The "Official" Aurender Discussion Thread

[justubes]

Regarding the slow trasfer, even from internal hdd to hdd, i managed 20%  and took like 2 days.

 

The unit became shockingly hot. With the hdds encased kn the w20, i can only imagime the temperatures of the hdd.

 

It was uncomfortly hot to the hand for a few seconds on the outer casing.

 

How do we solve this, Aurender?

[Noushy]

Unfortunately drives can get very hot even the NAS specific 5400rpm drives. They used to place a thermal transfer layer between the drives and the chassis top which makes it act as a large heatsink but with a fanless design this is a big problem. Again why I went to a SSD which run much cooler than the spinning drives. I will bet going forward they will install more SSDs and less spinning drives except for those requiring extremely large capacities. If I owned a W20 I would probably run a pair of Samsung or Micron 7.68TB enterprise SSDs. I realize this would add about $2500-$3000 but it would be worth it in a unit with a $18k sticker.

 

Noushy

[merge03]

I'm very surprised (shocked) by all of this discussion of coping data off of an Aurender product?

 

I keep the master copy of all data on a NAS drive.  The NAS drive is what gets backed up as well.

My N10 is simply a "rsync" replica of what's on the NAS drive.  The NAS drive is the reference copy of the data,

not the Aurender.  I never have to copy anything off of the Aurender.  That is just way way backwards!

All music files are "managed" on the NAS drive.  

 

There is nothing for Aurender to fix.

[Noushy]

I have all of my music on a pair of Synology RS818+ units that replaced my RS816. I don't have my entire library on any of my Aurender units. However I have specific builds on each one and when I replace it (N100h to A10) I want to keep the same library so it is much easier to copy it over rather than individually copying every album over. And yes my Synology units are mirrored RAID6 so I have two copies of everything as well.

 

 Noushy

[merge03]

From an IT perspective, relying on the device itself is a flawed approached.  In that model, if an Aurender unit (disk) does die, you don't have a mechanism to reconstruct the data set from scratch.  It would be much better to have a specific rsync script for each unit; mirroring data from the NAS drive to the device.   That way, anytime the source content on the NAS drive is modified, it is rsync'ed to the specific Aurender.  If files are added or metadata is updated, it just gets pushed to the specific Aurender, as dictated by its rsync script.

 

RAID6 provides "reliability".  RAID is *not* a backup mechanism.  RAID6 is expensive, in that it is slow, and wastes storage.  A far better solution is to dedicate a single, separate, NAS server as a dedicated backup.  Relying on RAID as a backup mechanism is a recipe for a lot of eventual trouble (data loss).

 

[AurenderAmerica]

@merge03's approach is, of course, correct. Please don't think of the Aurender (or any music server) as the "master" copy of your library. It is essential to have a separate master copy of your library, and recommended to have another backup of that in ADDITION to your Aurender.

 

@justubes can you please send a remote support request email from the Conductor app? This will allow our software engineers to check the internal temperature and see if there is anything wrong.

[AurenderAmerica]

3 hours ago, AriMargolis said:

@Emm thanks for your question. The hard drives are hardly ever actually spinning unless you are actively playing “DJ” and adding songs to the queue. 

 

A few minutes after the last songs have been added and cached to the SSD, the HDD spin back down.

 

The screen will go dark after 5 minutes of inactivity, at which point the unit is in an idle state. It is ok to leave it on and in this state as long as you want.

^ I'm not sure what caused the strike through above...please ignore the strike through.

[justubes]

Well, i,dont have a Nas and copied off thumbdrives, so now a small collection of 2 to 3 tb of music files, i want to back it up on 1 drive.

 

Unforunately, i saved music on both drives, one drive for dsd and the other for non dsd files.

 

So not i have 1 to 2 tb on each drive and want to back this up.

 

I rip from a NAD AIO previously and dont want to use the computer which isnt used much.

 

I dont use the computers hdd for music collection storage.

 

I dont regularly rip cd or even buy much cds now adays and use mostly streaming from Tidal.

 

Is a a solution for a Aurender user ike myself?

 

Unless i have a big collection, i do not plan to set up a NAS.

 

Different strokes for different folks.

 

Is there a limitation in transfer speeds ofthe Aurender?

 

Ari, i dont wish to leave the unit copying files fo days and risk the hdds burnjng out, the unit does get very hot from the hdd spinning all day long.

[Noushy]

Any method of backup is better than none. For those non computer savvy there is the ACS which can also backup your units, Ari chime in if I am wrong. Yes RAID6 is expensive but it allows drive redundancy and I have had IronWolf Pro drives fail. Mine happens to also be mirrored to an identical unit. Not everyone needs this even a single USB drive can be used as a backup to store duplicate copies.

 

Noushy

[merge03]

@justubes, well you're not alone.  I hear about similar situations all the time, where someone suddenly realizes a lot of data ($) is at risk.  Sometimes things just grow organically, and then all of a sudden there's a small problem.  Correcting it is not hard, but it will cost some. Everyone has to do the calculus of risk vs backup.  It's a lot like the insurance business.

 

First you need to have requirements, then defined strategy to meet those requirements, and then implement the strategy.  Then continually refine and adjust the requirements, strategy and implementation.  It's always investment vs risk.

 

As a simple first step, you're going to need a device that holds the master copy of your data.  View the music server as just a cheap replica of the master copy that can be lost at any time.  And then the master copy needs a backup.

[merge03]

@noushy, please don't equate "reliablity" (e.g. RAID) with "disaster recovery" (e.g. backups).  They are not the same thing.  RAID is an amazing thing.  RAID (at some level) should be embraced by everyone who can afford it.  But RAID is not a backup strategy.

 

[Noushy]

No i am not. The backup is a backup I just happen to run a pair of them in RAID6. And yes I ran a small IT company back in school and very familiar with all the tech. Also happen to have a third copy on a flash based NAS as well.

 

Noushy

[merge03]

There is safety in paranoia (i.e a secondary backup). 😊

[Mazza]

3 hours ago, merge03 said:

@noushy, please don't equate "reliablity" (e.g. RAID) with "disaster recovery" (e.g. backups).  They are not the same thing.  RAID is an amazing thing.  RAID (at some level) should be embraced by everyone who can afford it.  But RAID is not a backup strategy.

 

 

You and the other posts are right.

 

I naively thought my NAS based raid was a backup to my Aurender. Until that is, it was pointed out to me that I may be able to swap out a failed NAS drive and rebuild the NAS backup but what would happen if the NAS itself failed and it couldn’t be replaced? So paranoia set in and I now backup my backup to the cloud! Not just music, but photos and other important files. 

 

Took nearly 3-weeks though! I hope I don’t need to restore from there......

[Ponzi]

I have a question related to this topic.

 

I have both the N10 and the ASC-10.  Ripping CDs on the ASC-10 causes them to be stored on the ASC-10 hard drive.  The N10 can then "see" the music on the ASC-10 hard drive.  But the music is not stored on the N10 hard drive.  So, in this mode, there is no back up.  The ASC-10 data is not backed up be the N10 and the N10 data is not backed up by the ASC-10. 

 

Is there a way to alter this?  It would be better if the ASC-10 ripped and stored the data on both hard drives.  Is there a way to achieve that?  If not, shouldn't there be? 

[merge03]

I don't think any music server should be considered a master copy or a backup copy. 

 

The music server should be considered a disposable replica of the data set.  The master copy should be on a reliable storage appliance (e.g. a co-located NAS drive).  That NAS drive should have a backup strategy that matches your disaster recovery requirements (e.g. a remote storage appliance, or just another co-located storage appliance, or simply some USB SSD).

[Emm]

22 hours ago, AriMargolis said:

^ I'm not sure what caused the strike through above...please ignore the strike through.

Hi Ari

 

sometimes my N10 during playback shows the message “Preparing Aurender”.

during this the Aurender is not controlled anymore by the conductor and this state can last some minutes.

is this a normal situation?

[Vincent1234]

23 minutes ago, Emm said:

Hi Ari

 

sometimes my N10 during playback shows the message “Preparing Aurender”.

during this the Aurender is not controlled anymore by the conductor and this state can last some minutes.

is this a normal situation?

Same here with my W20. Only happens once every few weeks.

[Emm]

2 minutes ago, Vincent1234 said:

Same here with my W20. Only happens once every few weeks.

Exactly! I am wondering whether this is a normal state or situation

[AurenderAmerica]

@Emm @Vincent1234 - We'd need some more information to be sure what's going on. For technical support, please send us an email to [email protected].

 

You can also send a remote support request email straight from the Conductor app. This automatically opens your Aurender for our software engineers to view the logs/diagnostics and diagnose/fix any software issues.

 

[justubes]

Same here, on occasions. 

It last for more than just a few minutes and once even shut the Machine down when returned after leaving it for a while. 

 

The other nagging issue is the sometimes very slow refreshing of database. Wile the conductor app cannot connect, streaming tidal using the physical buttons has no connectivity issues and plays fine and has an ip connection. 

 

 

[Emm]

@AriMargolis

 

i have just sent a remote  support request.

[Foxman50]

On 2/6/2019 at 4:35 PM, Emm said:

Hi Ari

 

sometimes my N10 during playback shows the message “Preparing Aurender”.

during this the Aurender is not controlled anymore by the conductor and this state can last some minutes.

is this a normal situation?

Never seen this on my N10 or N100, other when ive rebooted them or software update.

[Noushy]

My N100h, N10 and A10 have never done that other than a restart or power failure.  Makes me wonder if your system SSD is bad.

 

Noushy

[finbad]

On 2/6/2019 at 11:59 AM, Vincent1234 said:

Same here with my W20. Only happens once every few weeks.

Same here , A10 1.5 y.o “Wait updating data” more often than necessary. 

 

For a time (months back) A10 would do this at short interval s , every 10-15

minutes - perhaps the updates fixed this.?...