I would like to decommission my 10+ year old QNAP server, and instead add a sturdy external 1 or 2 TB SSD drive to hold my music. My library is currently a rather small 1458 albums, 22,000 tracks totalling 440GB
The ROCK Server is an Intel NUC NUC8I5BEK Core i5, with 8GB RAM, and WD 240GB SSD M.2 2280 SATA
What are the steps I need to take to migrate my music, and get me NUC to acknowledge the attached USB drive?
Which SSD drive would the brains trust recommend? I have both USB-A and USB-C free on the rear of the NUC
Which format for the USB drive? From reading other notes, I assume exFAT is the safest? I am wall to wall Apple, so will never be plugging the USB drive into a Windows machine
Obvious first step is to get the music onto the SSD drive (I can do that!)
My main concern is that I am a numpty when it comes to mounting drives, and getting it to register in the following window in ROON
This drive is pretty popular. No moving parts. You could consider the 2TB version also if you’re considering significantly expanding your library in the future since that’s not much more expensive.
If I understand correctly, you’ll be attaching the drive directly to the ROCK/NUC, that means you will not need to do a network share for that drive. It will show up in the storage directory on the Nuc once you connect it.
Review these for best practices for storage. The USB sections in particular.
Note that coming from a NAS (Linux-based) you may need to rename files and folders for Windows-based (Samba / SMB) compatability. Otherwise, you may see filenames such as SMK2IT~R.
Finally, format using exFAT not NTFS as the Nucleus can’t mount the latter following an unclean shutdown.
Thanks @bearFNF - I’ll read them ASAP. Nice that it’ll appear directly it’s connected. Thanks also @mjw , @Mike_O_Neill and @David_Snyder , good info for the next steps!
So, my steps appear to be:-
buy 1 or 2 TB SSD drive, I want a fast one of course, the NUC uses USB3.1 gen 2, which will do up to 10Gbps, the cute WD uses 3.0 at 5Gbps, probably still fast enough
Format the drive in exFAT
Create a short folder structure, say /music, then
copy the files from my NAS - that’ll take a loooong time
Plug the USB drive intot he NUC (all ports are powered)
Remove ROONs access to the QNAP NAS storage
Add storage to ROON via navigating on the ROCK (this is the bit that I worry about, but nothing so far is destructive
It’s going to be a few weeks before I get all the components for my new build: M4 Mac Mini, Satechi Storage, internal storage, new external storage for the NUC, so I’ll have to get back to you in March. Thanks for your help folks.
Note that drive performance isn’t critical, and there is no benefit when playing music. The only gain is when loading your library on the drive–assuming your PC supports higher rates.
If you’re copying over the network using Samba then drive performance is even less relevant.
Also, you may want to preserve file modification dates when copying as Roon does use this. Rsync is a good way of copying your files, so please let me know if you need assitance with this.
Before connecting the drive to the NUC, disable the old storage path.
For your last step the usb drive will be seen by the NUC/ROCK but you will need to add it in Roon Settings/Storage (not through ROCK WebUI if I read your intent correctly). I would give roon a few cores to work with on the settings/Library page, too. It will at least make you think it’s moving faster…
Should look something like this:
Then you just select the folder where your music is and it should start analyzing it.
Also, if you just disable the old watched folder first like @mjw said and then add the new one it gives you backup plan if something goes wonky with the new drive. Once all is good with the new drive you can delete the old watched folded from settings/storage.
I would also suggest going through and “clean up the library” from settings/library in Roon. This should get rid of any orphaned data from the old storage location and clean up the DB. Would hurt to clear image cache on the settings/setup page also.
One very small point which I haven’t seen mentioned in the other posts - you may want to check your BIOS HDD boot order when replacing the drive. After I moved to an external drive (an SSD in a USB housing) I couldn’t understand why the ROCK appeared to hang after a restart. It turned out that it was trying to boot off USB first (which mskes sense at install but not afterwards).
If that happens - I now know what to check, thanks @dhusky . There’s a big hassle factor in getting a cabled keyboard and mouse, so i’ll do so if I’m left twiddling my tumbs
@Tyler_Rynberg , good question. I have a 240GB SSD in the NUC, it only has one slot for an SSD. Soooo, I could expand it to cover a full library, but then I’d have to reinstall the whole system! I’m inherently lazy, so I want something I can attach and detach. The reason I’m moving from a SAN, is that it is 10+ years old, requires more upkeep and management. A small, USB SSD requires no patching, no external power, easily transportable … and much easier to backup.
You cannot use the OS (main) drive in the Rocki/NUC to store media files.
From the KB on Roon’s Rock page:
The M2 SSD is meant for only the Operating System and cannot be used for music content.
If you want music content in this device, you’ll need to use another disk (see: Internal Storage)
Right, a NUC has only one M2 slot. You buy a 2.5" SSD drive (not a stick) that mounts at the top of the NUC. You can buy a Crucial BX500 1TB for $58. External drives should only be used as a last resort, in my opinion, in any computing use (barring backups obviously).
Do you have a linux machine handy? If not, find a 12 year old with coke bottle glasses and get him/her to do this for you…
Forget exfat. Format the drive on a linux box with ext4 file system. This is a journaling file system so it handles power outages well. On boot, it will replay the journal and you are golden. Providing you have a linux machine, make a folder, copy the music onto it, add it to roon and you are good to go. If not, add the newly formatted drive to your rock server and smb drag/drop your music to it.
Trust me, after having to rebuild your data drives a few times, you will love ext4.
Btw, I was/am one of those guys with coke bottle glasses and a unix admin of 31 years…lol. Living the Roon life baby.
There are 2 versions of a NUC, both have 1 x M.2 slot but the tall form has room for an internal SATA drive. That can be as big as 8Tb a an SSD or smaller if an HDD (2 Tb I believe).
Other than cosmetics there is o reason not to use an external drive.
An external drive also has the following advantages:
you can copy media files using USB connected to a PC or Mac (network copy using Samba is slow, can mess up filenames, and change file modification date)
disk integrity checks are easily performed on another PC
I’m glad I’ve provoked some conversation!
Thanks @Mike_O_Neill@mjw@Tyler_Rynberg and @Jim_F for your thoughts. I have a skinny NUC, so no can do an internal SATA. I will be using an external drive, and as per advice in this chain, I didn’t purchase a super duper fast one, I’ve gone for a Crucial X6 with 2TB. Given I can hook it up to my Mac, rip CDs to it, then reattach to the NUC, this is a win for me. I take note of powering down the NUC before discsonnecting, as some have advised.
I pick up the Crucial X6 tomorrow, and, it’ll take a while to move the data from the SAN to the SSD, but will be able to give feedback on how I go with decom and instlaling the SSD!
I did this a few weeks ago. As others have said there is no need for a superfast drive and from my perspective I am happy to have an HDD rather than an SSD because the noise is not an issue to me as the ROCK is not in my listening room - I bought one of these - WD Elements 6TB - this is the first 2.5 inch HDD with storage above 4tb which is what I need. When I add new music I just copy the files over as mentioned above and ROCK automatically adds the new music.
