USB-3 HD in ND5 XS Front Port

Did you read your manual?

USB memory hardware must be in Windows/DOS format (FAT/FAT32) to be used with the NDX/5XS. Macintosh formats are not compatible.

Selecting a folder will display the list of files contained within and selecting a single file will begin playback. Playback will continue through any list of files contained within a folder. The order of play can be shuffled (randomised) by pressing the handset shuffle ( ) key.

No, I didn't read the manual as I didn't have it to hand, but I did search these forums and got a number of semi-conflicting hits.

Anyway, thanks for the clarification.

I did a quick test with an MBR partitioned usb stick formatted FAT16 and managed to play flac, mp3 and wav files from my ND5 XS front port.

It's a little disappointing that linux and mac filesystems are not supported and we only have the choice of a legacy windows format.

Hopefully future firmware updates could support linux and mac.

The USB input is really only intended for iPods/iPhones, and USB sticks. They may work with a USB hard drive too, and there's no harm in trying, but it's not something that Naim 'support'. Make sure it's formatted in FAT32. An externally powered drive is probably best, an the streamer input may struggle to supply power to a hungry spinning drive

It's the "make sure it's formatted in FAT anything" I have something of an issue with

First of all, why only windows and even then the days when FAT was any kind of a preferred filesystem are long gone...

Incidentally, as you have a NAS, can you play from that using UPnP, which is what Naim streamers were designed to do?

Of course,  but I was thinking to take my music with me on a trip and plug it into another (possibly naim) device where I won't have a NAS handy...

Fair enough. The safest bet would be to use an iPod/iPhone, which is what the USB port was really put there for - I guess that was all the rage at the time when Naim were first designing their streamers, and that's why they added it.

FAT is simple and has a public licence.

NTFS isn't and doesn't
Mac formats aren't and don't
ExFAT is simple but the licence isn't public
EXT3 & EXT4 aren't common in removable drives

Really?

I would imagine that ext2, ext3 or ext4 is used with 99% of removable drives with linux...

Precisely, Linux and only Linux; and how much of the installed consumer user base actually is Linux?
(Commercial web-servers rarely have external drives attached!)

ChrisSU posted:

The USB input is really only intended for iPods/iPhones, and USB sticks. They may work with a USB hard drive too, and there's no harm in trying, but it's not something that Naim 'support'. Make sure it's formatted in FAT32. An externally powered drive is probably best, an the streamer input may struggle to supply power to a hungry spinning drive

I use an external SSD drive with my NDX / ND5 without any problem.

Huge posted:

Precisely, Linux and only Linux; and how much of the installed consumer user base actually is Linux?
(Commercial web-servers rarely have external drives attached!)

What I was looking for was a bit of choice, i.e. filesystems for linux, mac and windows users.

As an example, the underlying software in my NAS is linux, yet it allows users to create shares and make backups in several non-linux filesystems.

Juanito, there are different purposes in use here.

The NAS drive is a data device, its software design is optimised for handling data and integrating into many systems.

The Streamer is a music device, its software design is optimised for playing music, it only has just enough data handling software to enable it to play music.  Any more than the minimum would mean diverting development resources (and possibly also hardware resources while playing music) from the music side of the software to the data handling side, and hence could have a negative impact on the quality of the music replay.

I understand that may be seen as frustrating, but as an ex professional software systems designer, I can assure you FAT only support is the right design choice for these products.

I disagree - of course it depends on the underlying software used on Naim streamers, but the addition of ext2/3/4 functionality could easily be a trivial change with little or no overhead.

I don't know enough about mac filesystems licensing, etc to comment on that.

Hi Juanito.  This is my area of expertise, I really do understand the issues at stake; Naim made the right call.

We're going to have to agree to disagree

The main point of the thread was to learn what is supported in terms of playing music from a usb device plugged into the front usb port.

Having learnt that only FAT filesystems are supported, I humbly suggest that the addition of linux ext2/3/4 support is considered for a future software update (and why not something for mac users as well).