I didn’t find anything about this so figured I would create a new topic.
I have a SATA SSD in use with my Nucleus+ Rev B and want to add a second USB SSD but my two USB ports on the back of my Nucleus+ are being used for DACs.
One of those small 4TB Samsung T7 drives would likely fit nicely inside the case and could hook up to one of the two free USB ports on the front side of the NUC board. Has anyone done this or have thoughts about doing it?
Or, get a Raspberry Pi4 connected by ethernet for one of your DAC’s. Might be better than a direct connection to your Nucleus anyway. The RPi4 works well over WIFI also.
Thanks Jim. That is an idea to think about.
Does anyone have experience using the front two USB ports for SSD music storage?
Technically there is no reason why it would not work BUT I would be worried about the impact on thermals.
The Nucleus is designed to dissipate a certain amount of heat through the case. Adding a third SSD (after the system Nvme SSD and the SATA internal storage SSD would increase the heat beyond what the Nucleus was designed for and thus interfere with the ability to keep the processor board cool.
Either that or to keep cool, the Nucleus throttles the processor and you get poor performance as a result.
This is compounded by the fact that RoonOS running on the Nucleus does not give you any way of monitoring temperatures so you could be overheating components without realising it.
Long story short: Don’t do it.
Connect the USB storage externally.
If you have two USB DACs using the USB ports then you can use a Raspberry Pi to offload one, or both, of them as @Jim_F suggested.
If you only use one DAC at a time or you only used moderate streaming bit rates, say 192/32 and lower, and you feel like an experiment, you may be able to use a small USB hub to enable you to connect both DACs via one USB port. I would not even try this if you are using exotic bit rates to both DACs at the same time.
Whether or not this would work would depend upon the USB support in RoonOS.
I forgot to say that I wouldn’t be inclined to use the USB hub to connect one (or both) of the DACS and a USB storage device.
Use The RPi4 for one or two of your DAC’s. Use the Nucleus USB ports for a music drive and a backup drive, etc.
The thermal issue was my main concern too. I really liked the idea of bringing more storage into the Nucleus itself since there is lots of room. But perhaps it will just need to be plugged into one of the rear ports. Not the end of the world, but I thought it might be an interesting thing to discuss.