Library drive formats for ROCK?

[Glenn_Young]

I’m currently using EXfat format on my external USB HDD connected to my NUC-ROCK.

What other formats does ROCK support, and are there any advantages / disadvantages to other formats?

Also, is there any advantage to using a RAID as a library drive (I’m currently using one as a backup).

Thanks!

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

exFAT is the recommended format for external storage on ROCK. It causes the least issues.

Best practices for USB music storage for Nucleus? Questions

yes. exFAT. your USB drive is at: smb://nucleus/Data/Storage/XXXXX/ use the smb path – it works and is the easiest thing to use. if you can’t get it working, the community and our support team can help. Internal drive works too. but if you are ok with something hanging off the back, USB is more flexible. My advice if you want USB storage: exFAT, USB, SSD, 4tb or larger use SMB to add music or drag/drop to Roon app from Mac/Windows use NAS or another computer to do a backup locally once…

ROCK also supports Window’s NTFS, macOS’s HFS(+), Linux’s ext4, and probably whatever others the Linux kernel supports. However, there can be issues with NTFS at least if it’s not cleanly unmounted, HFS(+) can’t be written, NTFS/HFS/ext4 cannot easily be accessed when connecting the drive to Mac/Win, and so on. Use exFAT.

EDIT - List from docs:

Nucleus Media Storage And Audio Devices

[Mike_O_Neill]

I believe the recommended format is exFat as it’s the most portable between various OS.

I had my external drive formatted exFAT , I changed to NTFS (don’t ask) both worked equally well

I did format in Windows the put the empty drive in my NUC and copied to it via the NUC , not sure if it made any difference

BTW Roon OS 2.0 had a new NTFS/FAT driver

[Geoff_Coupe]

@Glenn_Young

Also, is there any advantage to using a RAID as a library drive (I’m currently using one as a backup).

Personally, I would continue to use a NAS (RAID or not) as backup for locally-attached drives to your ROCK. I see no advantage to having your Watched Folders on a NAS, a) because there are more things to go wrong and b) because if you have a NAS, then you need to have a Backup strategy in place for the NAS (RAID is not Backup).

[Glenn_Young]

Got it - I suspected as much, and all my USB drives are exFAT.