Unitiserve SSD

There is a useful, albeit aged, review of NAS drives under FAQ in the "Forums"  section.

I use a netgear Readynas duo with the Unitiserve and it's performance has been faultless.

Gerry 

David, welcome to the Naim forum.

I've moved this to the Streaming Room where you will probably get more responses.

Have fun!

Thank you Gerry. Have now read the FAQ on tested NAS Drives. It's a bit expensive, but then the Unitiserve needs to be complimented with a good NAS doesn't it.

Cheers

David

Thank you Richard...

The Synology DS211 nas boxes seem popular here and that's probably what I will go with to provide a remote share for my UnitiServe.

Another vote for ReadyNas Duo - eighteen months of faultless use here.

Nick

Are you going to connect the US via digital IC into the SuperNait? Why not get a US HDD and a 1TB Wester Digital external USB hard drive and be done with it? Saves you a few hundred EUR on the US and no hastle with the additional NAS and network, etc. Alternatively you might like to check out RipNAS, does the same thing than a US at less than halft the price...

Hi there...Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I will be using a digital coaxial IC from the Unitiserve to the Supernait. I am going to demo the hard drive version Saturday morning. I'll see how quiet it is before I make my final decision. I did have a quick peep at the other make that you mentioned, but will be sticking with the Unitiserve.

Cheers

David

Hi Nick...Thanks for your reply

Is the fan on the Neatgear Readynas reasonably quiet? As I will be keeping in my front room, hooked up to my Bt Infinity router. I am always a bit worried that NAS drives with fans are a tad noisy.

David 

Hi Gerry

I have already asked the question to someone else, but is the fan on your Readnas reasonably quiet? Also, where do you keep it?

Many thanks

David 

Hi David,

I have the Readynas duo's in the study, adjacent to the lounge/listening room. It is very quiet.

Regards

Gerry 

Likewise, the ReadyNAS sits next to my desk in the study.  When I boot it up (though I very rarely turn it off...) the internal fan starts up for about 10secs and then switches off.  After that there is a very faint background... (really can't think of the words) ... soft whirring?? but sitting here now, my PC is MUCH noisier than the NAS. The fan has never cut in after the initial 10secs or so of startup - I really haven't experienced the problems of others who describe that the ReadyNAS fan is unbearable loud.

The initial NAS set up was quite straightforward and the supplied software to configure the backups works really well.

Very pleased with it (and clearly it has been very thoroughly tested by Naim as they developed their streaming products).

Nick

Thank you Nick. One last question, if I may...obviously your Readynas is connected to your router with an Ethernet cable. Is it in a different room to your Unitiserve and DAC/AMP?... Are you connecting your Unitiserve with a long Ethernet cable from the other room?

You can tell can't you...I'm new at all this!

David

Totemphile, do you have such a setup?  I use a usb stick (16gig) and honestly hadn't, for some reason, considered using a portable usb drive plugged into the rear of my uServe.

Bart, no I don't have a US. I didn't mean to suggest that you connect a USB HDD to the US and use it as a NAS. Don't know whether this is possible. The idea was to use an external USB HDD as your back up, i.e. connect it to the US to copy your files over from the US. Once done you simply disconnect it and put it aside. There are HDDs that will only copy what has been added since the last update, rather than copying all the data across every time. You might even have a button on the desk top controller of the US, which allows you to initiate the update from the US to an external HDD of your choice. Not sure though the US offers that functionality. I know RipNAS / Asset NAS offer this from within the operating system (it's based on Windows Home Server).

OK that makes sense to me -- thanks.  I've got a simple solution for my uServe backups; they go straight to my Time Capsule.

I have a UServe with a Readynas Duo for backing up.

The NAS is behind the sofa and I have to say that the fan is audible. I have programmed it to backup at night and power down during the day. It's easy to set up, but you may need to switch off your anti-virus software for a few minutes while the NAS and the set up software find each other.

You will need to connect the UServe and the NAS to your router via ethernet cable.

You can plug USB storage devises into the back of the UServe. I have a 1tb drive for my hi res FLAC files connected this way and it works very well. However, you can't back up the UServe using this method.

Keith

Hi Keith...Thank you for your reply

Yes that's right, you can plug USB drives in to the back of the Userve. However, are they meant to be left plugged in permanently, as opposed to just plugging in to back up? Thought I read that somewhere? Also, does the Userve find and read a USB drive, like it would a NAS. If it does, then perhaps I don't need a NAS?? On that point, I was thinking of getting a cheap NAS to start, (As buying the Userve has skint me out!) Like a 'WD My Book Live'. (No fan) However, Steve Hopkins from Naim said,"Don't get one"!! Reading the spec, it appears to tick all the boxes, any views on that? 

I have this morning just ordered a Userve SSD version.

Many thanks

David

The USB storage devices cannot be used to back up the UServe. You need a NAS to back it up. The USB storage device can be plugged into the UServe to provide extra storage. This is useful as the internal hard disk can only store CD rips so you need a way of accessing downloaded files (in my case, hi res FLAC files). I leave my USB device connected all the time. The n-Stream app gives you the choice of browsing the hard disk, the USB device(s) or both.

I would advise against the WD My Book. In my experience it only allows you to backup the computer you are using to control it. There is no way to back up another device on the network. However, others here may have found a way to do this. The Readynas works very well, but the fan is noisier than the WD.

Keith

Hi David,

Yes, my whole system is wired. The NAS and router both sit in my study and are connected with an ethernet cable.  A further ethernet cable then passes from the router through to the sitting room where my US/DAC/82/250 system is.  (I ground out a small channel in the concrete flooring in hallway for the cable to pass under the wooden flooring - a minor fiddle but once done, it was all sorted and all the cabling is hidden away).

Once you've sorted the NAS (and I found that it was sorting/stabilising the home network that was the main factor - static IP addresses etc) you will hopefully find how reliable, integrated and invisible your music system is.  With my CDs all ripped and instantly accessed on either system, I now listen to music far, far more than previously (and have access to internet radio as well) and have definitely discovered/bought more new music in the last year than ever before.  To be honest, my quest for ultimate hi fidelity is over; the ease of access to my music has revolutionised my listening enjoyment.

(I have to say again that apart from 10 seconds of fan when the NAS is booted up, the fan has NEVER once tripped in when the NAS has been in use over the 18 months I've had it, even when streaming for several hours or doing major backups. If I put my ear near to  the NAS now I can hear a faint whine/whirr - nothing more - my PC constant "whirring" is much louder...)

Nick

Meercat

I also have the SSD version.

I have an iomega single drive NAS connected to the same network as the UnitiServe.

It is silent (except for disk accesses) as it is fanless.

It appears as a server on my network and as such gets backed up along with everything else - being a single disk it is not resilient but even RAID1 NAS boxes need to be backed up in case something gets corrupted.

Andrew

Hi Andrew

Thank you for your reply. I looked at this product (Iomega cloud version) and thought that it looked great. However, when I looked at the reviews, it got absolutely slated. Are we speaking about the same model NAS? Think it costs around £110.

David

David

As a heavy duty NAS for a computer network it is pretty poor - however, if all you want it for is a place to put your .WAV files on for our Unitiserve it is fine -  I have a 1TB version and have approx 800 albums and have used about half the space.

Also, because it is viewed so poorly (for a proper NAS) you can get one at a good price (try the usual places). 

Remember you will want a place to back it up to as it is a single disk with no resilience - however, even if you have a RAID1 (mirrored) array - you still need to back it up as you can still get corruption.  Do not let people confuse you with the "if you use RAID you do not need to back it up" - thats gross stupidity.

Andrew