Using and disconnecting portable USB drive with ROCK on NUC?

Roon Software Discussion ROCK
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Hi – ROCK/NUC newbie here (have been using Roon on Windows 10 laptop for about a year).

I’m just setting up a NUC10i7FNH – first experience with a NUC.

– I plan to use it with the music stored on an external 5 TB WD Easystore portable drive (which has no separate power, and needs power from computer).
– I can’t use an internal disk in the NUC for music storage because I have a lot of multichannel music and am already at well over 3 TB, and do expect to add more (I still purchase SACDs)
– I am trying to avoid using a powered external drive, for ease of moving the drive to add new music as needed.

My two questions are:

  1. Can I leave the external portable disk plugged in to the NUC all the time? [I haven’t done this on Mac/Windows machines, but here I want the music to be always available.]

  2. When I do want to eject a USB disk from the ROCK NUC, how do I disconnect it safely? I would of course quit Roon Core to make sure it’s not accessing the disk. But what other steps if any? [I know how to do “safe” disconnect on Mac/Windows/Linux, but not sure what to do on ROCK.]

Thanks in advance for any info!

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  1. Yes, I have a usb external drive powered by the Nuc pc and has been connected for years at this point.

  2. Turn off the Nuc. There are no options for eject with the Rock OS.

1 Like
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@Rugby – Thank you very much! – that’s very helpful, much appreciated.

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I just thought I would mention one thing regarding external USB drives.
A few months ago I was on a chat line with a Seagate Sales rep. I was trying to decide on an appropriate model USB drive for my NUC. When I described how it was going to be used (i.e. running 24x7) he mentioned that most Seagate external drives weren’t designed to run continuously, day after day. He pointed me to a specific external model that was designed for this. I was surprised as I never thought that this would be a design issue.
Unfortunately, I didn’t go with an external USB drive, so I can’t recall the Seagate model he pointed me to. But, you might want to contact WD support and ask if your model is capable of running 24x7.

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@Thomas_Prossima1 – thanks for mentioning this. This was the kind of thing I wondered about, having the vague feeling that portables are not meant to be always-on. I guess for now I’ll just see how it goes for now with a portable – thanks –