Internal Storage vs Network share for Nucleus

Roon Software Discussion Nucleus
1

I just bought a Nucleus with internal storage (ssd) of 2 TB.

I have a separate Music Server, Naim’s Uniti Core.

Wondering will there be any sonic performance difference during playing a song if I use internal storage of Neucleus vs mapping Uniti Core’s (ssd) drive as network share using smb.

Any opinion/experience ?

Regards,
Sourav

3

Hi Sourav and welcome back to the forums after a long time.

In my experience it all depends on the speed of your network. I used to have my Music stored on a Synology NAS but I got the odd track skip every now and then so I put it onto a HD on my NUC and never had a problem after that.

That suggests that my network wasn’t powerful enough. Yours might be more successful, but it’s worth bearing it in mind should you go down the SMB route and have the odd skips

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I previously used Roon Core in a Mac Mini with network share to my Uniti Core drive. Never had any odd skip problems.

My concern is primarily on sonic performance.

Regards,
Sourav

5

No there isn’t. It’s just binary data

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6

Yes what @Suedkiez said.

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It may depend on how RAAT server at the client accesses the music file from the source. If it uses smb for both internal driver in Neucleus and any other external drive then u r right (also assuming that iops for both the disk drive similar) that it is all binary data.

Regards,
Sourav

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It is all binary data whether it goes Uniti Core > SMB > Nucleus > RAAT > Endpoint, or Nucleus SSD > Linux hard disk driver in Roon OS > RAAT > Endpoint. The conversion to analog happens post-RAAT in the DAC on the endpoint.

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Hi, I am using a NUC12 lately. I have NAS storage is SSD, other in common HD units and local files, both in SSD and common hard disk. In my experience, depends on two factor 1) Network speed fr sure (if you are cabled or wireless) and the Codec you are using. Files with 96K, 24 Bit resolution are much bigger than MP3 or common flac 44/16 Bit from CDs. The more bigger the files are, will be better to have in the core. If tou are using DSD/DSF files for example, they are huge. Keep that in mind if you will split your library. In my case, DSF/DSD files I got on SSD connected directly to the NUC, and other format in my wired NAS.

Greetings

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