I purchased a Roon Nucleus today. I did not buy it with internal memory. I have 4TB's of music stored on an old Sooloos control 15 and Twin store. I would like to transfer this music to a data storage device that can be accessed by the Roon Nucleus. I would like to have an automated back up system so having a system that does that would be great too. Is it better to use a DAS and connect directly to the nucleus with a USB cord, or, should I use a NAS and access the information through my network across ethernet cable? Also, what is an appropriate brand/model that you would recommend I pair with my Nucleus. For example a QNAP TS-453D-8G 4 bay NAS. Is this overkill and/or is this a compatible with using the Nucleus?
I would appreciate any help to help me choose the right storage device. I would like to buy the storage device as soon as possible so I can begin using my Roon. Thank you.
You pose the question as a choice between a DAS (a USB drive attached to the Nucleus) or a NAS to hold your music files.
As has been said, locally-attached storage, whether an internal SSD/HDD or a USB drive is better than a NAS as far as the Nucleus is concerned.
However, you also raised the point about requiring backup for the music files. In which case you should probably think about both: a locally-attached storage to hold the music files and a NAS or an additional drive to hold a backup of your music files.
Personally, I have taken the approach to have a 4TB USB drive that I connect to my PC and take a backup (over the network) of the music files held in my ROCK/NUC (my DIY Nucleus). I then store the drive off-site in case of disaster.
Note that at this stage of development, Roon or the Nucleus do not have a function built-in for making backups of your music files, so a third-party backup application is needed.