Digital Audio Storage Options?

[B&W Driver]

Although a friend of mine employs a Synology NAS to store and and backup his digital audio collection, via a RAID configuration, I've recently been told that the expense of an NAS may be unnecessary for our needs. Instead, I've been advised that a large external USB storage device, like a WD EasyStore USB portable hard drive, will do a good job.

To clarify, we've been ripping the CDs and SACDs in our collection and have been employing our Oppo 105 as a DAC. Specifically, I've been told that we can connect an external drive, like the one I mentioned in the previous paragraph, to the Oppo via one of its USB 2.0 ports to access our audio files. If anyone has gone about storing and accessing their audio files in this manner, I'd love to get your thoughts on how well it worked/works for you. We're also thinking about storing video files, in the future, so your thoughts on that would also be appreciated.

 

[jupp369]

Although a friend of mine employs a Synology NAS to store and and backup his digital audio collection, via a RAID configuration,

why do you not use a media player? with internal and external hard disc? connected to TV and radio you don't have to get up from bed while watching and listening.
Make your own playlists of audio and videos for your next party.
media players are small and cheap, use of 2TB harddiscs is optimal, because every PC can read it. And forget streaming and peer to peer options, 'cause you might get dropouts.
Same with a NAS, running over network cable instead a direct connected HDMI. Problem with RAID: an error in 1 file will be copied to all.
But don't forget to make backups!
Now I have 3 x 2TB, x2 for the backup, filled with audio, music videos and long videos.

 

[winopener]

Placing media on a NAS make sense in order to access them from various home location; if you play music only on one place/set, it has no advantage.
The most important thing on both solution is: backup, backup, backup.

 

[sbrom]

Your Oppo can definitely play files from an attached USB drive. My experience: it works, but the Oppo user interface to access and play music is very primitive. One advantage is that gapless playback works, which is more difficult with NAS devices.

 

[GOS]

I have a NAS system with my files, and I do like it. Though, for the most part, I only access those files on my main system....so in theory, the NAS is overkill. I also have an external 10TB USB storage device that I use as a backup. Just for fun, I connected it to my Oppo directly and obviously it works too.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

One advantage is that gapless playback works, which is more difficult with NAS devices.

Are you saying that NAS using an Oppo to decode is more difficult, or in general gapless from NAS is more difficult? If you meant the latter, I disagree. The gapless capability is media player dependent, regardless of how the files are stored.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Although a friend of mine employs a Synology NAS to store and and backup his digital audio collection, via a RAID configuration, I've recently been told that the expense of an NAS may be unnecessary for our needs. Instead, I've been advised that a large external USB storage device, like a WD EasyStore USB portable hard drive, will do a good job.

On my system I use a NAS. My son uses an external drive. We both use Kodi on dedicated media PCs. Both work fine.

What winoper said is very true. Backup is a requirement. So if you are planning on 5TB of storage using portable drives, you will need two such drives that mirror each other. Ideally, you would keep the backup copy in a different location. And if you want to access the files from more than one location, the NAS makes more sense. In my case, I access stereo tracks for my bedroom system and stereo + MC tracks for my main system. Both use the same NAS. I can even set the NAS up as an online server and access music from anything that has an internet connection, like a phone or a PC at work.

Also the comments regarding the interface need to be considered. Using a dedicated media player like Kodi, JRiver, Foobar, Musicbee, etc makes the whole experience much nicer. Searching through my 8TB of music files and 5TB of video files using the internal Oppo interface is not something I would ever consider, though some don't see it as an issue. Kodi gives nearly instant access to any title and provides onscreen lyrics along with album art, artist fanart, biographies, visualizations, etc. It's a very nice presentation that goes far beyond a scrolling list of titles.

Lastly, if video collections are on the horizon for you, that will up your storage requirements considerably. Can you provide an estimate of the size of the library? That is probably the largest determinant in deciding what direction to go. Don't let the cost of a NAS be the only deciding factor. If you already have a network in your house The NAS really is not cost prohibitive. There are also some routers that are outfitted with USB ports that allow you to plug in a portable drive and get most of the benefits of a NAS.

 

[B&W Driver]

Placing media on a NAS make sense in order to access them from various home location; if you play music only on one place/set, it has no advantage.
The most important thing on both solution is: backup, backup, backup.

Yes, the backup aspect of the NAS is clearly a big advantage. Going all the way back to the 8086 days...over all of those years...I've yet to set up anything as sophisticated as a RAID backup scheme. Perhaps that's reason enough to save up for an NAS, aye? We have (2) identical Samsung 2TB EVO 860 SSDs that we have paid for, so we're already part of the way there, hmmmm...

 

[B&W Driver]

Your Oppo can definitely play files from an attached USB drive. My experience: it works, but the Oppo user interface to access and play music is very primitive. One advantage is that gapless playback works, which is more difficult with NAS devices.

I've got an inkling of what you mean by "gapless playback," but I'm not really clear about how it comes into play via our Oppo 105D. Are you saying that you can [somehow] play a list of songs -- employing the Oppo audio playback interface -- and not experience an annoying break in the music? If one were to play Led Zeppelin II, for example, can you set up the Oppo interface so that there's no break in between "Heartbreaker" and "Livin' Lovin' Maid"...in other words, LP style?

My apologies if these questions seems a bit daft, but we're very old school stereo listeners who are only now moving toward MC and digital, in general.

 

[B&W Driver]

I have a NAS system with my files, and I do like it. Though, for the most part, I only access those files on my main system....so in theory, the NAS is overkill. I also have an external 10TB USB storage device that I use as a backup. Just for fun, I connected it to my Oppo directly and obviously it works too.

Would you mind elaborating on what you have for an NAS, GOS? I see that you've been honest about how it may be a bit of "overkill," but do you like it because of the backup advantages? By the way, love your young JM Osbourne avatar photo.

 

[B&W Driver]

On my system I use a NAS. My son uses an external drive. We both use Kodi on dedicated media PCs. Both work fine.

What winoper said is very true. Backup is a requirement. So if you are planning on 5TB of storage using portable drives, you will need two such drives that mirror each other. Ideally, you would keep the backup copy in a different location. And if you want to access the files from more than one location, the NAS makes more sense. In my case, I access stereo tracks for my bedroom system and stereo + MC tracks for my main system. Both use the same NAS. I can even set the NAS up as an online server and access music from anything that has an internet connection, like a phone or a PC at work.

Also the comments regarding the interface need to be considered. Using a dedicated media player like Kodi, JRiver, Foobar, Musicbee, etc makes the whole experience much nicer. Searching through my 8TB of music files and 5TB of video files using the internal Oppo interface is not something I would ever consider, though some don't see it as an issue. Kodi gives nearly instant access to any title and provides onscreen lyrics along with album art, artist fanart, biographies, visualizations, etc. It's a very nice presentation that goes far beyond a scrolling list of titles.

Lastly, if video collections are on the horizon for you, that will up your storage requirements considerably. Can you provide an estimate of the size of the library? That is probably the largest determinant in deciding what direction to go. Don't let the cost of a NAS be the only deciding factor. If you already have a network in your house The NAS really is not cost prohibitive. There are also some routers that are outfitted with USB ports that allow you to plug in a portable drive and get most of the benefits of a NAS.

Okay, so here are the gory details...we live in a mountain environment, so we don't have access to true "high speed" internet. In fact, we use hotspots for web access, which has it disadvantages...especially when it comes to data limits. We do have our own little internal LAN setup here, however, but I'll probably get into that later in this response. It may also be with noting that we've been Mac OS X people for more than 10 years now.

As digital [entertainment] beginners, I have to ask you to elaborate on what "...in a different location" means, LuvMyQuad? If we end up employing an NAS to take advantage of the obvious backup benefits, like RAID mirroring, how does location come into play?

Once again, rookie here...I assume that Kodi is web-dependent, so our lack of an internet connection would also mean that we're limited to certain media player interfaces, correct? I mentioned earlier that we have an internal LAN, so we're presently experimenting with JRiver MC28 for Mac (on a trial basis). Although I've only touched the tip of the proverbial "iceberg," when it comes to MC28, I can definitely see that its pretty "packed" with features...so you may have a great point here about the value of a better interface...but Kodi is a mystery to me.

Well, your words about the future video requirements are definitely giving me pause...I honestly don't know how many redbook stereo CDs we have in our collection, but we've been adding some SACDs (both stereo and MC), DVD-As and BD-As for the past couple of years, so I'd say that we should be over 1K albums now. As for the video side, we have well over 800 DVD titles and probably 200 BD titles at this point. We have less than a dozen 4K UHD titles, which I assume must take up a massive amount of storage space. It's not a huge collection of physical disc media, but it's not exactly tiny, either.

 

[GOS]

Would you mind elaborating on what you have for an NAS, GOS? I see that you've been honest about how it may be a bit of "overkill," but do you like it because of the backup advantages? By the way, love your young JM Osbourne avatar photo.

Oh sure, I have a Synology DS918 4 bay. I say overkill, because I don't do movies or video, etc. Just music. So, as a result, I have tons of space. I currently have 16tb of space. Also, overkill, in that the price of the NAS and their drives isn't exactly cheap. No, not a ton of money, I realize others have likely thousands wrapped up in their NAS equipment.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Yes, the backup aspect of the NAS is clearly a big advantage. Going all the way back to the 8086 days...over all of those years...I've yet to set up anything as sophisticated as a RAID backup scheme.

Though this has been said many times, many ways...................................
NAS (even with RAID) is not a backup scheme. It is a way to make sure that, with minor hardware failures, the system remains on-line and recoverable. If the failure is more than minor, e.g., more than one drive in a RAID5 setup, it is a failure. If the failure is a virus, it is a failure. The only real back-up is a physically separate copy of the NAS content, preferably in a remote location.

 

[DuncanS]

Like GOS I have Synology NAS drives all set-up as RAID 1, one 4-bay 20TB (4x 10TB HDD), one 2-bay 4TB (so 2x4TB HDD), and an old 2-bay Zyxel 1TB (so 2x 1TB), and loads and loads of space as I have only ripped a small number of discs (slap own wrist!). Having multiple NAS with the same data means its backed up, backing up to the Cloud is possible, but slow and expensive here in the UK well in my bit. The other route is to mirror to another NAS physical location elsewhere i.e. LuvMyQuad's meaning, so you're protected from floods, fire etc. I still back up to a USB HDD.

SSDs are nice and fast, generally reliable, until they go wrong, if its sectors you'll just lose the data in that sector, if an interface on the FLASH chips fail you'll never be able to recover what was stored on the chip. With an HDD you can often recover by sending off the disc, but at a price! So back up the back up.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Okay, so here are the gory details...we live in a mountain environment, so we don't have access to true "high speed" internet. In fact, we use hotspots for web access, which has it disadvantages...especially when it comes to data limits. We do have our own little internal LAN setup here, however, but I'll probably get into that later in this response. It may also be with noting that we've been Mac OS X people for more than 10 years now.

As digital [entertainment] beginners, I have to ask you to elaborate on what "...in a different location" means, LuvMyQuad? If we end up employing an NAS to take advantage of the obvious backup benefits, like RAID mirroring, how does location come into play?

in your case, being without any internet access, a differet location would be anywhere you can access your LAN, by either using ethernet or Wifi. Bedroom system, garage, patio, phone, etc. For any location like this you will need some type of renderer... like a mini PC, a laptop, a firestick, Of course any modern cell plone already has this.

Once again, rookie here...I assume that Kodi is web-dependent, so our lack of an internet connection would also mean that we're limited to certain media player interfaces, correct? I mentioned earlier that we have an internal LAN, so we're presently experimenting with JRiver MC28 for Mac (on a trial basis). Although I've only touched the tip of the proverbial "iceberg," when it comes to MC28, I can definitely see that its pretty "packed" with features...so you may have a great point here about the value of a better interface...but Kodi is a mystery to me.
Kodi is not web dependant. You would need web access to have it fetch lyrics, fanart, bios and such. But none of that is required for it to run. Its the same for pretty much any media player software. Kodi is similar in function to JRiver, except it is free. Kodi will run on OSX. Foobar will not.

Well, your words about the future video requirements are definitely giving me pause...I honestly don't know how many redbook stereo CDs we have in our collection, but we've been adding some SACDs (both stereo and MC), DVD-As and BD-As for the past couple of years, so I'd say that we should be over 1K albums now. As for the video side, we have well over 800 DVD titles and probably 200 BD titles at this point. We have less than a dozen 4K UHD titles, which I assume must take up a massive amount of storage space. It's not a huge collection of physical disc media, but it's not exactly tiny, either.

If you are planning on ripping all that, you will eventually want a NAS. But you can certaily get your feet wet with a couple portable drives and move to a NAS in the future. Be sure to heed the warnings everyone is giving you regarding backups.

 

[timothyemerson]

So back up the back up.

Wise words. A pair and a spare.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Well, your words about the future video requirements are definitely giving me pause...I honestly don't know how many redbook stereo CDs we have in our collection, but we've been adding some SACDs (both stereo and MC), DVD-As and BD-As for the past couple of years, so I'd say that we should be over 1K albums now.

Have you actually tried ripping anything yet? If so, what did you use? How did you tag the files? More to the point, how did you do it with no web access to generate the tags?

 

[B&W Driver]

Like GOS I have Synology NAS drives all set-up as RAID 1, one 4-bay 20TB (4x 10TB HDD), one 2-bay 4TB (so 2x4TB HDD), and an old 2-bay Zyxel 1TB (so 2x 1TB), and loads and loads of space as I have only ripped a small number of discs (slap own wrist!). Having multiple NAS with the same data means its backed up, backing up to the Cloud is possible, but slow and expensive here in the UK well in my bit. The other route is to mirror to another NAS physical location elsewhere i.e. LuvMyQuad's meaning, so you're protected from floods, fire etc. I still back up to a USB HDD.

SSDs are nice and fast, generally reliable, until they go wrong, if its sectors you'll just lose the data in that sector, if an interface on the FLASH chips fail you'll never be able to recover what was stored on the chip. With an HDD you can often recover by sending off the disc, but at a price! So back up the back up.

Cheers for all the information, mate. Believe it or not, we never owned any SSDs until recently (with that past couple of years). I do have multiple stories about HDDs failures, though...and the quotes we received about recovering data from our defectives HDDs clearly support your words about the expense involved. In short, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around "relying" on HDDs. The NAS device that's been recommended to us houses SSDs...but, once again, we've never owned NAS, so this is good food for thought.

 

[B&W Driver]

Have you actually tried ripping anything yet? If so, what did you use? How did you tag the files? More to the point, how did you do it with no web access to generate the tags?

We only recently began ripping our redbook stereo CDs and stereo SACDs via an external USB drive and JRiver MC28 for Mac. Quite honestly, I'm not sure what "tagging files" is. If you're referring to downloading track titles, track length and album art, I do that via the web search option in MC28...and, in case I muddied the water here, we do have internet access, but it's very limited. We rely on phone hotspots, so I trust that you understand the limitations involved.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

We only recently began ripping our redbook stereo CDs and stereo SACDs via an external USB drive and JRiver MC28 for Mac. Quite honestly, I'm not sure what "tagging files" is. If you're referring to downloading track titles, track length and album art, I do that via the web search option in MC28...and, in case I muddied the water here, we do have internet access, but it's very limited. We rely on phone hotspots, so I trust that you understand the limitations involved.

Track titles, artist names, album names, cover art, release date, genre, etc.... all that collectively is "tagging". Media players rely on that info to organize your music library.

So it seems you have internet access, but not to the point that you can stream music files. Still good. Limited access is all you need for the small amount of data required by a media player.

I assume you ripped the hi res DSD layer of the SACDs, since you have an Oppo 105 which is capable of doing that?