative when it comes to the possibilities of the remote either.

After setting up the Squeezebox, I started filling the database. Not only did it spike the Athlon X2 5050e dualcore on my server (2,6 Ghz ), it also took 15 minutes to build the whole database. (over 9000 songs). Imagine doing this on your average NAS like a a D-Link DNS-323 which has a 500 Mhz ARM CPU, or a heavier NAS (like some bigger Qnaps) which have Atoms inside.

The whole software package that you're meant to install is some 70 MB. I originally assumed what made the Squeezebox tick as a cross-platform solution were the perl scripts, but I was wrong. It's way more. The Squeezebox software also includes a binary i386 MySQL. I was a disappointed this had not been taken apart - it would have been useful if instructions had been provided for people to integrate an existing MySQL setup with the Squeezebox code, but that is probably too complicated for the target public Logitech had in mind. Still, a lot of servers have some (My)SQL package set up, and to have this duplicate functionality is a bit sad. On the other hand, you're sure things won't break because of updates - at least not because of MySQL updates...

While Logitech recommends a box with 512 MB of RAM to run its software on, you could get away with less (especially if you run headless). The whole MySQL thingy takes a few tens of megabytes, but this might grow with extended uptime (although I did not test this, this is just a wild guess and a warning to keep some headroom). There is no way to shut the Squeezebox down either; all you can do is put it in standby. So I had to pull the plug if I really wanted it to shut down. At first it seemed like that would require you to reconfigure the Squeezebox again (IP address etc.), but apparently it does store that on NVRAM somewhere. Just as with my AppleTV I find this a major design flaw. In times of power-efficient devices, an 'Off' switch is the best way to cut power consumption. You can claim people don't want it, but those who don't want it won't touch it; it won't interfere with their usage of the device. Those who do want it can only pull the plug or find some other tedious workaround. I did not test power consumption since the device didn't operate for much more than a day in my LAN.

As for now, I'm leaning towards a Fractal Design Array mini-ITX case and Zotac's NM10-DTX motherboard, so I can recycle my Xonar Essence STX. It would be just like my present server, but less powerful - whereas my present setup (a 5050e with a 780G motherboard, one 3,5" and one 2,5" HD ,eS-ATA connectivity and the Xonar Essence STX) consumes ~45 W idle, I hope the Atom setup will do ~ 30 W idle with identical functionality.
Only one problem: it seems you can't switch off the IGP unless there is a PCI-E graphics card present. Since I want a headless box, that's a bit of a bummer; it would have shaved off a lot of watts. Nonetheless, while the Squeezebox is a powerful concept, the actual product, in my opinion, is a letdown.