I just purchased a Nucleus (on order) and I’m trying to decide whether or not to install an SSD. Currently, my roon core resides on a NAS with my music library on the internal HDD and also on an external HDD. First, I’m wondering whether or not I even bother installing an SSD in the nucleus to transfer my music to. Second, do the mounting rails come with the SSD or are they within the Nucleus’s cabinet? When I look at SSD’s, they do not appear to have the rails shown in the nucleus manual. Thanks for your help.
I’ve never gotten rails with any SSD, or HDD for that matter. Rails are usually provided with the case. Whether Nucleus comes with extra rails is another question.
Some people have trouble with Roon updating new files added to a NAS. Many people, Nucleus owners or otherwse, only use their NAS for backup.
Putting your music on a Nucleus is a matter of convenience, not improved SQ or access speed or anything like that.
OTOH, there is no straightforward way to back up your music files that reside on the Nucleus.
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My Nucleus had the rails included and already installed in the Nucleus IIRC. It also came with the screws for attaching the SSD. Personally, I would want my music on the internal SSD and backed up to a NAS. Plug in a USB HDD for backing up Roon.
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Recently purchased an ssd drive and installed it in my Nucleus Plus (Rev B). The rails were installed in the Nucleus.
According to Installing Nucleus Internal Storage the Nucleaus may or may not be included. Guess the only way to be certain is to open your Nucleus case.
With respect to comparing the benefits of ssd over your current setup, I will have to agree with Slim 100% if you are currently connecting to the core via usb.
How do Nucleus owners backup music on the internal SSD to a NAS? I’m just curious.
If I was running Roon Server on a Linux system, I’d just schedule an rsync script to back up the music periodically. But for Nucleus, I assume you’re somehow pulling the backup from the NAS. Have always wondered…
I don’t have a Nucleus but I manage my backups in the same way as you could with one. I have a Raspberry Pi that connects to the SMB shares and performs the rsync jobs via a script called by crontab.
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I would not back up from a Nucleus to a NAS. I would have my music on a NAS or computer drive first. Then, I would copy my music to the internal SSD drive inside the Nucleus. Any new music I purchased or ripped would go to the NAS or computer drive first, then to the Nucleus.
This is what I am already doing, but it’s somewhat moot because I only own 5 albums of my own. They are stored in a folder on my laptop and copied to my Nucleus.
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Cool. That makes sense. I guess that’s one downside to keeping music internal to the Nucleus/ROCK system…it ends up also acting as a file server (NAS) so that you can manage and backup music files without taking it apart each time.
Smart use of a Raspberry Pi though. Thanks.
I guess a manual process like that works fine for only five albums. Thanks.
That’s what I thought, but it sounded like @Jim_F had discovered a solution, which is why I asked. Thanks.
I don’t know that it has to be manual or not. How do other people get their music files onto their Nucleus SSD? IDK.
Just be aware that to backup the database you will need a USB drive attached, or, backup to a share on another computer.
Manually copy them over the network. If you had an attached USB drive, you could copy all the music to it, and then just plug it into the Nucleus. Rinse and repeat if you wanted to add a lot more, or, maintain via copying to the share on the Nucleus.
This is what I said. Nowhere did I say backup FROM the Nucleus to a NAS. If I had a large library of purchased and/or ripped music files, the original copies of these music files would not be anywhere near Roon. The original files would probably be on a USB drive in my safe deposit box at my bank.
I would copy my music files to a NAS or USB drive at my home. I would also copy them to an internal SSD inside my Nucleus. The SSD inside my Nucleus would be the “watched” folder in Roon.
I see. You said music would be on the internal SSD and backed up to a NAS, but you were not clear about how the music got on the internal SSD or what would trigger the backups, which is why I asked.
It’s also why I would never rip files to my Nucleus. I would use a 3rd party software and CD drive to rip music files to my computer and then send to my Nucleus SSD.
Perhaps I’ll log a Feature request for Roon Labs to add an rsync server to Roon OS that can optionally be enabled via the web UI when it detects an internal SSD or attached USB drives. That would make backups and sync’ing the music library with other systems way easier…at least for us nerds. 
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How often do people purchase music files and/or rip CD’s? It seems like it would a relatively easy process to drag and drop them from a computer to Nucleus SSD once a week or once a day or as often as necessary.
For me, it’s not very often…once or twice per month, perhaps. My problem would be remembering which folders to drag over and worrying about missing something. Of course, I could just drag the entire library over, but that would take hours to copy each time.
In addition to my weekly automated backups, I three other complete copies of my music library on different portable USB drives. Once is formatted for NTFS, one is APFS, and one is EXT4.
An rsync server makes keeping these all updated super easy, and I never have to worry about forgetting something. Rsync automagically discovers what has changed and only copies what needs updating. It can be used to create incremental and differential backup schemes as well, if required.
Your requirements sound identical to mine, the Pi fits the bill perfectly for that kind of task.
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