Unitiserve 2TB

I'm rather dismissive of the sound quality differences between a sdd and a hdd; if they really exist I am happy to ignore them, pretend they don't exist, keep my head in the sand, etc etc.

I have just under 200 cd's ripped now, and cannot fathom acquiring another 200, much less more than 1000.  I fully appreciate that in every hobby there are hoarders (not trying to be derogatory here, at all!), and folks can end up with thousands of cd's, as well as a dozen sports cars, dozens of pairs of shoes, cameras, Rolexes, etc etc.  I'm with Jan; 1-2tb seems plenty for moi.

This still doesn't make much sense to me if the drive isn't partitioned specifically for downloads and rips.  Can I send my unit in for a free re-partition to enable this feature?

There’s a small number of folks who have worked in the music industry and aquired many hudreds, even thousands of CDs, but I don’t think that’s who Naim had in mind when designing the 2TB versions, I think it’s the dozens of other users who received free CD give-aways with their sports car, shoe, camera and watch purchases over the years that need this kind of hard drive space.

No - only the 2Tb builds of software will support this feature.

Cheers

Phil

So I can't get the updated hardware because I need updated software and vice versa.  I have to say I am very disappointed to say the least.  But who cares, I'm just a customer.  This is the type of thing that may drive me to switch brands altogether.  I don't complain or ask for much but certain issues are significant to me and when they can't be reasonably resolved, frustration and lack of trust ensue.

Hi Phil

Understood - I'm obviously not part of the target demographic for the uServe as £2500+ is too much for me to casually drop for the sake of ensuring my remote retreat has hot and cold running music. Here in the woods I'm quite well off but don't move in the "Aw shucks let's buy all of it baby!" social circles thank god. I could probably get a chauffeur but where on earth is the fun in that? I'd be bored in the back, look like an ass and I love driving anyway.

Perhaps that is the point - since I love driving making the effort is preferable to buying a chauffeur.

As for "rolling your own music server" being difficult ..... 

Music aggregation is for people who can't organise their music collections.

So for the non-techies - just throw cash at the problem.

PS please throw some cash at the forum software - it is truly horrid on an iPad.

Tog

I am told that the new UnitiServe 2TB will be more expensive than the previous version.

So, I wonder how much more it will be?

Hi Develyn,

You specifically asked "Can I send my unit in for a free re-partition to enable this feature?"

If you wish to have your serve updated to 2Tb drives then you will get the ability to put downloaded music onto it - but it cannot be done with 400Gb / 500Gb / 1Tb drives and isn't free.

Regards

Phil

I think that's a bit of a blinkered way of looking at it Tog...

I also love messing with "techie" stuff, I wrote my own heating and lighting controllers for my house and for years didn't touch a light switch. It tied in with the electric curtains and did automatic fallback and frost prevention modes for the heating and made the place look properly lived in when it was unoccupied if we were away on holiday etc. - so yes ... I'm a geek. I *ALWAYS* have a project or two on the go.

I also love driving - hey, it's why I have the Tiv - however I don't want to *HAVE* to drive everywhere and all the time (I hate driving in London for instance and so if I can get someone else to drive when I'm going up there for work then great) and if I'm listening to music (or watching movies) then I don't want to see any sign of folders and folder structures because I don't want to be in "computer world" as I've been there all day.

Rolling your own server isn't difficult (I've done it myself for my fileservers because I wanted to and it suited me to do so) but many people don't want to do so. Many of our customers don't want to have anything to do with RAID or FlexRAID or UnRAID or Drive Extender or GreyHole ... they want to have a box that works, looks after itself and when it's full they want to simply be able to add more storage and carry on. They don't have large expandable servers and they have music spread across their PCs and laptops.

Music aggregation is not "for people who can't organise their music collections" - it's for people who aren't necessarily techies (or don't want to be techies when they're at home) and don't want to have to learn how to (or want the hassle of) putting all of their music in one place and grooming their servers as their storage needs grow.

To use your "driving" analogy again it's like saying that anyone that likes to go out driving should simply build their own car and no-one should buy a Porsche or a Ferrari because then all the work has been done for you.

Phil

Phil I think that you've got a good handle on where some customers rest on the spectrum of possibilities for home music storage and playback.  You describe me well.  Given what I paid for my 1tb uServe, I'd have gladly paid a little more for a 2tb with the new functionality.  But now that I tortured myself and got a NAS (mostly) up and running, the upgrade would be relatively redundant.

Phil,

I don't understand why a hard drive makes all the difference.  Surely theres enough room to do what you need to do on a 1TB drive.  I will never require 2TB.  Can you explain in detail why it requires the 2TB drive?

It requires the 2Tb drive because the build that contains this functionality is made for a 2Tb drive.

The functionality has been pencilled in for when 2Tb drives were available for some time and it is not retrospectively applicable to 400 / 500 / 1,000Gb machines because to do so would create an unmaintainable number of variants.

Cheers

Phil

I'm curious, how much for the upgrade?  I am in USA.

BTW, I am updated to version 1.6c.  I thought this was same build as the latest 2TB version.

I don't know whether the upgrade costs have been determined yet - we've only just started building the 2Tb units themselves.

It is.

Phil

Unfortunately I am but a mere minnow nowadays in the data-whoring stakes amongst some of my "acquaintances" even though I was the first of the crowd to break a terrabyte (when the largest drives available were 80 - 120Gb and IDE and I was hanging 24 of them off a G4 Mac Mini on firewire) ... there are some lovely 24 bay 4U rack mount enclosures out there nowadays for about £400 and SAS expanders make it far too easy to daisychain a number of them for some truly obscene arrays.

Got to say Tog that I don't see why - obviously you favour the VortexBox as being your preferred media server solution, which surely is the equivalent of hand building a car - you select what components you want to use and what engine (software) you are going to run on it and make exactly what it is that you want. We provide what is effectively a tailored server (so the equivalent of buying a Morgan or a Noble perhaps) and there are other servers available that aren't so specifically designed for the purpose (so the equivalent of buying a run of the mill production car...), no?

...a gentlemanly handshake ensues.

Phil

Nice to know that my UnitiServe is built on a frame of kiln-dried Belgian Ash

Jan

Definitely a family resemblance :

At least Jan didn't post that squinty-eyed monstrosity they make as a comparison...

I will admit that I realised the other day just how much I take the build quality of our kit for granted ... I have a product from another manufacturer that I'm evaluating, it's not really in our league but not that far off some of our XS series kit pricewise, and the build quality isn't a patch on ours. The casework is almost laughably bendy and the controls just feel so lightweight and flimsy!

Phil

Tog, be careful here not to fall foul of forum rules....  thanks.