Choosing a NAS drive

Posted by: jon_jh on 21 February 2012

I'd really appreciate some wisdom...

 

Until now I've had no incentive to do this, however, for SQ reasons I've started the process of ripping CDs using iTunes onto my Macbook in apple lossless format.

 

IMO, playback from Macbook via MF V-link sounds significantly better than my CD player into the [Cyrus] DAC (both by toslink).

 

Thanks to Naim, my CD collection has doubled in size )  I have about 700 CDs and plan to buy a NAS for music storage and backup of the Macbook too.

 

I'm thinking along the lines of a two bay Synology or QNAP nas (with drives mirrored).

 

I do not plan to use it as a uPnP server, but maybe to store and access '24/192' music in the future.

 

My question is thus - for data storage and retrieval, how important is the specification i.e. RAM, CPU processor speed etc.?  In other words, can I buy a cheaper model and expect the same functionality if the NAS is used in the manner described above?

 

Cheers

 

Jonathan

Posted on: 21 February 2012 by garyi

As with anything pay the most you can afford, cpu and ra. Play a massive difference, and remember yes you might think the nas will just be for music, but once you get the feel of the functionality of these devices you will want to use it for all sorts.

Posted on: 21 February 2012 by PinkHamster

if you really just want to use it for storage and streaming, you will be fine without the highest spec CPU and tons of RAM? Instead you should look for low noise operation, if the device will be locate in or near your lounge. Also get HDDs that are suitable for 24/7 operation.

 

BUT, why don't you want to run the server software on the NAS? This is what really kicks in. No need to have this damned PC on all the time.

Then, of course, you should get a faster CPU and some additional RAM. But the regular QNAP NAS models are suffiviently equipped for this purpose anyway.

Posted on: 22 February 2012 by jon_jh

Thanks for the above.  

 

Contemplating a Synology DS212 or DS212+

 

No plans for a streaming yet, but maybe buying a mac mini would avoid the intrusive always on PC.

 

What I'm doing so far with the Macbook is good because I've not forked out any additional money...yet.

 

In the meantime I'll start saving for nDAC/XPS or NDS

Posted on: 22 February 2012 by Zinger
Jonathan, You should run a search on comparison between QNAP and Synology on Google and on this forum. There are quite a number of posts regarding that. For me, after running a few searches and speaking to a few friends, my conclusion is that it doesn't really matter for less tech-savvy guys like me. At the end, I chose QNAP TS412 because QNAPs look better to me Either case, I actually bought the NAS so It can run on its own without a computer down the road for an NDX. Last but not least, you might as well throw everything into the NAS for storage. Nice to have redundancy on all your data. I just use RAID5, so I get about 2.75 harddrives' usable space when I have 4 drives
Posted on: 22 February 2012 by Foot tapper

Hi Jon

Before you definitely decide on a QNAP or Synology NAS, if all you want is to store & stream music, why not just buy a Vortexbox and have done with it?  It will be cheaper & easier, especially after you start buying 2 high speed, high quality disk drives.

 

The Main reason that I went down the NAS route was because I want to:

  1. Send music to both Naim and Apple devices
  2. Let my wife send a gazillion (that's quite a lot) photos to any room in the house that she chooses
  3. Let my son send DVD movies around the house, smoothly

Then the choice came down to QNAP versus Synology.  I have posted elsewhere on this forum my reasons for going with Synology over QNAP, though both are reputedly excellent.

 

My 212+ is very quiet indeed, even when the fan is running.  It also (via its Discstation software) can act as uPNP server and/or itunes server.  I have saved the music (just the once) in AIFF format and both the itunes and uPNP servers see it fine.

 

Why didn't I buy the 212 instead?  A combination of blind faith that more RAM and a faster CPU must be good things + I could afford the £50-70 difference in price.

 

Do you need a mac mini?  Not really.  There are other options.  Using the NAS drive's uPNP server, you can stream directly to a Naim streamer.  Alternatively, you could use a dedicated media pc running windows home server (a cheaper solution than the mac mini).  I chose to go the mac mini - wireworld supernova 6 - ndac route for the main system, but recognise that the other methods are perfectly valid.

 

Hope this helps, FT

 

Posted on: 24 February 2012 by jon_jh
Thanks again. FT - given that I've no imminent plans for UPnP streaming, do you know whether Votexbox can be used for local playback? i.e. connected directly to a DAC via a USB/spdif converter. The great thing with apple/iTunes is that just works and the Remote app is quite nice too. Jonathan
Posted on: 24 February 2012 by Guido Fawkes

Vortexbox can be connected directly to USB DAC and I have had it working through the MF V-Link. I don't like the idea of noisy USB connection from computer to DAC though, but some products overcome the noise problems. Naim to choose not to offer this though preferring optical S/PDIF in its white paper, which I found gives the best sound for direct connection (n.b: personal opinion). A discrete USB/S-PDIF convertor such as V-Link/hiFace/INT202 eliminate the noise (I couldn't hear any worthwhile difference between those three and they all work - I have only tried V-Link with Vortexbox).  

 

Google Simple Design Sonore to see what can be done, and MPoD and MPaD might be interesting too. There is a list of supported devices somewhere, but not sure of the URL. 

 

Personally, I use a Mac Mini rather than Vortexbox for direct connection to a Naim DAC. I use a Vortexbox with my Naim UQ. They act as back-ups of each other. So if one failed then I could restore the music from the other. I also have an off-site backup of my digital juke boxes. 


The VB just works for streaming UPnP to Naim, but it was a bit of messing about to get the USB working. It didn't just plug in and work like a Mac. 


Vortexbox is a Linux computer so it can do most things you can do on other computers with the right hardware and configuration.