External portable drive to back up nucleus - which one works?

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.

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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.

I’d use Dropbox to sync to a local folder or removable drive (not sure if this is possible as I don’t use Dropbox nowadays*), and copy (or unmount the drive) once syncing is complete.

*I still have a free account that is used for a few Roon backups, but this is an insurance policy. I copy to my network (backups locally and to cloud) and an attached USB drive.

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The Dropbox backup is just the database, not the music, which is pretty small

Dropbox backups are agonizingly slow. Maybe backup to an attached HDD every night and Dropbox once a month, etc.

Yes I know but it takes forever even at that.

thats what I’m currently doing with my Mac, but I’d like to lose the drive once I get the Nucleus. Just a minimalism thing, I reckon. It had never occurred to me that I could let dropbox handle the backup but then manually restore, as @Martin_Webster stated earlier.

I’ve got lots of options.

I have my Nucleus in our main bedroom in a cabinet below the TV. I have a 1TB HDD that stays connected and backs up every night at 3am. Never a problem. The internal SSD is for music, but I have almost nothing on it (42 tracks).

Another option, which I may try, since I already have a Hetzner Storage Box*, is to use a remote Samba/CIFS share.

I use this with Borg backup, and it’s much faster than Dropbox. Should be as simple as…

//<username>.your-storagebox.de/<share_name>

*1 TB is around €4 per month.

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I’ve had a Samsung T5 SSD for backups on a NUC/ROCK for over 3 years now. With the newer T7 in use on other systems. No issues with any of them. The T7 1TB is listed on Amazon for $104.00

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Reformatted the portable drive to exFAT as recommended above and now seems to be working fine. Highly recommend using exFAT.

Since many people have problems with this, maybe highlighting this in the roon back up area in the settings section would be prudent.

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