Uniti streamer wiring

Hi Nicola,

Emphasis on the direct connection of a hard drive to a streamer/player is a bit off-target, as streamer/players really are designed first and foremost to be at the end of a network.  You're asking for functionality that is "besides the point" with respect to a network player.

There are better options if you are not keen on the home music network implementation.  Or at least more satisfying options.  Again, much emphasis on the design of a network player will go into the network player functions.

Linksys make a really good Wireless bridge, http://www.linksys.com/en-apac...ucts/bridges/WUMC710

I have had really good results with this when paired with the ea6500ac router, with an ND5 plugged into the bridge. This router has a dlna server built in, which supports an external drive plugged in via usb. I have not used this, as when i configured this it was used with a Serve. It might be worth doing some reading into how good the dlna server is.

Nicola, as to a wi fi network connection to a nas running a UPnP server, that in theory should work.  But in practice, not everyone gets good enough results depending on the particular wi fi router, interference in the home and from neighbors, etc.  And for high res files, wi fi can be much more prone to fail.

The Apple products do wi fi quite well (Airport Extreme broadcasting to an Airport Express).  It is certainly worth trying!

I also used a Buffalo wireless bridge for three years without issues. It was one more thing to reset and wait for if I needed to restart the network but it proved reliable and never caused errors or issues with HDX/NAS. I have more recently laid wires because so much stuff can be network connected nowadays and I wanted a WiFi repeater in the lounge. It hasn't made any difference to the operation of the HiFI system but it has been generally much more convenient. 

I think I don't quite understand your #2 -- do you propose to have the nas and the Uniti both hard-wired to an Airport Express (you'll need a switch -- the AE only has one ethernet port, correct?), which then connects wirelessly to the rest of your home network?  That should work; worth a try definitely.  It was not a choice I made, as I wanted all of the 'computer hardware' out of the listening room, and I opted to pay someone to run ethernet cables in my walls.

Exactly: the AE has 3 LAN Gigabit ports and I could connect a Uniti streamer and a small fanless NAS server (for instance a Mint Box 2 with SSD drive) to two of them.

This should work fine, I guess. But the really interesting question is whether a Naim Streamer would be able to see an SSD USB drive directly attached to the AE (or to a WUMC710 media connector). This would be the simplest and most elegant solution but I'm afraid it does not work.

I have a very similar set-up to your proposed option 2, in that I have a Uniti2 and a Synology NAS directly wired using Cat 5e to 2 of the 4 ethernet ports of a Netgear wireless extension point. This in turn is connected via wireless, and thus to the web, to my router/modem. This allows me to stream to the Uniti from the NAS, control the Uniti using n-Stream on an iPad and get iRadio.

Initially, I had the Uniti and the NAS directly connected to an unmanaged switch - this allowed for streaming but no control via n-Stream or any iRadio.

I have tried to use the front panel USB to stream from a 1TB USB hard drive but this simply did not work (I don't think Naim expect it to, either!). I have used a large-ish (32 GB) USB pen drive - this works fine.

Regards,

Vlad

Thanks Vlad, good to know that option 2 does works ! It is sub-optimal but still quite acceptable.

I have tested a 256 GB SSD drive (Samsung 840 Pro, I think) on the front USB port of a Super Uniti and that worked fine. But 1TB HDD might require too much current. Best, Nicola
 

Glad to be of some help.

Happy listening,

Vlad