Checking in....
Posted by: Rob J on 04 November 2015
Hello fellow music lovers!
Have been lurking and browsing the forum for some while now, particularly just recently. After about a year or so of HDX ownership I thought I really should do something positive about setting up a backup structure as, to date, I have nothing in place. Yeah, shameful, I know, and a bit risky. I currently have about 1200 CD's ripped and I really don't want to be doing it all again!
I'm not a tech expert by any means but have spent some hours lately searching and reading many posts about this, and I think I'm clear on how to do this now. There is some great info here if you spend the necessary time time looking for it..... thanks everyone! As a result, A Synology NAS + 2 x 3tb WD reds arrived today, and I should have them network connected soon..... II just need to move the BT phone cabling to suit my chosen location.
I do have a couple of Q's but I'll pose those on a separate topic.
Best - Rob.
The best analogy is to think of an A4 size letter.
The compression / decompression relates to folding the page the letter is written on.
More folds = smaller envelope = more time and processor usage to unfold.
Folded letter fits in smaller envelope (filesize) for posting (transmission).
No data is removed or re-added, the process is a two-way street with no loss.
I currently use a Unitiseve for storage and serving purposes and have been meaning for a while to get a NAS as a storage back up. As the Unitiserve has broken down twice on me I should get on and get a NAS back-up sooner rather than later.
Most of my files on my Unitiseve are WAV and I understand that can be a problem when transferring to a NAS back up device and it is preferable to have all files as FLAC rather than WAV when backing up to a NAS. Is this correct?
I know I can convert all my WAV files to FLAC on my Unitiserve but before I do I wanted to check if it is necessary to do so for the impending NAS backup and whether any resolution is lost from converting to FLAC and then have the Unitiserve transcode to WAV.
Advice politely sought.
If you want a FLAC backup you need FLAC on the Serve. If you backup the WAV files, then convert to FLAC on the Serve, the WAV backup files will be replaced by FLAC when the Serve does its next differential backup.
You don't lose anything in the process; the transcoded FLAC files sound the same as the WAV originals. Once I'd got a FLAC backup, I got shot of the Serve, which seemed to serve no useful purpose. If I buy any CDs these days, I just rip them on my Sony laptop and transfer the files over wireless to the nas.
Rob - I don't mean to hijack your thread but I think we are grappling with the same problem, yours with a HDX, mine with a Unitiserve.
So as I understand it, it is advisable to convert WAV to FLAC on the Unitiseve (or HDX) before backing up to a NAS so that should the Unitiserve (or HDX for that mater) eventually conk out or be sold on then the NAS back up device could be used as a server (with appropriate server software) and the backed up FLAC files will be in an appropriate order (i.e. tracks will be sorted by album rather than a massive alphabetic list of tracks). Some NASs/server software is able to transcode FLAC to WAV during playback also. Is this all correct?
Last question is why do Naim bang on so much about having files in native WAV format if FLAC is smaller, more convenient and Naim servers are perfectly capable of transcoding FLAC to WAV during playback? It seems better to store all files as FLAC and transcode to WAV during playback assuming nothing is lost in the process which seems to be the case reading the above posts.
Yours, (a bit confused) of Chesham
That's about right - I seem to recognise some of the text too. When the Serve was first introduced it would only rip to WAV. In fact, if you set it to rip to FLAC, it still rips to WAV, then converts to FLAC.
Rob - I don't mean to hijack your thread but I think we are grappling with the same problem, yours with a HDX, mine with a Unitiserve.
Yours, (a bit confused) of Chesham
No problem.... and yes, spot on!
There is some excellent comments coming now from the members more experienced than me and much is being learned. I'm finally getting a handle on it now, thanks everyone.
On the basis of all this I think I will be converting my current HDX WAV content to FLAC before I do the first backup, just in case I do change direction at a later date. My current tentative future plan was to maybe change the HDX for and NDX and a userve to do the bit perfect rips. Possibly!
That's about right - I seem to recognise some of the text too. When the Serve was first introduced it would only rip to WAV. In fact, if you set it to rip to FLAC, it still rips to WAV, then converts to FLAC.
I believe you have gone through the process of transferring all your music to a NAS and ditching the Serve. At the end of it did you have to do any tagging work on the backed up FLAC files on the NAS or was all the metadata in order?
Heh! We're thinking alike here Nigel.... that was going to be my question. Also, I was going to ask about the album metadata being in place if I were to backup in FLAC from the HDX and then at a later date use a userve to serve it back from the NAS to an NDX, for example.
Rob,
I tried setting up a backup for my HDX using the manual and it went a bit wrong for me to start with and it wouldn't work. I was pointed towards the knowledge base on the Naim website and this offers a step by step guide to setting up a Synology NAS to use as a a backup and this was a breeze. I would thoroughly recommend you use it to set up your NAS if you haven't done so already, it made things so much easier.
Go to Naim website, click on customer support >> Knowledge Base >> under hard disk players/servers there is a link to setting up a NAS, click on this and it gives three separate links, one of which is for Synology. Download this and follow the instructions. Saved me a lot of stress!
Good luck!
Heh! We're thinking alike here Nigel.... that was going to be my question. Also, I was going to ask about the album metadata being in place if I were to backup in FLAC from the HDX and then at a later date use a userve to serve it back from the NAS to an NDX, for example.
If you are using a Naim server to serve music to a Naim streamer, it doesn't matter if it is WAV or FLAC, it will get the metadata either way. If you use the HDX to convert your WAV files to FLAC, it will tag the files for you.
Thanks for tips Jason, particularly the heads up on the Naim guide. Will definitely download that.
Rob.
Rob,
Just checked the knowledge base again and under "Hard disk players/servers" you want "Setting up a NAS as additional server storage".
Once you have followed and completed this setup, you can refer to the HDX manual and use Naim Desktop Client (DTC) to configure your backups etc.
Found and downloaded, cheers.
No problem, all the best.