Most Cost Effective Upgrade for TS-871 to SSD

Hi all, I have a TS-871 with the i7 processor and 16GB of RAM. I currently have all 8 bays full at about 21TB and it’s got 19TB of “stuff” on it - about 10TB is music…

I’m gigabit power line throughout and yet I still get occasional stuttering and drop out / losing of the Meridian end point. I’m wondering if SSD for the core is the answer.

I’ve tried to look at the options and not being techie thought I’d summarise here.

  1. Do we think SSD for the core would help?
  2. if I’m “almost full” with current set up would I be able to do it (I think from reading I have to get rid of one HDD and replace with an SSD)??
  3. Are there other options open to me?
    …still would like to be cost effective as not flush at the moment…
    Thanks in advance guys
    C

Spinning disk shouldn’t be the problem, so SSD is unlikely to be the answer. What’s your Core running on?

Thanks - the core is on the NAS as well

Ssd drive on usb3 port maybe but I think your issue might be either cpu speed (less likely) or bandwidth on the power line adapters

Powerline adapters is my bet.

Get a couple of long cables to test and connect everything with ethernet. That way you can cheaply know for sure where the error lies before spending gobs of money on things that might not make a difference.

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Thanks
Power line are 2.4gb mesh so unlikely and they run at over 2gbps
Have tried cable Ethernet and still does it unfortunately:-(
C

CPU is an i7 that’s only a couple of years old running at (I think 3.4Ghz)

I used to have this issue with my music library on spinning external drives (the core though is on my Mac Mini with SSD). I used to have Plex pointing to the same music library on an external hard drive (via USB 3), and I would get dropouts/stuttering/stops when playing music via Roon. It dawned on me that it might be when Plex does it’s own periodic updates that would cause the Roon issues. I created a second music library on a different external drive for Plex to point to, and my issues went away (I use Chronosync to sync both external drives to keep the libraries updated with the same music content). Anyways, just wanted to mention this in case it helps at all in troubleshooting.

Nice. Good one. I do have Plex running it’s magic on the same thing. Rarely use Plex these days (sold TV and replacement got lost being shipped to Africa) so maybe remove Plex and see if helps.

Thanks!

Unlikely. On my iMac I just monitored the Roon process and the peak rate I saw was ~34 MB/s. It generally was <10 MB/s. This is way less than the transfer rate of even one disk (~150 MB/s for a fast disk). An 8 disk RAID would be even faster.

Try running Blackmagic or a similar network test app on a Mac or PC to your TS-871 to evaluate the transfer rate. When you are having problems what does the QNAP resource monitor show. Are the CPUs or disks maxed? If the cpu is maxed does the process monitor show a cpu hog?

Just catching up on this as an option - how would I build aUSD SSD onto the NAS and put the core on there?? Just get an SSD and plug it in to test??

I’ve been running the core on my iMac (all SSD) and it’s better but does still drop. It is my day to day computer as well so it’s busy!

If I can relatively easily test the SSD on a USB plugged into the NAS that may help (cheaper than a Nucleus Plus). They can decide if this helps or still no difference.

Thoughts??

@crieke Chris might be the best one to guide you here, but you shouldn’t use some USB stick type drive, you want a proper SSD on USB-3

I ran Roon on an 8 drive raid using no SSD 4GB Ram and DS1813+ Synology and while it was slow it had no issues with dropouts…it was all 1GBE wired network tho. I did it just for fun but now use an i7-7700 W10 setup with SSD boot and its very snappy. its using a 14TB 250K track library, thats about to migrate to a new 16TB internal drive on the W10 system and NAS for backups.

Yeah so before I save up for NUC or Nuclues etc I wanted to see if this was the issue.

My library here…

And running about 9.2TB on the NAS.

All wiring is now GBE wired, only remotes run on Wi-Fi.

Are my two options if I do this, to replace one or two drives with SSD?

Or should I be looking at QM2 PCIe cards supports M.2 SSD caching?

And will both options work by putting the Roon application and maybe DB onto the SSD or is this something different and I’m confusing myself.

What I’ve noticed is now running Roon CORE on my iMac in my office (all SSD and recent top spec) the drop outs are massively less. However as this is my main work computer (and photo editing computer) when doing a load of processing it still slows down.

Wondering whether a smaller investment in the NAS is cheaper way of getting some performance back on the core on the NAS??

Any recommendations on the best performing options for me with just Roon app and DB on the SSD?

https://shop.qnap.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=215_311

And what you would recommend for here for the absolute best performance?https://www.qnap.com/en/compatibility/?model=160&category=11

Maybe a couple of these in the UK?

Os have I completely misunderstood how it works and won’t be able to dedicate them to the Roon app?

Hi guys,

Question from QNAP Tech Support to align here - I can shift the Roon app onto a NVMe SSD so all good there - question one - what size SSD for that?

Second question - where does the Roon database go? Does it move with the app onto the SSD when you migrate it or go somewhere else? If so, how do I find the size of my DB to plan for SSD size?

I know backups are sent elsewhere (to NAS, another drive, and Dropbox if I can get it working)…

Looks a more cost effective trial on the NAS than trying to get a Nucleus plus to Kenya at the moment!!

Thoughts??

C

So after more research looking at these from a speed perspective.

Into this
https://shop.qnap.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=215_311&product_id=274

Do you think needed to get best chance at performance and what size of SDD would I need?
Also do I need one or two of them?

Thanks!

Hi guys, anyone got any view on this? Thanks!

Hello I just joined Roon and installed the core on my TS-871U. I got 5 HDDs in raid 5 where my music sits about 4TB worth. A 6th HDD runs my surveillance. I had a spare 1TB SSD lying around so I put this in as the 7th drive for the Roon database. Seems it is only using up 8GB too so it way too big.

The TS-871U is an i3 intel with 12GB ram and seems to be working fine with Roon. No stuttering issues and the Roon app response is fast. So I believe you will be able to fix your issues with an SSD.