Goodbye NAS, hello USB drive

I use my PC to rip CDs which doesn’t happen that frequent any more. After I’m finished with a batch, I just send a copy to my Roon Core (the Nucleus or ROCK in your case) and then move the local files to my backup location (the NAS in your case).

Note: An automated synchronisation, even if it’s one-way, does no longer count as a proper backup.

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Having the music library for your Roon Core on local storage, where the use of an USB drive is only one way to achieve that, is preferred (IMHO) because one will not encounter any of the possible problems that one might run into when using a NAS instead.

If you’re using a NAS right now and don’t face any problems, there’s no need to change your setup.

As unqualifed as anyone commenting it sounds better if I use this cable, switch etc. You wont notice the difference until you try it amd make you own mind up. Its not essential or needed but adds to the Roon experience and after all is what they advise.

I was quite amazed at how much quicker the remote apps displaying content was from starting up the app and my QNAP TS-453 Pro NAS is no slouch, neither is my networ. Changin to local drive just adds to Roons overall UX. I did notice that music also started a fraction quicker but nothing to write home about. But for me it was when adding music, on the NAS it would not show up for 4 hours unless you force a refresh as the NAS does not reliably inform of any files changes to Roon. Now its instantly there the moment it starts to copy. Cant say I noticed any improvement to SQ but why would it?

How do you get your Mac to one-way-sync your NAS-based music to a local drive? I haven’t found software that can properly back up from a network-based NAS to a local drive. Thanks.

I agree with BlackJack … and do the same thing in principle.

  1. dBpower CD Ripper on a PC 2. Drop copies to the NUC’s SSD 3. Back-up on a Raid NAS. Album art loading is quicker for one …

I had a NAD M50 for ripping/streaming and could not hear the difference between dBpower CD Ripper and the M50. A question I do have: Does HDD have less electrical noise than an SSD and can humans hear the difference in drive type anyway ???

I certainly can’t hear a difference, either because of my hearing, my audio equipment, or both. :hear_no_evil:

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Arrgghh lots of hifi and computer people with time on their hands and desperate to avoid their in-laws and you feed them this…“Does HDD have less electrical noise than an SSD and can humans hear the difference in drive type anyway ?”
Mute the thread quick…

Me too … “can’t hear a difference, either because of my hearing, my audio equipment, or both”

Can you hear a difference …. was the question? (some streamer manufactures swear by HDD some SSD. If no difference is to be heard then that is good consumer advice. The ‘Green’ question of energy use/cost P.A. is for each to answer).

Indeed. You could be synchronising files that got corrupted, among other things.

Easily. My QNAP can easily either pull from another computer or push to another computer using its own backup software. I did this for a while, but now sync the other way from my Roons local USB drive to QNAP so Roons the master.

@Andrew_Stein try chronosync.

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For my setup, I have Roon Core runs directly on my Synology DS218+ NAS. All of my music files are stored on a external HDD USB drive, connected to the NAS. All of the controls, display, and library update are instantaneous with no delay.

This setup saves me money and time while I’m evaluating the Roon license. Is this setup best for audio quality, I have no clue…

The Synology sync software is called Drive. You have the option of 1-way to avoid any damage caused to files on the Mac from getting back to the source.

In response to the later comments the 1-way sync is not for the purpose of backing up. It is only to create an independent copy of the music on the NAS for use by Roon on the Mac. Backup strategies for NAS is a whole other topic.

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I moved from NAS to local storage because I noticed Roon accessing my NAS every 10 seconds or so, even if I wasn’t playing anything at the time. Since I run Roon 24/7, I decided I couldn’t put up with the extra wear and tear on the NAS which would never spin down while Roon Server was running.

I noticed some other threads on here discussing the same problem so I moved my music to local storage. This also had the added benefit of faster browsing and searching of my library.

I incrementally back up my music to the NAS every so often with Carbon Copy Cloner on Mac.

In 30 years in IT, I have always been skeptical of too much “stuff” between my processor and my data, just more things to go wrong.

Using an internal SSD for music file storage - an attached USB drive wouldn’t be expected to be any better, would it? (honest question). When I built my ROCK core, I reasoned that nothing could beat an internal drive.

PS. Oh, Geez! . . . I had no idea how fast or much this thread grew since I replied to one of the very first posts. Obviously a hot topic here at Roon. Good reading, though.

Strange, I have never seen my NAS spinning up like that with Roon open.

I have no problems with keeping more than 35k files on my QNAP NAS. I have a separate NAS with 4x SSDs just for the music files directly connected to the network player.

No problems with audiophile access with performance or latencies.

Interesting topic…

A few years ago I purchased an intel NUC and added an external USB drive with my music stored on it. I then decided I ‘needed’ a NAS for my local storage and back-up, so I purchased a Synology DS918+ with 10tbs of storage. At around that time my NUC died and on receiving a new unit from Intel, I now point the NUC at my music stored on the NAS. I haven’t really noticed much difference in performance (with wired Gigabit Ethernet across the house). The NUC and NAS are on 24/7 - powered by a HDPLEX PSU, which itself is being powered by a PowerCooler UPS.

In terms of music storage, I use the Synology Drive Client to watch a internal drive on my home PC where my music is stored. When I add a file to this hard drive, the Drive software copies it up to the NAS and then subsequently it gets added to Roon, although I do often do a re-scan in Roon but this takes only a few seconds.

In terms of database back-ups, I back-up Roon daily onto the NAS and the Drive software then copies this down to my my home PC, finally, this folder is also stored in Microsoft OneDrive.

So I have a copy of my music on the NAS and my local PC (its too big at 1.2tb for OneDrive), and a database back-up on the NAS, local PC and in OneDrive. I also do a cold back-up from the NAS to an external USB which then gets removed and stored elsewhere.

I have tried Windows 10 on my NUC but much prefer ROCK overall.

I am always interested in trying new things, so I wonder whether I should go back and try local storage to the NUC. I have just been looking at the Roon Knowledge base, but I can’t see what Roon themselves recommend, a NAS or local storage, or have I missed it?

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