Hi All,
I currently have a laptop with w7 that is dedicated to the roon server. On the laptop, I am using a external HDD (not SSD) connected via USB that has my music library.
I also have an old QNAP NAS (TS-412), where I could also hold the music library. Does anyone know if the music library is best kept near the roon server or if it should be placing the the library on the NAS?
Many thanks in advance
Filipe
Doesn’t really matter.
All that is really important is that the Roon library be on an SSD.
Is it important that the Roon library is on an SSD? Remember that 99.9% drives on a NAS are hard disk drives.
The OP asked about music files.
Roon will place its library wherever the OS is on the Core machine.
I know that he asked about music files, but most of users AFAIK put the files on a NAS.
Are you confusing Roon’s library with the OP’s music files?
I’m bored.
With music files the main thing to remember is that all signals go through the Core. So if the files are stored away from the Core then Roon must fetch them and then send them to an Output at the same time. This means an Ethernet connection rather than Wi-Fi, as Wi-Fi is not full duplex.
Not at all, with due respect, I think you get all mixed up.
I copied the OP’s question here again for the sake of clarity.
PS: andybob just gave a perfect answer. Btw, in my system, I just mount the music files on a NAS folder to my local computer, so they are treated as if the files are local to my PC.
Hi All,
I apologise for the mix confusion, it was very late and I should not have used the Music Library words. What I meant was where is it best place the music files on the NAS or on the USB HDD?
Looking forward to hear opinions on it and if you have or not managed to find any SQ improvements.
Many thanks in advance
Filipe
When @Filipe_Cunha used the term “music library” he was referring to his music files. These are fine on spinning disk and a NAS; the important thing is to have the the Core and music files attached to the wired network. If the Core is on a laptop and the OP uses a Wi-Fi connection, placing the music files on a NAS is more likely to cause performance issues for the reasons described by @andybob.
The Roon library should ideally be on an SSD; this includes the Roon software and database. Roon tracks both physical media and streaming media including images and other files you may add.
I have never noticed a difference. Users have seen problems with using a NAS but not down to SQ, mainly due to software updates changing access etc.
I have found no difference in sound quality having my music files on a NAS or locally on a USB hard drive.
I have found my Roon experience to be way faster navigating with the files locally on a USB drive verses pulling it from a NAS.
I use my NAS to back up my USB hard drive.
–MD
The only benefit of having your tunes on the same Machine as the core is a much reduced analysis time - but this is a one off operation anyhow.
Is a USB drive better than having a music library on a NAS mounted on your PC/MAC as a networked drive? The NAS is on the same VLAN connected to the switch via a CAT 6 cable.
I believe an ethernet connected NAS is faster than a USB drive.
When I first setup Roon and for the first six months, I was pulling my music from my NAS. My NAS had a backup of my music files and so this was easy to setup.
It worked very well in large part because this was all I knew about using Roon. I was constantly scanning this forum for all of the different ways with all of the different hardware and then I decided to setup a server. At first I was pulling from the NAS and the experience was the same. It seemed normal to me.
Upon scouring this forum further I found that some were using a 2nd internal hard drive and some were using a USB drive attached to the server and so I decided to give the USB a try. My library is not that big by some standards here but I have about 14,000 tracks.
When I switch to the local USB attached drive it was like a new version of Roon for me. Everything became noticeably faster with regard to navigation, searches and so on. I will always have my media direct connected.
Try connecting a USB to the NAS and then try it to server for comparison.
–MD
The problem with a NAS is that additions to NAS folders are not always communicated back to Roon.
This has not been my experience. A USB connected drive will always be faster.
I think if a poll were taken, it would be found that ‘most’ users use either an internal SATA or external USB drive. Usually, a NAS is only used for local backup, in addition to a cloud backup.
Thanks Mike, seems like something for me to try.
I will report back…
Good point!
With a direct connect of your music, when additions are made they show in Roon immediately.
–MD
Hi,
Seem to me that adding the music files into a HDD USB, and then connecting it to the roon server is probably the second best option. Where the first would be to have a internal HDD, on the roon server, dedicated to the music files.
Both situation allows for less traffic on the LAN, keeping it free for roon to send the music to the RAAT, also less delays in communication, and probably less waiting time for the NAS to respond.
I know that roon sends bit perfect to the RAAT devices, but looking at most of the scenarios spoken in this thread, it seems that the audio quality does not seem to be affected. However I would expect that less traffic on the network would give us a slight increase in SQ.
Filipe
I have mine on a external because my server is a laptop with just 1 internal drive.
I am considering a Intel NUC for my next server which I will add a 2nd internal drive.
This would be for cosmetic only because either way would operate and sound the same.
–MD