Sensibly priced NAS for Naim UnitiQute

Posted by: SA on 30 March 2013

Hi, just bought my first bit of naim kit - Naim UnitiQute - and was hoping to get some recommendations for a sensibly priced NAS. All my music is currently in AAC format on iTunes. Many thanks, Stuart
Posted on: 04 April 2013 by MangoMonkey
Ok. Strike the word speed. Let me reiterate clearly and succinctly what I found - with my synology nas in my network with my hard drives; With raid1 the player felt like it was struggling/under strain/working too hard. The music wasn't flowing. With raid0 - there was a sense of ease: almost like adding a flatcap to a nait xs. Now, if that shouldn't be - sure - that's theoretical. Practically, it was so - and I'll put it down to the implementation specific details of any one if the components - hardware or software along the chain. You can believe what you will. :-) or go but a unitiserv where these things have been optimized.
Posted on: 04 April 2013 by Ian P
Originally Posted by Shivoham:
Ok. Strike the word speed. Let me reiterate clearly and succinctly what I found - with my synology nas in my network with my hard drives; With raid1 the player felt like it was struggling/under strain/working too hard. The music wasn't flowing. With raid0 - there was a sense of ease: almost like adding a flatcap to a nait xs. Now, if that shouldn't be - sure - that's theoretical. Practically, it was so - and I'll put it down to the implementation specific details of any one if the components - hardware or software along the chain. You can believe what you will. :-) or go but a unitiserv where these things have been optimized.

Who knows, perhaps the Synology has a cleaner power supply than the QNAP (mine is nowhere near the HiFi as it happens) - that could affect things I guess.

 

Anyway, if the end result is that you enjoy your music more, that's all that matters 

Posted on: 04 April 2013 by SA
Well I'm amazed my original post has started such a debate. Thank you all for you comments and suggestions
Posted on: 04 April 2013 by Richard Dane
Originally Posted by Shivoham:
Ok. Strike the word speed. Let me reiterate clearly and succinctly what I found - with my synology nas in my network with my hard drives; With raid1 the player felt like it was struggling/under strain/working too hard. The music wasn't flowing. With raid0 - there was a sense of ease: almost like adding a flatcap to a nait xs. Now, if that shouldn't be - sure - that's theoretical. Practically, it was so - and I'll put it down to the implementation specific details of any one if the components - hardware or software along the chain. You can believe what you will. :-) or go but a unitiserv where these things have been optimized.

As has been pointed out by others, please nobody use Raid 0 unless you're happy to lose your music collection should the worst happen.  Raid 0 is fast, yes, but NOT TO BE USED FOR ANY CRITICAL SYSTEM.

Posted on: 04 April 2013 by MangoMonkey
The nas isn't a backup. 

When I had it setup as raid 1 the NAS fell off the shelf and both drives broke. No amount of raiding would've helped.

My workflow: rip using dbpoweramp. Use synctoy to sync files between nas in the laundry room and pc. Effectively I've  got mirroring between two machines geographically separated.
Posted on: 09 April 2013 by Michael Chare

Points to consider when choosing a NAS:

 

a) Can you use disks greater than 2TB?  You might not need this for your music, but you might use it for pictures and video.

 

b)  Is there any software for the NAS that would allow you to record from IP security cameras?

 

c) Is there a list of NAS manufacturer approved disk drives? (As there is for the ReadyNas Duo)

 

d) What does the NAS do after a power cut?  My (old) ReadyNas Duo has to be manually started, it then spends some time (maybe an hour) checking the disk drives.  I think the later versions do power on automatically.

 

e) Can you take the disks out of the NAS and read them with a Windows PC. Something you might want to do if the NAS fails.

 

f) A backup strategy is advisable. I keep additional copies of my pictures and music on a hard drives in my desktop PC.

 

Posted on: 11 April 2013 by SRMT

Synology DS212J works well in my system serving as a backup for my UnitiServe

One word of caution - configuration instructions for NAS' may seem a bit baffling, even to those with some computer knowledge, but never fear - the ever reliable Phil Harris from Naim is at the end of the phone if you get into a pickle.

Since setup, mine has worked flawlessly.

Posted on: 11 April 2013 by DrMark

As Shiv has indicated, Raid is NOT a backup under any definition - use as such at your own peril.

 

The guy at Vortexbox says he gets about one call a month from people who think Raid is a backup system, and suffer a calamity, and want to know what can be done.  He reports a response of great angst when he replies, "Nothing."

Posted on: 12 April 2013 by hafler3o
Originally Posted by SA:
get some recommendations for a sensibly priced NAS

I use a WD MyBookLive 2TB NAS (£100), throw in a few shielded RJ45, network switch and there you have it! I navigate around the stored music using my Unitilite remote under 'folder' view and everyone at home understands what they are doing!

PC and dbPoweramp provides the missing rip facility found in 'one box' solutions.

Cheap, very easy, quiet, musical and plenty of room for upgradeitis to take hold later....

Posted on: 13 April 2013 by AndyL

my backups are the original CDs stored offsite

 

yes I know   :-)

Posted on: 13 April 2013 by robert-

You bough naim and are moaning about spending money!!! Kettle/black.

Posted on: 14 April 2013 by hafler3o
Originally Posted by robert-:

You ... are moaning about spending money!

That's how I got to be able to afford Naim in the first place, thrift!

Posted on: 15 April 2013 by Jon Myles
Originally Posted by hafler3o:
Originally Posted by SA:
get some recommendations for a sensibly priced NAS

I use a WD MyBookLive 2TB NAS (£100), throw in a few shielded RJ45, network switch and there you have it! I navigate around the stored music using my Unitilite remote under 'folder' view and everyone at home understands what they are doing!

PC and dbPoweramp provides the missing rip facility found in 'one box' solutions.

Cheap, very easy, quiet, musical and plenty of room for upgradeitis to take hold later....

For an affordable NAS the WD MyBookLive is very underrated.

I've just set one up for a friend and it took about 10 minutes - plus works well with nStream (even though it uses Twonky.)

Thoroughly recommend it for starting off in the world of steaming at a sensible cost.