Unitiserve HDD vs SSD

Define best. Best SQ or best convenience? Well, here's a little story. When the HDX SSD version came out the accepted story went something like that: Since SSD has no moving parts it sounds better. Strangely enough the German importer was of the opinion that the HDD version sounded better, same for the US. Why? Don't know, something to do with the files being accessed directly or the quality of the HDD perhaps? From a concept point of view I never quite understood the idea of an SSD version, without onboard storage, in the first place. Why would you want to faff around with a NAS when all can be stored onboard? Eventually, when prices have come down enough, they might both be fully SSD, allowing for onboard storage. It'll be an easy choice. Until better only trust your own ears. I am willing to bet, you won't hear a difference. So, IMHO it really comes down convenience, more than anything.

Good luck!

Totemphile,

did you have a chance to listen to an Aurender S10?

SSD and HDD onboard, only digi out, ipad app and extrem building quality!

I like this design of this server very much...

Given there are three certainties in life:  death, taxes and every-HDD-will-fail,  would you rather the HDD in your US/HDX fails (so return to Naim for couple of weeks) OR one of the HDDs in your (mirrored) NAS fails (and you simply replace it - down for 10 mins max) ?

Very slight over simplification perhaps, but for me, with 40 years experience of HDD failures, the choice was what you'd call 'a no-brainer'...   I have the SSD version.

...and because there are no moving parts, it happily sits on the 'brain' side of my Fraim.

A fundamental question here is the lize of you muic library !

I have a 1Tb HDX but choose to store ll my music on a NAS, due to size.

Now have over 5000 albums, and hese ould not fit on the HDX.

That being said, if ever you have a network problem, no music to access, whereas the if stored on the HDX, its always there.

Both options are great

Just remember the MTBF on SSD is only just now marginally better than HDD, and so the SSD will fail almost as certain as the HDD will. Kept backups and mirror.

Simon

Apparently, the HDD is outselling the SSD by a considereable margin.

i agree the former makes more sense, especially with the larger partitioned HD (which mine doesn't have, unfortunately).

Keith

We had 3 SSD failures (fitted to 2 PC's) last year, they lasted between 6 weeks and 6 months.  Maybe we were unlucky, touch wood the replacements have been fine.

When they fail they do so wihout warning and the failure is catastrophic.  Often a hard drive can be readable in part so it is possible to recover some data, not so with an SSD.

The performance is spectacular though, and they are completely silent.

Richard

Not an over simplification for me either. Regardless if it I had HDD or SSD, I would keep the music on a NAS. There is no difference in sound quality in my system/room so it removes the possibility of significant inconvenience in the event of disaster recovery. And when it comes to HDDs, a disaster will need to be recovered from at some point. 

As to which player sounds better? No idea. I started out with HDX/HDD and went to HDX/SSD. Can't say I heard a difference.

As to where a US or HDX goes best on a rack, it actually goes better off the rack. I accept that in most cases this is impractical. As a source you would be looking at at putting it on its own dedicated one level rack, as a server it can go anywhere  in the house with a bit of careful positioning and solid support. When Jason came over to rebuild my system the first thing he did was to get the HDX away from it. I posted a thread on this.

Harry,

    Sounds like the HDX is becoming the modern " fruitbox" with its own shelf

Maybe we shoud start a thread to find best HDX shelf system 

If you go for ssd, you have all your music on a nas, and you cannot use it seems the automated backup that the normal disk version has, so you can have one copy of your disks on the internal disk in the unit and a backup on a nas. The Userve with normal disk can be used even if you have network problems or with limitted control even if your network is down. In my view the ssd versions of the servers lack several features that makes the naim servers attractive compared to streamers.

Claus   

Mine's somewhat akin to an audio Swiss Army Knife.

Its situated on an Isoplat, on a 2" solid wood wall mounted shelf, about three feet above the rack., which I am told is a good two feet further than necessary. 

Airborne noise and low levels of EMR over short distances are not going to destroy the sound. But if at all possible they could do with being avoided. Have you seen the size of Jason? he's not to be argued with! And he and Ian from Audience Bath did a superb, careful and considered installation.

No, not had that pleasure ( living in the emerald isle). Mine is sat on the top of the Fraim, and next step to split the fraim in two. All my installs are one by Naim dealer (who also used to be sound engineer on some Naim CD's)

Mine was at the top of the Fraim also. Using a fatter than average Ethernet cable with a longer than average plug dictated that the HDX had to go there to avoid touching the rear central pillar. Bit of a design faux pas that, given the obsession with decoupling. But not to worry.

Agreed, i use cat 6 and its still a struggle.

I have posted before about options for cable management built into fraim

Interesting -  I wasn't aware of that.  Where did the data on this come from?

SSDs do have the advantage of slightly faster data transfer and generally little or no heat generation.  If you go on the various SSD manufacturer sites and into the forums hosted, you will undoubtably notice that not all SSDs are created equal and that system matching (particularly in a laptop) and proper bios  versioning on the motherboard is absolutely necessary to have the SSD work properly.  After a lot of research upgraded my laptop HDD to a larger capacity SSD and it was a huge improvement in speed.  Been running if for over a year now without a hiccup (but doing almost daily backups in any case as I have suffered catastrophic HDD failure in the past).  HDX has a HDD and automatically backed up to NAS and also a complete backup of all music is completed on a portable drive about every month as a final backup.  As with everything digital, backup, backup, backup.

My HDX seems to like its position on the Brain side of my rather large 3 quadraspire rack setup (two 5 shelf racks and one 4 shelf rack to hold all the black boxes).  The 140mm posts seem to give it the isolation it needs from other pieces of gear (it is placed on the shelf below the preamp which is itself below the turntable on the top shelf).  Initially had the HDX on the floor away from the rest and when moved into the rack didn't notice a change in the sound quality.  Maybe I have wool in my ears?

My US 2tb and its power supply just crashed (maybe PS crash led to US crash). I am now waiting for the verdict, but if HD is gone I consider to move to SSD setup with 2x HD on NAS for backup safety.

reading this thread, I have a couple of questions

1) did not know SSDs can fail - what happens and why is it catastrophic - is the music on the HDs lost?

2) whats the best NAS setup for a SSD - 1 NAS w 2 HD, or do you use 2 NAS each w 1 HD?

3) which NAS and HD are best/most silent. I have my backup on a Synology 211j but its noicy.

many thanks,

Lars

Sorry to hear about that. I hope your music can be recovered.

Any disc storage system can fail and will fail at some point. I don't think SSD will be any more reliable in the long term. I've had an external SSD drive fail. But they run quiet and I'm told they generate less electrical and mechanical noise. Also, I don't want my music stored internally because if the component fails (in my case the HDX-SSD) I don't want to have to rely on the dealer or factory to try to rescue my files. 

I use a QNap with four bays containing 2 mirrored disc pairs. When I make a change to my music collection I do an external USB back up and I also have my music backed up on another remote NAS. This is not a big bother for me because I've always been a data backup freak and I backup my music the same way that I've always backed up my critical data.

I don't think any particular NAS is best. I had a ReadyNAS Duo which was very noisy on start up but ran quiet. The box failed and took the HDDs with it so I moved to QNap. This is not so noisy on start up and also runs quiet. The nice thing about a NAS, apart from having more control over data management and storage is that it can be put anywhere in the house that you can run a network cable to.

I wish you well with recovering your US and music collection.

I moved from HDX/HDD (2x500GB at that time) to SSD with the Music files stored on a QNAP NAS because I wanted to have my collection not distributed over several locations (i.e. NAS and local HDX drive). While the NAS is configured in RAID for mechanical failure I perform regular backups on external USB drives which are recognized by the QNAP NAS in conjunction with a pre defined rule for backup Action when plugged in. So it´s just a push button and some minutes later I´ve got the latest Content on this backup drive. So far no issues and I recommend QNAP to everyone who is seeking advice.

BTW with the SSD Version I recognized an unexpected inprovement in Sound Quality - very little but obviously it was enough to be recognized...

I will just add to the backup talk.  Music files on nas, plus usb backup, is great.  Even greater is to have two usb backups, one of which is outside your home.  I keep one in my desk at my office now.  Just an added layer.

At 1000 cd's now, I have no intention of ever reripping.

I FTP to the other NAS, although there is a QNap remote sync facility. I must look into that.

Harry

with two QNAP NAS the functionality 'Remote Replication' seem to offer an elegant way to synchronize two Shares (please note that I do not have any experience with that - just what I understand from the Manual)