Looking for a way to more gracefully handle slow file retrieval times

[Flopblopper]

I've got a VPS that has a lot of storage space, but it is rather slow. As a consequence, Liquidsoap seems to struggle every time it loads a file from my playlist. I receive "broken pipe on write" errors, and the previous file doesn't play out completely before abruptly switching to the next one.

Is there a way that I can set a pre-buffer of like 30 seconds to keep an ample amount of audio in memory in order to more gracefully handle file changes? The files are very long, so my hope is that Liquidsoap could read ahead and keep the buffer full.

I'm using the Harbor server as my output, and I know that I can add a buffer there, but I think I would need to add it further up the chain in order for it to be effective. I've also seen the buffer function, but I think I'm only working with one clock here, so I don't think that's what I need either.

Thanks for any advice.