Fastest way to transfer large soundfonts to Zynthian

Using Zynthian
1

Hi @zynthianers,

I am trying out a few downloaded sfz soundfonts to use with Sfizz, and am wondering which faster transfer method than Webconf Terminal I might resort to, since anything larger than 100 Mb seems to take ages to upload.

First off, I assume that operating from an external PC, either on Terminal or on an SFTP server, the WiFi service on the Zynth should be temporarily switched off, in order to let the cabled ethernet connection take precedence.

Then, I could envisage the following workflow:

  1. Disable the Wi-Fi service on the Z.

  2. Connect as usual the Zynthian to the external computer through an Ethernet cable.

  3. Use an SSH/SFTP server with a command like:

scp largefile.sfz root@zynthian.local:/zynthian/zynthian-my-data/soundfonts/sfz

(?)

Alternatively, I could store the soundfonts on an USB Flash Drive or External USB SSD, with the ensuing procedure:

  1. Copy the SoundFonts onto a USB or portable SSD drive.

  2. Insert it into the Zynthian.

  3. Access the files via SSH or Terminal, and move them to the folder /zynthian/zynthian-my-data/soundfonts/sfz. With what command syntax if on SSH CLI?

Any further advice? Suggestions welcome!

Regards :slight_smile:

2

I connect Zynthian and notebook to router by Ethernet cables and I transfer files using Filezilla.

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3

So @piattica, providing that I am reading your words correctly, do you physically place your laptop and Zynthian close to the Internet router, connecting both through ethernet to the router device? I honestly did not foresee such a method…

What average transfer rate do you get with Filezilla in this way?

Thanks

4

I do the same, but with WinSCP (I honestly don’t know if I use ssh or sftp right now). I guess it’s also not necessary do disable wifi because eth and wifi have different IPs. It is really convenient that way, also because I can just edit scripts directly on Visual Code.

I upload sfz with around 10MB/s, so my 45 GB soundfonts are transfered in a bit over an hour.

I also tried in the past to cp from a USB stick. It wasn’t faster.

5

exactly, same method and same results
sometimes I connect by Ethernet only Zynthian and I place notebook near router and I get about 3,5 MB/s

6

I think I also got around 8 MB/s with wifi connected, but suffered from lost connection in the middle of the process sometimes, so I prefer ethernet.

7

Ok, thanks both @piattica and @hannesmenzel :+1:

I will try this technique, and let you know what transfer rate from laptop to Zynth I obtain through my home’s router.

Regards :slight_smile:

8

I would try to connect directly PC and Zynthian but for me it is not clear how to know the IP addresses of both

9

I think you’d find it in the network info in admin menu and connect to that IP or zynthian.local. I typically don’t do that because I loose internet connetion that way.

10

Yes, this is what I do when I want to save different browser-webconf and SFTP profiles for my three Zynths.
Otherwise, trying and reaching just zynthian.local makes it ambiguous which Raspberry SBC/IP the laptop is trying to reach, and the connection tends to fail or refuses to start altogether.

11

This would likely be the fastest route, with the caveat that the USB device filesystem would have to be accessible on both machines. (Think Linux can read Windows partitions without any issues if I recall, just the other way around does not work well)

Have you tried this?

Has to be the fastest route, given that you can connect to one of the USB 3.0 ports?

12

Hi @rouxleandre :slight_smile:

I have now collected a fairly substantial SFZ and SF2 archive to try on the Zynth 5.1 with nvme (and on my similarly specced custom build), and was indeed interested in comparing the reliability and transfer rates of the USB stick solution with the performance of the Laptop-to router-to Zynthian ethernet route.

Will let you know (thanks for reminding me that I should operate with a Win filesystem, in order to have the dongle properly read on Linux :+1:).

Regards!

13

Hi, everybody interested/concerned:

I have tested the ethernet transfer method through a router device, from a Win 11 laptop (Filezilla) to a Zynthian 5.1 augmented with 512 Gb nvme, and… the results are nothing less than stunning.

I get about 70-75 Mb/sec, which is lightning fast! I was able to copy on the Zynth a 16 Gb sfz collection in less than 4 minutes.

I guess that this optimal results may also depend on the fast SSD performance, and that figures might be sensibly lower on an official kit with the regular SD mass storage, but probably still quite satisfying.

I haven’t tried the USB stick solution yet, but I doubt that we could reach that kind of speed.

Best regards :rainbow:

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