I use a separate Windows 10 machine connected via gigabit ethernet. The machine houses all of my 3.5" HDDs as well as a SSD for the OS. I run Roon, Plex, and Cloudberry to backup to Amazon Glacier storage. Server holds all my ripped music and movies as well as family photos and videos. I have it set up for VPN, so it can all be accessed when away from the house. When at home though, the only bottleneck is the speed of wired gigabit ethernet. Roon is controlled via Android devices. Plex via Oppo, Tivo, or Android.
Since I built the server, I just upgrade components if/when necessary (drives, RAM, etc), though so far, Iāve only ever updated the drives.
I currently run Roon Core on an iMac with my music files on a NAS, and would like to know if there any advantages to storing the music files on either a NAS or attached USB HDD?
Setup is a bit easier with local USB storage (but you are past that) other than that I donāt think it makes much difference so long as your NAS is hardwired to the core. You can get issues if NAS is connected by WiFi and sometimes IP addresses can get messed up and the NAS gets ālostā but thatās all I can think of.
Is there anyone here who thinks that local storage results in improved audio quality over NAS? Everything else being equal shouldnāt they sound the same?
Yes, unless something is broken. If something is a problem it wonāt exhibit subtle changes in audio quality. It will instead be dropouts, pops, clicks, etc. if the files are struggling in their path from NAS to computer running roon.
That makes sense to me, yet there are folks on other forums who reckon that an SSD will sound different to a NAS, and even that āupgradingā the power supply for the NAS will have an effect on SQ.
Personally, I find that hard to believe, but since I had never heard their systems, I canāt really argue against it.
My music (c20,000 tracks in uncompressed AIFF) is stored on a simple NAS, with Roon on the SSD of my NUC, and I find the system response is lightning-fast.
Iām sad to say that there are lots of āaudiophoolā sites (and magazines) that put out a lot of nonsense and demonstrate a major lack of understanding in the way digital music works, networks work, etc. But hey, its a hobby and its their own money.
In terms of scanning and analysis yes, but in normal operation (playing music) the difference should be trivial ā¦ maybe first track start-up time slightly (a few mS) longer.
Iām with @garym on this. I also think you can argue against it as follows. If there is different SQ then there must be a different stream of bits (1s and 0s) entering the DAC when music files are retrieved either from SSD or NAS. That just should not happen when music files are delivered from any storage device up to a DAC. If there really is a difference in SQ then how could we trust that general document files will copy correctly from SSD to NAS and vice versa. You never hear that files have copied incorrectly from one storage medium to another do you?
I recently converted the same collection from WD HDD to a SSD. Canāt tell any difference in sound quality, but access, copying, etc., is much quicker.
Well, good thing I decided to ditch the Synology NAS as its psu has just died! Tempted to get another NUC + external USB caddies as a network backup destination.
After reading this topic and also another topic recently posted where they deleted their music files through Roon and their music was deleted from the hard drive, I decided to move my Roon music library to an external hard drive connected to my Roon Server.
It is much snappier than pulling up the files through the network and it is through a USB 2.0 external hard drive. I just wish now that I had a USB 3.x.
It was quite simple to setup to local storage libraries.
Also my NAS is my backup and if I now accidently delete something through Roon, then I still have 2 other sources (Local & NAS) to recover.
allow me to be a dissenting voice in this thread. i recently moved from USB 3.0 attached storage to a synology NAS (216J). thus far iām very pleased. my chief reason for doing so was an issue with sound quality (spitty, hashy treble chiefly), that i was able to isolate to the network. where on the network was less definitive, and i made several smaller changes, some of which may have made a difference (experimenting with ethernet cables, added optical converters, removed network switch).
nothing made as big a difference as moving to the NAS however, and the problem is almost completely gone (it may be completely gone, but occasionally i still think i hear something). whether this is due to USB vs NAS itself, or to the differing power supplies i canāt say. i can say it sounds much better. and iām very happy with the change
An Ethernet LAN interface is a galvanically isolated interface (via pulse transformers on each end of the on board connector) so connected physical noise should not be part of the connection like it can be with USB data connections. At least for unshielded twisted pairs that are most commonly used in homes if not many other places too i.e. 10/100-BaseT (CAT5/5E/6)
YMMV of course, but in these days of large locally attached volumes of 6/8TB per drive most collections would easily fit in either capacities. NAS is ideal for more easily shared connections and content where more than one user is required or not having to run a headless PC/MAC.
My plan is to get a WD Red 3TB NAS drive and put it in an Inateck USB 3.0 enclosure (unless someone has a go to enclosure to recommend). Iām going to load up the drive with music from a Windows 7 box, and then attach it to a to-be-built NUC running Ubuntu server. And then use my Synology NAS for backup.
Would NTFS be the right choice for the external driveās file system? Seems like thatās the best choice for compatibility but again Iād be willing to listen to other recommendations. Thanks!
