So far, I’ve backed up the entire Nucleus hard drive via my Mac to an external drive connected to the Mac. This works, but it’s rather slow.
I’ve now connected an external hard drive directly to the Nucleus itself — that setup works fine. Roon can automatically back up the settings and database, but not the complete music library. To cover that, I’m using ChronoSync to back up the entire drive. It’s currently running but seems very slow.
My question is: is it possible to install a second hard drive in the Nucleus, running in parallel with the existing one? Or is there a way to connect that external drive so it works faster?
note: I use an USB-C-USB3 cable, and the HD is a samsung QVO970 SSD 8TB which should be fast.
Additional internal drives in Roon OS devices (ROCK/Nucleus) are for your music files only.
You can also backup to network shares. If your network is faster than the USB connection you could use that instead.
Question is, where are your music files stored?
It might be better (faster) to keep the (external) backup drive connected to the Mac and make a backup folder for Roon available over the network for Roon’s database backup.
On the other hand, if the backup(s) can be scheduled to times the system isn’t used, does the speed (time needed) really matter that much?
Thanks for reaching out! It’s great that you’re using a high-capacity Samsung QVO SSD - those are excellent choices for large libraries.
However, I can clarify why you’re seeing slower speeds and what your options are regarding the hardware.
Second Internal Drive
To answer your first question: No, it is not possible to install a second internal hard drive in the Nucleus.
The Nucleus (and Nucleus+) is designed with a specific internal architecture that accommodates one M.2 drive for the Operating System and exactly one 2.5" SATA slot for music storage. There are no additional SATA ports or physical space for a parallel internal drive.
Why ChronoSync is running slow
Even with a fast SSD, the bottleneck here isn’t the drive itself—it’s the network protocol. When the target drive is connected to the Nucleus but managed by ChronoSync on your Mac, the data has to travel in a “loop”:
Sending millions of small audio files over the SMB network protocol twice is significantly slower than a direct connection.
Recommended Solution for Faster Backups
To speed this up significantly, I recommend changing the workflow for the initial “heavy” backup:
Direct Connection: Disconnect the external Samsung SSD from the Nucleus and plug it directly into your Mac.
One-Way Traffic: Map the Nucleus internal drive as a network share on your Mac. Run ChronoSync to copy data from the Nucleus Network Share → Mac → External SSD. This cuts the network traffic in half and utilizes the full speed of your Mac's USB-C/Thunderbolt bus.
Incremental Updates: Once the bulk of your library is copied, you can plug the drive back into the Nucleus. Roon will continue to handle the Database & Settings backups automatically, and you can run ChronoSync occasionally just to "sync" any new albums you've added.
A quick note on cables:
Since you are using a USB-C to USB-3 cable, please ensure it is rated for high-speed data transfer (USB 3.1 Gen 1 or higher). Some cables are designed primarily for charging and can throttle speeds to USB 2.0 levels.
I hope this helps get your backup finished much faster! Let me know if you have any other questions.
Great, thanks so much. Sounds exactly what I was looking for. Will try to do that.
Too bad, would have been nice. Actually I should know as I put in an SSD drive myself…
OK, that explains… I did not know.
So I will do the first backup like I did before and then connect it to the Nucleus. That might indeed be faster than what it’s doing now.
And then I can have my Nucleus do a backup every week of my settings and a daily or weekly update of my albums. Exactly what I wanted.
As to your question on the cable, yes they are USB-C Gen1 or more. Most are thunderbolt 4 since all is in USB-C on Macs and therefore I don’t want the cable to be the bottleneck.