Can anyone recommend a NAS drive?

At the moment I'm just using my PC hard drive and MinimServer to run my music from my PC's hard drive to a Chromecast Audio using my android phone with the BubbleUPnP app. The Chromecast the outputs an optical digital signal to my Chord Mojo which is plugged into my amp.

However I'd like to get all my music on a dedicated NAS drive. Can anyone recommend one? The
Synology DS115j looks good value, is it worth paying more?

 

How much storage do you need for music?
Do you want to put any other files on it? like documents, pictures, video, computer backups, and such? Things like video and computer backups can take up a lot of space.

 

This is what I use, it works great with my Bluesound 2:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EVVGAFI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I use the Synology DS216, which seems to just be the modern version of the one you mention. I think its absolutely fantastic and would definitely suggest it. I use 2 x 4TB drives in a mirrored configuration (which is pretty much the default config) and that's perfect for me - by the time I need more space drives will be bigger and cheaper and I'll upgrade.

The only reasons to have a more expensive model IMO is if you need 4 drive bays, or if you plan on running apps directly off the NAS that require more processing power.

 

I use a Synology NAS with Minimserver as my music server. Cambridge CXN streamer into my stereo system.
Sounds brilliant

 

I've been using a 2-bay Western Digital expert series NAS. Works fine. But WD is slow with firmware (OS) updates for the NAS and I'm not sure how much longer they'll be supporting it with firmware updates. I'd trust Synology to support their NAS with firmware updates for longer than WD. A quick check of the Synology support page for the DS155j shows they're still doing regular and frequent OS updates, and released the latest OS update just 2 days ago.

One other potential thing to consider is fan noise. If it's going to be in the music room or in a room where you stay (like the computer room) then fan noise from the NAS can be a concern. The 1 drive NAS units have a small fan than needs to run faster to get enough cooling. The larger 2 drive and 4 drive units have a larger fan that can run at a slower speed, potentially meaning they can have lower fan noise (but not always).

 

The primary reason to upgrade the Synology model (in addition to the number of bays) is the type of applications you intend to run. If they're CPU intensive then you might want to consider a model with a better ARM processor and more memory. However, I used the Synology 216SE with Minimserver, Bubble UPnP and Open Home controllers and it sounded great. The CPU operated well within capacity.

If you intend on using Roon, currently it doesn't operate on Synology, or not officially, anyway. For that (or as another consideration) you might want to consider the SonicTransport from Small Green Computer. You can use it as a NAS, if you get it with the optional hard drive, or you can use it to run Roon (or Minimserver for that matter) in conjunction with the Synology. I switched from the Synology to the SonicTransport i5 with SSD drives and did notice an improvement in SQ, but not earth shattering.

Either way, I suggest you configure Minimserver to translate FLAC file to WAV on the fly (a ssuming you're using FLAC) This will take the burden of conversion off your Mojo and likely improve the sound.

Finally, seeing how you invested in a Mojo, you might want to consider upgrading your renderer as well. The Chrome is a mind boggling bargain, but you will hear improvements with either the microRendu from Sonore or the SMS-200 from SOTM. While not $35 both are relatively good values for top of the line renderers.

 

I use to have a WD single bay NAS, it was slow and the HD died within 6 months. I was lucky, I had back-ups of my music. Now I have a QNAP TS251 NAS with two WD hard drives. Like Synology, QNAP has good tech support and easy to follow installation videos posted by QNAP on YouTube.

 

I love my QNAP, but it's probably a bit more than most folks need! I love the QNAP OS though so their smaller units are excellent as well.



Ne to consider might be the HS-251+ which is a very nice package.

 

I'll add one more comment about using a NAS. The NAS needs to be connected to a gigabit router or switch with CAT5e or CAT6 cable. Otherwise it is going to be so slow it will be painful. When doing file maintenance, like copying files to the NAS or backups, the computer you use to do that file maintenance also needs to be directly connected to that same gigabit router or switch with CAT5e or CAT6 cable. Otherwise the file management will be slow. Slow like transferring files to an old USB 2.0 hard drive or even slower. When connected with gigabit ethernet the transfers to and from the NAS will be as fast or faster than a USB 3.0 drive. The difference is huge. Wi-fi and 100 mbit ethernet won't cut it. Too slow.

It's OK to read and play music files from the NAS using wi-fi. That will be fast enough. But for transfering files to the NAS and doing file maintenance and backups a wi-fi connection will not be fast enough. It's the difference between file maintenance taking 12 hours or 24 hours or more vs. a few hours. When a music collection is a TB or more that difference is very important. Transferring 1 TB to the NAS over typical wi-fi could be 12-24 hours vs. a couple hours over gigabit ethernet. Future wi-fi standards will eventually be fast enough. Currently they are not fast enough.

 

I have two Synology NAS'. They are great hardware. I had a disk go bad on one, bought a new disk, hot swapped it and boom, solved. It was set up as a RAID 5 (not the music one). But, seriously you can get a USB drive for less and that will work equally as well.

 

This is probably my favorite NAS driving song... should be played loud with sufficient bass. And driving at low speeds.

 

I have a Synology 215+ with a pair of WD 3TB Red drives. It connects to the router via wired and is on our WiFi net where out Bluesound sees it for its' Library location. I installed a media server package on it so it also is seen by the TV's in the house. This lets us view family photos and any other media we might want. It is setup in a simple RAID 1. Best move ever going from our PC centered Logitech SqueezeBox config. to this.

 

I use a 2TB Buffalo LinkStation (about £80 from Amazon) together with a Bluesound Node 1. All files are backed up onto another LinkStation.

 

Thank you. This was helpful. Like the OP I'm using Chromecast Audio. Personally I'm thrilled with the overall presentation but understand, given my current line up, the CCA is the weakest link. I was considering the microRendu & SonicTransport i5 / Roonserver & QNAP HS-210 [now discontinued] but I now I think a more slim lined [if less flexible] approach with the SonicTransport i5 [SSD drive option] would be more cost-effective / suitable.

 

Very true. An SSD also will considerably help with transfer times. Regarding using WiFi for playback, I prefer an Ethernet connection, but perhaps that is just bias on my part. I also agree with you that the quality of the Ethernet cable is important for SQ. I've found, despite my hope to the contrary, that some of the fancy Ethernet cables make a difference. I'm kind of embarrassed to say Im using an AudioQuest Vodka. The best value I've found is the Supra Cat 8.

 

I have my NAS connected to my router, but after the "initial load", copying files over AC wireless is very fast for me. I was copying 3GB DSD albums and they only took a minute or so, nothing worth plugging in over.

 

Actually, DSD files are pretty efficient to copy as to overall speed. Lots and lots of little files take forever.

One more reason to go hi res lossless

 

One thing I have found with regards to NAS boxes and transfer speeds is the CPU horsepower. It's not just the drives and ethernet parts that count, you also need a decent amount of CPU HP especially if running a RAID option. The cheap boxes with little ARM CPUS are fine for some backups and file sharing but they will kill on big collection transfers. A quad ARM or dual core Intel Atom setup is the best way to go.

Then you'll get the 90+ MBps goodness of gigabit. Obviously that's not required for audio playback but it helps if you need to do any big transfers initially or later on. If not use USB 3.0 to get the data on. The Synology one initially mentioned pushes around 65MBps which is fine for a cheaper unit. You would get by with that.

Spending more on a NAS doesn't hurt as its not something you tend to upgrade that often. An extra $100 could really pay off later on.

 

I second this. I also use a WD EX2100 2x2TB dual drive/RAID1 NAS w GE connections to the switch and to my iMac. From there I currently use SDIF to my DAC. No issues with playing music, browsing, etc. Transfer time was pretty fast, relative to having used USB HDD in the past.

I also use it for video and image storage as WD has nice apps for automatically transferring them from my smartphone over WiFi. Other media player devices (Sony TV) easily connect to play audio or images via WiFi.

I looked at Synology and have friends that like them, but decided on WD. I've had it for a couple years now. I don't really trust multi drive RAID5 recovery. Nearly all users will tell you not to use NAS drives without a backup. I feel a RAID mirror is a more sure thing for recovery when needed.

 

I mentioned the need for a gigabit wired connection so that people would be aware of the need for a good fast network connection to get good transfer speed from a NAS. A slow network connection can make a NAS frustratingly slow. Over gigabit ethernet I get file transfer speeds (read or write) of 75 MB/s to 100+ MB/s. Over 802.11n I get transfer speeds around 20 MB/s and slower. Sometimes quite a bit slower. 802.11ac would be faster, but I'm not sure how much faster where I'm at. I'm in a condo with congested wi-fi channels. Any wi-fi for me is going to be slower than the theoretical speeds because there are neighbors using the same channel(s). Wired ethernet is necessary for me to get fast enough speed for a NAS to be useful and usable. I can get fast enough speed over wi-fi to play music from the NAS using 802.11n.

The first question when considering a NAS is asking if your home network is fast enough for it. Then you can ask what kind of NAS to get.

 

I would advise people to no be too worried about bottlenecks in the initial transfer of your data to a NAS. There are a lot of variables that go into this, but even in the best case scenario you're probably going to start it in the evening and it will be done when you wake up in the morning. If its not, it will definitely be done when you get home from work in the evening. Nobody is looking at their watch and impatiently tapping their feet as multiple terabytes are copying.

Now, obviously you need Gigabit ethernet (which is standard on even the cheap models). I've used my NAS on the other side of powerline ethernet and it works fairly well even with my ancient wiring, but obviously wiring directly to your router/switch is preferable.

This is probably good advice. I checked, and both QNAP and Synology offer their base models in a Celeron processor + upgradable RAM version for almost exactly $100 more. That said, if all one is ever going to do with the NAS is store music, a person on a budget really won't benefit much and might want to put the $100 towards bigger drives, liquor, etc. Its hard to predict the future, but I'm 99% sure I'm never going to ask a NAS to transcode 4K video, etc.

 

I had a Buffalo Linkstation 2TB that was an absolute P. O. S. I wouldn't touch the brand again. It may have just been mine, but it was slower than molasses. If you have a modern router check to see if it has a USB port or two on it. Right now I'm running DLNA through the USB 3 connection on my router, I have an old hard drive in a sub-$20 enclosure connected by USB cable to the router. My performance is much much better than my Linkstation ever provided. The router has a basic DLNA server built in so I have my entire music library just a few clicks away on my remotes on my Blu-Ray players in the home theater and family room. Works great with high resolution WAV files as well.

 

Depending on the NAS. My Buffalo Linkstation plugged directly into my gigabit router even copying from another computer connected by copper was unbelievably slow. Like sub-10MB/s slow. It was excruciating. With a USB3 enclosure connected by USB cable to that exact same gigabit router I'm getting 30-40+ MB/sec transfer from the same computer. It could have just been that I had a bad device - (the drive eventually failed that's why I got rid of it).

I realize that a dedicated NAS may even be faster than my old hard drive in this enclosure, but this does everything I need for now. Certainly for making my MP3 library portable and distributed it is sufficient.

 

The Buffalo shouldn't have been that slow. It could have been a networking configuration problem. Perhaps an incorrect networking setting in the settings on the Buffalo NAS. Like the ethernet connection being restricted to 100 mbps instead of 1000 mbps. Or a bad ethernet cable connecting it to the router. There are lots of things that can go wrong or be configured wrong that will cause very slow transfer speed.

With many routers having USB3 ports for external storage a dedicated NAS may not even be necessary. Just plug in a USB drive to the router. Configure the file share settings in the router. And you're good. Certainly good enough for sharing music files.