Anyone know a good external portable drive to back up a nucleus. Have used western digital essential that seems to work initially and then begins to fail.
Actually it’s not failing it’s just a nucleus doesn’t recognize it soon after working properly.
I think it stopped working after a roon update
I don’t want to use a desktop on the net work because the computer is not on all the time and that’s why I’m using a nucleus.
I use the rugged Transcend drives. Still good after a few years. Roon updates should have no impact on the drive.
Thank you for the recommendation.
But I’d like to know why the western digital essential portable Drive is not being recognized by roon? It was initially and now it’s not.
Thank you
I don’t know. However, it is the OS not Roon software that accesses the drive, so the software update is coincidental. The. Nucleus uses Roon OS–a custom Linux–and the drivers are in the Linux kernel and well proven. You could try using another cable or USB port to see if that makes a difference.
Incidently, the drive I use is the USB-C variant of that shown.
Thank you
Trouble following your very last comment after the word incidentally.
Possible to clarify this?
I guess overall no one uses back up portable drives with a roon nucleus
Even accessing the solid-state drive inside the nucleus that I installed is difficult to figure out. This whole thing is not very user-friendly is it?
I removed a 1 TB HDD from an old laptop and put it in a case similar to this, but an older model. Plugged it into my Nucleus and never had a problem.
Unless it was NTFS and you know what 
- the update to RoonOS build 254
@richard_a was it NTFS formatted? If yes:
After the chkdsk, remove properly:
To avoid this, format it to extFAT instead as recommended for external drives in the Roon documentation - unfortunately only on the ROCK page and not the Nucleus page:
I backup my Rock Library to a WD portable USB3 drive and it works great. I also backup to Synology NAS as a backup to the backup.
Check the disk is format as exFat as that seems to be the most reliable format
The drives I have use a USB-C (Thunderbolt) connection rather than the traditional USB connector. That’s all.
checked some of the audio forums it seems this problem of backing up has been around for years. It seems no one’s really doing anything about it.
[Moderated, wild speculation removed.]
I posted above what works for me. Never a problem. I back up every night and keep 30 plus 3 other routines. Just order a 2.5 inch HDD and put it in a case and plug it in.
Which problem exactly?
Note that you wouldn’t usually back up a Nucleus by attaching an external drive to the Nucleus, that would require two copies over the network.
Instead, if your Nucleus has a second, internal SSD for music storage and you want to back it up:
Attach the USB Disk to your PC, then use the PC to copy to the files from the Nucleus to the USB drive. (either manually or use some backup software to schedule it automatically)
I think he’s talking about Roon backups, not music files, but I could be wrong.
Hmmm, right, possible
If you check the Release Notes for Roon OS 2.0 you will find driver updates were included for both exFAT and NTFS
I had problems with a brand new WD passport 5tb, finished up formatting NTFS got it working and left well enough alone. I tried both and found no difference but I only accessed via ROCK
Roon already backs up to Dropbox. Visit Roon > Settings > Services.
However, if you need to restore from Dropbox you should first download the backup folder to a local drive.
I think he’s implying some sort of conspiracy to make local backups fail so people will have to use Dropbox.
Any drive should work. Format to exFAT for the fewest problems. Format on whatever computer you have available. (This is not a plug for exFAT in general, but it works with just about everything.)
NTFS works, but it is easily corrupted if a portable drive is improperly ejected drive.
NTFS problems can be fixed with chkdsk /f, but I prefer the one-time solution (exFAT) that is permanent.
LOL /10 characters
I just ordered a Nucleus, and honestly, this is the first time I’ve ever thought of it this way. I’ve been pondering, in advance, the best way to keep the database backed up, but knew a Dropbox restore would take forever.
So, if I were in that situation, I’d need to download to an external drive on a computer, and plug it into the Nucleus?
If that’s how it works, that’s actually perfect.
