This pesky unitiserve...

Posted by: gmischol on 21 December 2015

Yes, it can be a pain.....

Several times in the last month my unitiserve did not start up correctly, meaning the logo is flashing constantly and after some time there is a chirping noise. Touching the Naim logo did not change anything so I finally decided to turn it of. This time it ended not so good: a lot of empty folders of artists or albums in the MQ folder, scattered files all over the download folder, where I had a logical structure.

After hours of comparing files and folders on the Unitiserve and several backups I was able to reconstruct nearly all of the ripped albums on an external HD on my Mac. The download folder with all the downloaded music is easy to restore, but for the MQ folder it seems to be more complicated. I would like to start from scratch, meaning, delete all the music in the MQ folder and then copy back the restored music on my hard disk to the unitiserve. Just drag an drop doesn't apparently work.

Any help is appreciated

And do I have my Unitiserve be checked because of those problems when starting up?

Posted on: 21 December 2015 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

Are you using the Naim power supply?

Posted on: 21 December 2015 by gmischol

Yes I do. Is this a reason for not starting up correctly?

Posted on: 21 December 2015 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

There have been reports on here of faulty power supplies (and I had one). In this case, the US stutters when trying to start up. Your dealer should be able to replace the power supply, then see if that is the only problem. Hopefully.

Posted on: 21 December 2015 by hungryhalibut

You can't copy things to the MQ folder, as it's got some sort of protection. You'll need to get Naim to dial in and do it.

My suggestion is to get the serve fixed by Naim and sell it. They are a pain in the backside and you can get the same or better sound from a £400 NAS. That's what I found at any rate.

Posted on: 21 December 2015 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

... except that you can't feed a DAC directly from a NAS.

Posted on: 21 December 2015 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

... while you can from a US, which is how gmischol appears to be using his US to feed a Weiss DAC.

Interestingly, Weiss has just announced a network card upgrade for their DACs that adds UPnP / DLNA rendering. Which opens up the path to HH's suggestion.

Posted on: 21 December 2015 by Adam Zielinski

Perhaps consider setting up a NAS and keep your files there? UnitiServe (with a built in drive) has an ability to rip and play back the music to / from an external storage (e.g. NAS).

Posted on: 22 December 2015 by nudgerwilliams

To the OP, why do you switch the US off? They are designed to be kept powered up, and I suspect are more reliable if used like that.