NAS vs Internal ssd

[Nordkapp]

I'm considering going to a NAS based storage (Synology DS218j with their matching HDD) for music files vs my laptop with an internal 1TB SSD. Are there any compelling reasons for me to change? Any suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks.

[HansH64]

I'm using a Synology DS118 to store my music files, including hires 24/192 flacs. I'm also using a Raspberry Pi 2 with MPD to play these files. Works flawlessly! All connected over 1 Gbps wired network. However, the RPI is only capable of connecting at 100Mbps. More than enough for (hires) music and even 1080p movies.

 

 

[plissken]

One compelling reason is if you have more than 1TB of files...

[DavidL]

A compelling reason for going to NAS-based storage is the potential capability to play your music files directly e.g. by installing MinimServer on the NAS. You don't say what DAC you are using so you may require a renderer to convert the ethernet output from the NAS to feed the DAC. You could use your laptop as controller but a small outlay on a tablet would do the job and free your laptop.

[davide256]

Keep the laptop you have and trial Roon... you don't need/want a NAS with Roon core, USB3 attached storage is fine

[nbpf]

On 4/17/2018 at 3:56 AM, Nordkapp said:

I'm considering going to a NAS based storage (Synology DS218j with their matching HDD) for music files vs my laptop with an internal 1TB SSD. Are there any compelling reasons for me to change? Any suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks.

I have recently looked at NAS solutions (Synology, Qnap) for securing and serving shared libraries (music, books, videos, etc.) at home and at the office and I could not find any compelling reason to go that route. On the contrary, I have gathered the impression that NAS based solutions would likely be an obstacle in my current workflow. I have 3 major drives with capacities between 5TB  and 8TB attached to two computers (one at home and the other one in my office) which are on 24/7 and a few smaller drives that host copies of specific shared libraries and that are attached to Raspberry Pi devices that I switch on/off. I regularly run rsync scripts (involving data transfers via a proxy to access my office desktop from home) to secure data from about 10 devices (three laptops, two desktops and the RPi devices) to those 3 drives and to sync the libraries on the smaller drives. I do not see advantages that NAS devices would bring in this setup but I clearly see a number of disadvantages. Thus, no NAS devices here so far.  

[nbpf]

7 hours ago, DavidL said:

A compelling reason for going to NAS-based storage is the potential capability to play your music files directly e.g. by installing MinimServer on the NAS. You don't say what DAC you are using so you may require a renderer to convert the ethernet output from the NAS to feed the DAC. You could use your laptop as controller but a small outlay on a tablet would do the job and free your laptop.

It seems to be much easier to install MinimServer on Raspberry Pi, NUCs, etc. than on NAS devices. In order to serve music on a LAN I would use a dedicated server that I can readily replace in case of failure. I am not sure that NAS are ideal from this point of view but I might be mistaken, of course.

[davide256]

10 hours ago, nbpf said:

It seems to be much easier to install MinimServer on Raspberry Pi, NUCs, etc. than on NAS devices. In order to serve music on a LAN I would use a dedicated server that I can readily replace in case of failure. I am not sure that NAS are ideal from this point of view but I might be mistaken, of course.

Linux for minimserver, that works. But what about your library scan/traverse speed? That's the usual casualty of slower processors. Whatever you do, make sure you have a USB3 port on the file server for local backups/ new music transfer

[nbpf]

24 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Linux for minimserver, that works. But what about your library scan/traverse speed? That's the usual casualty of slower processors. Whatever you do, make sure you have a USB3 port on the file server for local backups/ new music transfer

Strangely enough, I have never found bandwidth to be a bottleneck. I only rescan my music library when I add new stuff which is very rare these days. I manage all my backups, mirroring, etc. via rsync. When I start an rsync script, I do not usually care if it takes one minute or ten minutes to complete. Once a file has been copied to the target, the amount of data to be transferred for maintenance is anyway minimal: rsync only sends and receives file differences. Thus, there is no need for a lot of bandwidth anyway. What I believe is crucial, is what takes place at replay time. For this, I have found that playback from local memory is simpler and sounds better (or, at least, not worse) than streaming. Thus, no need for a main server in my LAN. But, of course, others might find a centralized architecture more useful. In this case, a NAS is perhaps a useful approach for serving and securing data.  

[steklo]

I have a QNAP TS-451A with Logitech Media Server* on it. The NAS is hidden away in the cellar and streams music over LAN into the living room to an RPi with picoreplayer. It gets controlled by iPeng from an iDevice. With 8GB RAM on the NAS this runs absolutely fluently and is so much easier to operate than my MacMini with Amarra in iTunes mode and Apple's remote app ever was!

As pcp has such a small footprint it runs completely in RPI's RAM so that it can easily be plugged off without a shutdown procedure.

 

The library on the NAS is only a copy of my master library on a separate external hardrive. I sync that with the NAS and another copy every time I add new music. So the NAS is not used as backup but actually as server/player unit which takes away these tasks from the RPi.

 

*Most recently LMS in the latest version is again available for easy direct installation through the QNAP Club store! Without that I probably would have got lost.

 

 

[davide256]

35 minutes ago, nbpf said:

... For this, I have found that playback from local memory is simpler and sounds better (or, at least, not worse) than streaming. Thus, no need for a main server in my LAN. ...

local memory is used regardless of whether play is direct or streamed to a separate renderer. The question is what kind of electrical/thermal noise battlefield exists inside the device where data leaves the computer and feeds a DAC. Physical separation of hard drives by use of a NAS and data transport protocols is cheaper to implement than hardening an all in one server. Once can achieve the same result with an all in one server, but it will cost, be more complex..

[wrat]

ssd are still small comparatively , longevity is not a proven thing yet , I have mechanical hds that are over 10 years old

the speed is not really relevant from a music standpoint

i have over a tb of just hi rez stuff let alone the reg 16/44.1 so....

[nbpf]

20 minutes ago, davide256 said:

local memory is used regardless of whether play is direct or streamed to a separate renderer. The question is what kind of electrical/thermal noise battlefield exists inside the device where data leaves the computer and feeds a DAC. Physical separation of hard drives by use of a NAS and data transport protocols is cheaper to implement than hardening an all in one server. Once can achieve the same result with an all in one server, but it will cost, be more complex..

I see your point but I am not sure that decoding incoming data from a wired or wireless interface generates less electrical/thermal noise than decoding the same data from an internal SATA connection or from an external USB connection. Perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn't. I simply do not know.

 

What I know, however, is that even transcoding 24/192 flac files to wav, a Raspberry Pi 3 with CPU freq fixed at 1GHz rarely gets to CPU loads greater than 10% and that the sound quality does not improve if I detach the local external drive, shut down the local MinimServer instance and get the data via wireless or via a wired connection from another LAN server.

 

This is what I observe in my system. It goes without saying that, in another system, things might be very different!

[astropuppy]

For years, I copied my collection from drive to drive. Since then I moved my music collection to a Synology NAS. Then plugged a RPI zero into the network loaded with MinimServer and bubbleserver.  Life has never been so good. Tags are updated in one place as well as new music being added once. All sorts of (family friendly) play options: Jriver, chromecast, dlna, bluetooth..... 

 

Original rips and backups are kept ondrives separate from the nas. 

[jcn3]

On 4/24/2018 at 10:59 PM, nbpf said:

It seems to be much easier to install MinimServer on Raspberry Pi, NUCs, etc. than on NAS devices. In order to serve music on a LAN I would use a dedicated server that I can readily replace in case of failure. I am not sure that NAS are ideal from this point of view but I might be mistaken, of course.

 

just for the record -- it is super simple to install minimserver on a nas.  nothing to worry about.

[nbpf]

1 minute ago, jcn3 said:

 

just for the record -- it is super simple to install minimserver on a nas.  nothing to worry about.

The better then, I stand corrected! Best, nbpf