Multi-Bay DAS Enclosure Recommendations

Roon Software Discussion ROCK
1

I’m considering move to a ROCK based solution, and have read many of the opinions on DAS vs NAS if I do.

My collection is large enough that I need more than 1 hard drive, so if I went down the DAS path I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for or experience with multi-bay DAS enclosures? Amazon reviews seem quite varied.

To be clear, I’m not looking to use RAID in any way. Just access multiple drives, each with their own drive letter.

Thanks,

Vog

2

I’d go with something that’s thunderbolt capable like:

https://www.akitio.com/desktop-storage/thunder3-quad-x

3

originally I stored my music library on external SATA (ESATA), they worked well for over a year, eventually the fans silently failed and the storage started to error. I bought a storage appliance (RAID5) and then eventually migrated to a homebrew ZFS raidz2 solution. purchased supermicro 3U storage appliance ( I had started ripping blu-rays in addition to CD’s).

4

Thanks, evand.

I believe ROCK isn’t Thunderbolt capable, though. See: NUC Support for USB C / Thunderbolt 3?

I appreciate the suggestion, though!

Vog

5

Throw out Rock and use a barebones Linux distro.

6

Aah, sorry. Hadn’t appreciated you wanted to use Rock.

7

Any multiple disk USB enclosure should give you the ability to either set it as JBOD or RAID0, i.e. a collection of drive letters or a single volume spanning multiple disks

8

Thanks, Simon.

In reading the reviews it looks like many of the ones I could find had cooling issues which caused the drives to run quite hot. I was hoping someone on the forum had real world experience with using a particular one that they had good experience with, or could tell me to “stay away” from a particular brand/model.

Have you tried any, by any chance?

Thanks again,

Vog

9

FWIW never configure as RAID0 unless you’re prepared to lose everything in the event of a single drive failure, meaning you’d have to restore the entirety of your music collection. Furthermore, if you point Roon to each drive individually the startup scan is faster because it will scan each drive concurrently.

10

In my book, you should never connect anything directly to the Roon Core unless it is not the primary image or you have a back up.
I still used RAID1 NAS units, primary & secondary with daily rsync jobs.
Then there are two offline copies of my library i.e. I ain’t building that again!

11

Completely agree with both of you! I think the objective here is to have a DAS as the primary, but fully backed up to a separate NAS. Roon files would also have regular back-up.

I certainly never want to re-do my Roon database - too many playlists & tags. :slight_smile:

Vog

12

Do you really need multiple drives?
10 TB, USB 3.0, $179

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-External-Desktop-Photography-STEL10000400/dp/B0798DVKRV

13

Agree with using RAID1. I am using Synology NAS and have been for several years. I also have 4 bay QNAP. Both work very well. Always set up a NAS to “survive” at least one hard drive failure. Some larger units allow survival of two drives. Mine are set up for one drive failure; that has saved my music and other data 2 times over the last 5 years due to one drive failure.

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