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PC disk vs NAS


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Hi, I am looking for info & advice. I'm streaming hi-res audio across a home network (Ethernet) from my i7 Windows PC. The PC runs MinimServer, and at the receiving end, I have a Simaudio MiND. Every few days, I have what be latency problems . . . clicks (dropouts) through my Auralic Vega DAC.

 

Am I likely to get better results by moving to a Synology NAS box? It seems to me that the problem COULD be the PC's being busy downloading email, updates, and so on.

 

So that's the question, can moving to a NAS eliminate this as a potential source of the problem?

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It could also have something to do with the server settings or the way the client buffers the stream.

 

If the hard drive speed or usage affected the streaming, it would mean that your PC would generally feel very slow.

 

I have the Windows OS, software and temporary files on an SSD and music files and other data on a slow hard drive (Western Digital Green) but never had any problem streaming hi-rez files over LAN.

Claude

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Claude, thanks for the comments. My PC is also used for work, it has many background processes, and I'm guessing that occasionally, the disk subsystem gets bogged down for a short time, probably due to background indexing, downloading updates, virus scanning, or some such stuff. Hard to diagnose a problem when it happens only once a week or so!

 

OT alert >> I've noticed that the weak point of commercial PCs with Windows is that heavy disk I/O seems to slow down everything at times, no matter how fast the processor, how many cores, or how much RAM. The only time I had a system that didn't do that to some degree was 15+ years ago, when I had an add-on SCSI card and SCSI disks. That setup completely unloaded disk I/O from the main processor and made an amazing difference in responsiveness. << end OT

 

Now, I have 4 RAID-certified disks lying around unused (because they're 7200 RPM and a little noisy), so I will install a Synology NAS. If my hypothesis is right, that will solve the problem.

 

Mike

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