Uniti Core Harddisk

Lukas, I think that there are certain drives that seem to have some sort of compatibility issue with the Core.  I believe Naim are looking into this and working on trying to improve, but it's usually best stick with drives recommended by Naim or known to work well with the Core.

Richard is right but actually the Seagate Barracuda drives should work fine in the Core and indeed I used to use a 2TB version of that in my Core with no problem.

As he says Naim are currently looking at formatting issues with some HDDs and although as a beta tester I'm not allowed to comment on what we are doing, now you have bought it, I think it would be worth you waiting a while to see whether or not the next Core firmware update fixes the issue for you.

The advice on which HDD to use with Core is very buried in the Naim website. Even though I knew where it was it still took me 5 mins to find it just now (and the recommended SSD is obsolete incidentally but Naim support have said on the forum recently that the EVO 860 is a fine replacement for the recommended but no longer current EVO 850 SSD.)

best

David

Lucas,

i have been using a seagate barracuda drive in my core for last year with no issues and that is a 10Tb unit.

i thought my unit was a 3.5 inch size though and you mention a 2.5 inch, which I thought was the size an external USB drives.

maybe I am wrong but are you putting the seagate drive into the caddy or are you connecting via USB?

Thank you everybody for your support and valuable information!

When I bought the Drive I was aware it's not listed as "officially recommended" but the little rebel inside me thought i'll buy it anyway ;-)

I clearly see the point for using "24/7" Disks with enforced Data Security measures but I rather prefer to have a small low power drive running cool. (Heat is supposed to be on top list of disk drive killer factors).

The Core will also be shut down and restarted once and then which will clear the Disks's caches and registers. This should ensure coming close to the designed use case of this drive and hopefully last for anything close to the rated MTBF

@CBR600: It's a Drive with proper SATA interface. It fits onto the mounting position of the SSD on the Core's Bay Tray

[@mention:46478588067265635]: I was hoping for this answer and i'm looking forward ;-)

Thank you everybody and enjoy the evening

Lukas, Lucky L. posted:

Hello Community

I recently purchased a brand new Uniti Core and I'm very happy with it! Excellent piece of Kit. Far, Far better than the Uniti Serve.

Outstanding design. Love it

But I have one problem: It will not format a brand new ST5000LM000 Harddrive.

This is a very silent and low power consuming 2.5 inch Drive with 5 TB, it runs at 5400 rpm.

It will not ask me about the File format but only if WAV or FLAC. I would like to use WAV.

It starts formatting but gets stuck at 62% then the core suddenly makes a reboot. I tried several times. Maximum was 68%. The Drive works when used with a Caddy on a Win10 machine.

Why would this HDD not work with the Core? Would I need to have it pre-formatted on a Windows machine?

I have no problem with different USB Drives / Sticks / NAS. Everything works flawless.

I would like to keep the nice little Barracuda HDD. Otherwise I would stick with the NAS and go for a SSD once the prices drop for 4-5 TB Models.

Thanks in advance for any hints and have a very nice Day

 

Sorry to hear about the disk issues but keen to inderstand whats behind your observation thst the Core is “far better “ than the UnitiServe ? 

Hello Terry

Grab one and you will see :-)

There are many changes making it far better. It's in a different league:

i.e.:

-No Microsoft OS: It boots in seconds

-No external Brick Power Supply. But a dead silent (!!) Toroid inside! (I generally hate brick power supplies in audio systems)

-Operating System is on board, attached storage devices now only hold music

-Ability to change storage Devices

-Rip monitor with error indication

-Wired FW Updates are possible (CDROM IS DEAD. Finally)

-insert your observations here

Only fact which i rate as a personal downside is naim decided to remove the ability to browse and play Internet radio from the Uniti Core's feature list.

For my setup this is challenging, as I use the nDAC connected through coaxial SPDIF obviously. This means I would have to get a naim Streamer for the naim Webradio experience.

(I only accept naim sources in my system because these and only these are able to play MUSIC) 

But this would mean I had one redundant DAC section in my system. I hate redundant sections.

My favourite would be the NDX2. Look at these Circuits! A dream. ...And there is no PSU upgrade path, which gives it a complete and finished appearance, for my liking.

For me the most important fact about the NDX2 will be it's "Upgrade Path".

Not sure the nDAC will be in there...

(PS: I would purchase the WebRadio App in the CoreStore ;-)

Sorry to disappoint you but the NDX2 does have a power supply upgrade path. It's got a Burndy socket on the back and you can use an XPS or 555PS power supply if you want, or it's internal supply.

The ND5 XS2 doesn't have a power supply upgrade path though...

best

David

Hi Lucas, are you saying that you're going to turn the Core off between use, or have I misunderstood you? After all it's a Nas and designed for 24/7 use, turning off the HDD after a set period of time when not in use. Also it looks up missing cover art etc at odd times and not always when you're using it for music. Personally I would not entertain using a non Nas specified HDD, my collection deserves the best storage. It's also important to keep regular backups as even the best drives, HDD or SSD can pack up unexpectedly. I agree with you that it's a smashing piece of kit, I don't miss my old cd player at all! Rich 

Rich 1 posted:

Hi Lucas, are you saying that you're going to turn the Core off between use, or have I misunderstood you? After all it's a Nas and designed for 24/7 use, turning off the HDD after a set period of time when not in use. Also it looks up missing cover art etc at odd times and not always when you're using it for music. Personally I would not entertain using a non Nas specified HDD, my collection deserves the best storage. It's also important to keep regular backups as even the best drives, HDD or SSD can pack up unexpectedly. I agree with you that it's a smashing piece of kit, I don't miss my old cd player at all! Rich 

Unless Naim have changed it recently, the HDD is on and spinning 24/7 unless you put the Core into deep sleep. I can't check as I'm using an SSD now , mainly because of the 24/7 spinning.

best

David

Lukas 

I have been a UnitiServe user since 2010 and all of your observations resonate.

However, I do think its interesting that the one thing you don't comment on is SQ?

Frankly , I can live with all the things you flag  I have for 8 years!) if the SQ is the same , not least because I listen to Vinyl quite a lot and I am also a fan of Roon - although the UnitiServe still sounds better 

@DAVID HENDON: Indeed I use the Deep Sleep Mode frequently. Therefore I do not see the need for a 24/7 NAS HDD as my use case meets the barracuda specs. Furthermore I have a backup and I honestly never had to deal with a dead HDD in my life except several DTLA series IBM HDDs in early 00's (what marked the end of the IBM branded HDD division...)

..But I saw dead early SSDs, many dead NAS HDD's due to heat damage (running constantly at >40°C)

[@mention:56898347763987408]: Sound Quality. I'm a well educated naimist, therefore I made some hypothesis before buying the Core:

Let me introduce some Naim Rules:

Naim Rule A:   A heavy naim sounds better than a skinny naim

Naim Rule B:   Less Power used in digital section -> Better sound

Naim Rule C:   Less Logic jizzle -> better sound

Naim Rule D:   The simpler approach -> better sound

Naim Rule E:   Expensive Naim -> better Naim

Naim Rule F:   Brushed Aluminium Case -> better Naim

Naim Rule G:   A front panel Power button declasses a peasant rear panel switch

This applied to the Core:

A fullfilled by Core:   Much heavier than the UServe

B fullfilled by Core:   No hot running x86 Motherboard with disabled legacy jizzle chips (VGA / Composite / Modem / Sounchip / Firewire / IDE / PLL IC / RTC / BIOS / UART / you name it)

C fullfilled by Core:   No PCI channeling for sound controlled by Windows. UServe used a naim designed "PCI Soundcard" connected to the TOSLink / Coaxial Balun through ribbon cables

D fullfilled by Core:  No fancy Touch Logo (which everybody forgot). Old school Toroid inside. No Display output. No Keyboard support. No CD Play mode. No Toslink.

E fullfilled by Core:  With HDD / SSD it's more expensive isn't it?

F fullfilled by Core:  Core looks and feels like a brushed, unshaved brutal masculine muscle vault

G fullfilled by Core:  Core has a back light Front Power Button. Any questions?

I played with a few different HDDs, brand & size, in my first few days with the Core.   Format errors, I found, were virtually linked with the selection of “using wave format for ripping”.   Changing it to “flac” helps solve the format issue most of the time.

We can select “wave” or “flac” at any time in the future before ripping CD afterall.

Changing it to flac and then formatting again but selecting WAV this time worked for me on a couple of occasions.

But can you change whether it rips to flac or wav once the formatting has been done and on a rip by rip basis? I've never seen that option.

best

David

I compared the core to the unitiserve (using supplied brick ps and also Israeli company ps). I found the core sounded a fair bit better.

tmtsui posted:

I played with a few different HDDs, brand & size, in my first few days with the Core.   Format errors, I found, were virtually linked with the selection of “using wave format for ripping”.   Changing it to “flac” helps solve the format issue most of the time.

We can select “wave” or “flac” at any time in the future before ripping CD afterall.

Yes, it is under Ripping Setting, which allows you to choose from "wav" or "flac"

I tried ripping CDs into wav and flac using this option.

Well I never noticed that before! I wonder whether it was there from the beginning or got added in one of the firmware updates along the way.

best

David

David Hendon posted:

Well I never noticed that before! I wonder whether it was there from the beginning or got added in one of the firmware updates along the way.

best

David

David, this option has been has been available from the start.

I had one problem with a HDD. I just connected it to a SATA-to-USB thingy and formatted the HDD then via the back panel USB.

No more stuck at 62%. :-D

Unfortunately this didn't work with my particular Drive.

Dear naim, can we expect the update before the year ends?

David Hendon mentioned it is in Beta test

Honestly I have to say I was hoping to receive more updates than only one per year.

Totally agreed.   With all the glitches and bugs reported, update once per year is far slower than accepted.  

Still not working with the latest "release". I still feel being left out in the rain with this product. The experience from the Core is still that of an unfinished product. FW Update rate is poorest ever i have experienced from a so called "high end" product.

Stuff that should work doesn't (renaming metadata is only faked) aligning a custom cover picture taken with the iphone camera is a thing of luck to have it properly aligned, obvioulsy good functionality from UServe have been dropped for whatever reason (WEBRADIO, WEB-GUI) basic functions missing: played track history. Why would it have to scan and load all cover images every time freshly when booted? It's 10 meg maximum, please keep them in cache or somewhere else readily available, both in controlling device and core please. It does sometimes double-reboots out from nowhere. Why can I not customize icons on the home screen? Why hide "favourite albums" in the menue-tree?

Naim, you are bout to loose a 10 year customer... humming transformers, fascia colour and texture matching issues, logo bleeding, logo illumination not harmonized, bad construction with high tolerance, hissing preamplifiers, outdated circuit designs which change sounding and stage/depth when a power supply is improved by some millivolt ripple. And there are still random holes in the bottom of a 10 grand power supply...

Last thing I'm left over from my mature naim system is the nDAC and the core. Everything else had to go for said reasons and they will most likely not be replaced.

I was really disappointed.  So I sold my Uniti Core.