Hard Drive Selection - Reliability, Performance, Cost

Roon Software Discussion ROCK
64

Different strokes I guess. I would recommend a USB RAID 1 box, cheap and fast. Backups can be done to two alternating single USB drives. Also cheap and can be taken off site.

65

My collection is small around 250 GB (at the moment anyway) so I’m looking at a 1TB 2.5" spinning drive (to keep costs down and enough expansion space). I although could stretch to an 500 GB SSD instead.

However, would getting a SSD (if cost was not an issue) be a better “no brainer” choice? I mean don’t internal SSD drives fail regularly ?

1 Like
66

“Regularly”, yes, but that means MTBF (mean time between failure) of one million hours.

SSDs don’t fail in the same way, but they wear out as you write them. But the endurance is described in terms of thousands of complete drive rewrites.

So neither of these are a very big risk for a consumer. The other errors, including fat-finger fumbles, is much more of a problem.

We care about our data so we want backup, but it’s like fire insurance: necessary but the odds are you’ll never need it.

1 Like
67

Thanks for your reply @AndersVinberg. Have you any suggestions for good 500GB SSD’s ?

68

Also, Roon mostly reads the disc so SSDs are unstressed. I have one in a MacBook Pro that is at least four years old with daily use and never a hiccup.

69

Hi, Samsung EVO seems to work well for me.

70

@Jaspal_Kallar is asking about storage. HDD Vs SSD. EVO is for M.2 ?

Yes Samsung is good for External/Internal SSD.

71

I just ordered a WD Red 750GB NAS Hard Disk Drive (5400, SATA 6 Gb/s 16MB Cache 9.5 MM)

It’s supposed to really be quiet although a bit slow but I think it’s perfect for ROCK as an internal storage and more than enough space for me.

I’ve quite few WD hard drives (one in my current Imac and 2 external back up drives) that have served me well, So I’m hoping for more of the same, Anyway fits my needs and budget.

Edit: If this doesn’t work out then I’ll go for SSD (so your suggestions aren’t in vain) :wink:

72

I have used Samsung EVO, both for the M.2 that holds the OS and Roon and the database, and for the bigger one that holds the content. No problems.

But the truth is, I went to Amazon and searched for “ssd 2.5 500gb” and found this. Another month, I might find another one. (Actually, I went for 1 TB, but the principle remains.)

No decisions, it’s just a commodity component, except I avoided high performance PRO drives, because there is no benefit.

73

I received the WD Red 750GB NAS Hard Disk Drive (5400, SATA 6 Gb/s 16MB Cache 9.5 MM drive and it’s not quiet, although it’s not overly noisy either.

I’m using it in an Nuc7i3.

I took the drive out and it’s then I noticed the noise it contributes, thinking it was Nuc7i3 fan (running at 2400-2600 RPM, whilst my iMac runs at 1200 RPM) that was causing the noise.

I’ve managed to put the Nuc in a cupboard but I may move my speakers around so this won’t be an option.

Compared to my 2010 iMac the nuc is not silent, but of course that’s unfair comparison since the Nuc is a much smaller device but I wanted anyway to give a reference point for people.

Got me thinking are SSD’s silent ?

74

I like SSDs because they use less power (or so I believe), because they don’t have to spin down/up (better responsiveness) and because they’re typically faster. And, of course, they’re quieter.

75

Starting shopping one by one (NUC, to mem, to et al). Is this good buy or we have other options,make prices etc?

76

I bought a Samsung 960 PRO 512MB M.2 NVMe SSD, for my new desktop (not for a NUC), and am quite satisfied. The price for the item you’re considering looks good.

1 Like
77

Decision made. EVO is coming up.

1 Like
78

Keeping it simple. Going Toshibha HDD. SSD would be for music storage is currently expensive. Will wait for some price correction with advancement in SSD in future.

79

I understand SSD is expensive for music storage. I am getting a new PC, fanless, based on a Streacom FC10 Alpha case, and for that I’ll use Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD, because the SSD is itself fast (including no spin-up) and silent and because it should use less power than an HDD. But if I had a really large music library (that is, needing more than 1TB), I might use an HDD.

2 Likes
80

Trying to format external storage HDD (toshiba). It defaults to NTFS. when I pick up format to ‘exFAT’, there is drop down menu below called “Allocation unit size”, which has picked up “256 kilobytes”. however there are many options to it. lowest 64kb to 32768kb. there is also has “default allocation”.

Any suggestion what needs to be picked up ?

81

That’s the block size. Default or maximum is fine. You are going to be putting huge files on that drive so the max is probably fine

1 Like
82

Is there a consensus as to whether an internal drive or an external USB 3.0 drive is preferable for ROCK / NUC?

I am aware of the KB that talks about the differences between those two and NAS. I am trying to avoid NAS because of the network complications and performance.

I saw this on Best Buy for external storage:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-1tb-external-usb-3-0-portable-hard-drive-black/5792404.p?skuId=5792404

83

Toshiba, Samsung, Seagate are also good choices apart from WD. This thread has some interesting insight into HDD selection, performance reliability, if you go through it.

However FYI - My HDD connected to RoonServer (ROCK will have to wait) works so nicely compared to NAS. I m done with NAS feeding audio stream to my equipment. It will act only as back up. Not sure why I did not do this long time ago :slight_smile: .