Considering NAS replacement

Roon Software Discussion QNAP/Synology NAS
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My music (~19,000 tracks) is currently stored on a Drobo NAS, which is several years old and no longer supported, as Drobo is out of business. So I am thinking it is time to replace and would appreciate input on NAS selection and configuration. I am generally satisfied with Roon’s performance but do experience occasional pauses when loading playlists, etc., and I hope to improve performance as I replace the Drobo.

My Roon server is a Nucleus, which is currently in a different room than my NAS. Everything is hard wired. The NAS is also used for local backups and some file storage. At some point I might want to set up Plex for video.

My questions:

• I am trying to make sense of Synology’s product lineup. Would the DS923+ or DS224+ be a good choice or are they overkill for my situation? Would the QNAP TS-464 be a better fit? I would prefer four drive bays, for peace of mind if nothing else. I am currently using 5 Tb of space so would be looking for 10-12 tb storage overall. (I still remember my first IBM PC with 256 kb!)

• Would I realize performance improvements if I connected my Nucleus directly to the NAS via RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet?

• Would I realize further improvement (and would it be worth the complexity) to sync my music from the NAS to an SSD on the Nucleus? Is this possible to do?

Would appreciate any input – thanks!

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  • You should probably look for a NAS that is good as a PLEX server (ask on the PLEX forum) then if you don’t plan to run Roon Server on your NAS.
  • Sounds like setting up a SAN, even if minimal in size and scope. Do you know how to setup an additional network? Do you have the hardware for it? Does the Nucleus have the required second network port? This sounds all like overkill to me and shouldn’t be necessary in a typical home network.
  • What sort of improvements are you looking for? Do you have a backup for your music? If not, then buying an USB-Drive for it that you connect to your Nucleus and use your NAS as backup for it may be a way to go. NOTE: If you setup an automated synchronisation then this might be convenient but it is no longer a backup (independent copy) as all changes, good ones and bad ones to the data, get synced (about both copies).