How do you store your music ?

[Boris75]

External 3TB WD FireWire drive (to avoid theoretical USB conflicts)

 

I regret I bought a Macbook instead of a Macbook Pro, with the result that I have no firewire port. As I am running out of space on my internal 1TB drive, I'll have to use one USB port for the DAC and another one for my external drive, so I may run into conflicts. I hope, however, that Audirvana's memory play should limit the sonic consequences.

[Audio_ELF]

I regret I bought a Macbook instead of a Macbook Pro, with the result that I have no firewire port. As I am running out of space on my internal 1TB drive, I'll have to use one USB port for the DAC and another one for my external drive, so I may run into conflicts. I hope, however, that Audirvana's memory play should limit the sonic consequences.

You may do better with a NAS. Avoid any conflicts.

[Raym87]

Just moved over to Firewire. Been intending to try Firewire for a while but having given Amarra HiFi a try, now is as good a time as any as Amarra HiFi has problems reading from my NAS. NAS drive now relegated to backups.

[beetlemania]

Ah can't see how to add it either.

 

May one ask why you went for external sata?

 

1) I wanted an external drive, per the CAPS protocol (tho' my case is plenty roomy for a second internal drive and I suspect I would suffer no sonic consequences with such an arrangement -but I've been to lazy to try it).

 

2) I use a USB DAC, so I didn't want a USB HDD (tho' my mobo makes it pretty simple to assure both devices could have their own hub).

 

3) eSATA is smoking fast compared to USB or Firewire, so I figured there would be no bottleneck with speed.

[Deaf Cat]

3) eSATA is smoking fast compared to USB or Firewire, so I figured there would be no bottleneck with speed.

 

can't go wrong with more speed

:-)

cheers

[Great Gig]

I voted for Internal HDD different from OS HDD, but that's not really correct, as there isn't an option for my method.

 

I have tried all the these options;

 

• NAS
  
• Single 2TB internal drive, two partitions, O/S on one, music library on the other
  
• SSD internal with O/S and the library on a second 2TB internal
  
• USB 2.0 external
  
• eSATA external
  
• Wireless from a second PC
  

Now I have the O/S on an internal mSATA SSD and the library is on a 3.5" 2TB external drive. This is connected to the motherboard by a 2' SATA cable in a silencer box and powered from its own independent linear power supply. I prefer this option to all the above. I use a Rega DAC via USB.

[vgrubb]

Great Gig,

This is what I want to do. Could you give details on what you are using, especially cable and power supply?

Thanks

Vic

[Deaf Cat]

....

Now I have the O/S on an internal mSATA SSD and the library is on a 3.5" 2TB external drive. This is connected to the motherboard by a 2' SATA cable in a silencer box and powered from its own independent linear power supply. I prefer this option to all the above. I use a Rega DAC via USB.

 

Cool :-)

I was thinking along the lines of powering an internal hdd with music on, with an external psu all to it's self, just to see/hear if there was any difference, but indeed why not take the hdd out the pc box too.. :-D

 

I currently have a usb external that is being switched back in to use tonight as the nas does seem to lack energy in the replay of tunes (my kit, my ears, of course) The external hdd case is sat on isolating brass feet, as is the pc, what is a silencer box may one ask?

 

Cheers

[rwwjr44]

External HDD via eSata. Two different drives. One for backup. I am seriously considering NAS.

[Great Gig]

Great Gig,

This is what I want to do. Could you give details on what you are using, especially cable and power supply?

Thanks

Vic

Well at the moment I am using just a standard SATA cable (60cm) which you can buy anywhere, you can get them up to 1m long maybe longer? The case is a Scythe Himuro which is sat the length of the cable away from the server and the SATA cable is plugged direct into the motherboard. The power is a 12V bench linear supply with 2 lines, one 12V line and the other going to a simple step down circuit to 5V. I just used a standard SATA power cable and cut one end off and soldered the two lines to it. I am working on a more elegant solution at the moment, where I house everything in one box - 12V in, and 2 x 12v lines out (server and USB isolation via ADuM4160) and the 12v/5v line for the 3.5" hard drive. If you don't want to made your own step down module, just Google 12v DC to 5v DC, there are loads of solutions and suggestions. I used to use an old power brick from a Lacie portable hard drive that had both 12v & 5v lines, but it was a SMPS. The improvement is subtle but in my mind it seems better with the linear supply than the SMPS. The Himuro case sits on 4 sorbothane feet - I like it and it seems to work well. I do sometimes alternate between this and a NAS, this uses less power than leaving the NAS running.

 

Do they sound different? . . . well to be honest I cannot really tell the difference between this and my NAS, which is why I sometimes swap them round, but I'm really not convinced one sounds better than the other, so using less power seems the sensible thing to do and is my preference at the moment

 

 

Those lugs on the side slide off, so the case looks a lot sleeker in use.

[coxhaus]

I have switched over to server 2012 and I am running on an old Segate hard drive I had on the self. I tried to buy an SSD from Fry’s but they were sold out and I am still waiting. I want to test the sound difference between a hard drive and a SSD. My problem is I have 1.2 terabytes of music so I cannot buy a big enough SSD. I still have 300 more CDs to rip. I have all these wave files stored on a Home Server 2011 on a RAID5. The RAID5 is capable of around 300 meg/sec output. I guess I will try serving up music from the server and compare the sound quality as well.

[tranz]

Used to use a Synology NAS, but it did not play nice with Amarra so I moved to a WD Thunderbolt drive. Much faster load times, less fatigue through switches/ethernet cables and a working Amarra.

 

Cheers.

[Deaf Cat]

I'm running win8 on an old machine and it does not quite run as smooth as it could, old hardware new software, won't do that again! :-(

 

I must say I'm quite impressed with the sound improvement from XP to win8, and to help the poor old thing run I've disabled stuff to ease the work load including usb, so my external usb flac drive is now plugged in via a long sata cable direct to the motherboard, and powered by an old psu that was in the garage, things seem to be slightly more real sounding and I've a touch of silk at the top end that was absent with the usb external... :-D

(one day may even get as far as a pocket server)

 

And have not noticed a drop out yet! :-)

 

May well try moving the system disc outside the main computer case next.

[VandyMan]

I use a ReadyNAS Duo but I'm planning to switch to a Synology 4 drive model as I am running out of space. I'd love to see some more NAS reviews on this site.

 

I keep a USB drive connected to the ReadyNAS and have an rsync crontab job setup to backup to it. I have a second USB drive that I keep at a friends house as an offsite backup. I update it a couple of times per year. I have ripped my CD collection too many times over the last decade, but I'm doing my best to make sure I will never have to again.

[jtwrace]

How do you NAS guys backup your large libraries? Say 6-7TB? That's multiple external drives so can you just use bare drives and when one gets full do another and it all be happy? Does Synology tell you when the first backup drive is full and ask for another drive in the external adapter?

[ksjeff]

I am in the process of installing a Synology DS212j. After many excruciating, hair-pulling hours, I can only say this: I would just as soon be flogged with a rubber hose. Arrrggggghhh!!

[jtwrace]

I am in the process of installing a Synology DS212j. After many excruciating, hair-pulling hours, I can only say this: I would just as soon be flogged with a rubber hose. Arrrggggghhh!!

 

Why was it so bad?

[ksjeff]

Why was it so bad?

 

"Was" implies I'm finished and everything is working. I'm still in the process. First, it must be said that I'm not an IT expert, but I consider myself computer literate, far from a complete newbie. This is just so frustrating. I have installed the NAS, created the disk groups and volumes. Right now the system is running a "Parity Consistency Check" on both drives. At the rate it's going, this will maybe take about 3 days to complete; not an exaggeration. My computer is not "seeing" the Synology. When I open the "network" window on my Windows machine, the DISKSTATION is right there. But when I click on it, a window pops up telling me that "Windows cannot access \\DISKSTATION.

 

I'm using three Squeezebox Touch devices on three different audio systems through the house. Before, I simply had my music library on an external HD, with a backup on another external HD. When I rip, I have dbPowerAmp rip a copy to each drive. Simple. I use the Peng app on my iPad to control the SBTs. Everything worked fine. But after reading all the benefits of NAS, I decided to go that route.

 

But now, I can't even get my PC to link up with the NAS. I dread the process of getting this thing to sync up with my three SBTs. I'm about ready to throw it all out the window and go back to what was working for me before.

 

Rant over.

[VandyMan]

Large low-cost NAS drives do take a long time to setup (formatting, etc) so don't panic. Check on the Synology forums, but I think it could take a full day depending on the amount of storage, the speed of the hard drives, and the speed of that model of Synology NAS.

 

You should not expect to be able to mount the drive until the setup is complete. When it is done, you could use "Map Network Drive" in Windows to have your NAS always assigned to the same drive letter.

[baddog]

To VandyMan's point - the initial configuration of the drives (parity consistency check) takes a very long time, after that it should hopefully be all downhill (in a good sense).

 

Barr

[ksjeff]

Well, the good news is the "parity consistency check" finally completed, after almost 48 hours.

 

I'm obviously doing something wrong. When I open the "network" window, the DS212j is right there. But when I try to open it, a window pops up with the following message: "Windows cannot access \\DISKSTATION. Error code 0x80070035. The network path was not found."

 

So, here I am stuck and frustrated.

[baddog]

Can you access your NAS via Synology Assistant? If so first recommendation would be to try and shutdown and re-start.

 

Also check out these threads - perhaps they will help, they discuss very similar issues,

 

Synology Inc. Online Community Forum • View topic - DiskStation not showing up in Network [merged thread]

 

 

Synology Inc. Online Community Forum • View topic - DiskStation not showing up in Network [merged thread]

 

Barr

[ksjeff]

Can you access your NAS via Synology Assistant? If so first recommendation would be to try and shutdown and re-start.

 

Yes, I can access the DS212j via Synology Assistant and DSM. No problems there.

 

Thanks for the thread links. Headed there now?

 

This is no doubt a newbie question, but here goes. Once I get this NAS working, like I mentioned in my initial post, I am going to be streaming to 3 Squeezebox Touch players. I will have to plug a USB dongle into the Synology to do this, right? But the absence of the dongle is not related to my current issue, right?

[baddog]

By USB dongle do you mean a wireless dongle? I assume the NAS is connected via ethernet to your router and your PC where you are running Synology Assistant is either connected wirelessly or via ethernet to the router?

 

The absence of a dongle should not be the problem with not being able to access a volume from your PC.

 

I don't know anything about the Squeezebox Touch, so cannot speak to whether a dongle is required (and of course not sure of the purpose of the dongle....).

 

Barr

[ksjeff]

Yes, I meant a wireless dongle. And yes, also, my NAS is connected via ethernet to my router; and my PC is connected via ethernet to the router.

 

The wireless dongle is mentioned in the Synology user manual for connecting to a wireless network. And their website lists compatible wireless dongles. (Suddenly feeling quite stupid :~}) My router is my wireless network! Doh!