Hard drives for new Synology NAS

Yes that is “what we are saying”!

Best

David

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I think they make this stuff up on wet finger probability estimates
1m hrs = 114 years vs 500k hrs = 57 years - ‘am I bover’d’ comes to mind

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Yes, you would need them to be FLAC. A server on the NAS can still transcode to WAV on the fly.

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WD Reds and Ironwolf drives are both good options. The Ironwolf drives are usually cheaper, and Synology also is unique in providing integrated Ironwolf Health Management in their DSM operating system. This is more advanced monitoring and management than is provided by the basic SMART monitoring provided for WD (and other) drives.

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My WD Red 3TB lasted 1299 power-on days before they started showing abnormal sector counts - within a month or so of each other. 5 months out of warranty. Avg temp was 30.

My newer WD Red 6TB ones seem to be noisier (track and head noise as appose to spindle hum) but more reliable (and run +4 hotter) - I suspect although these have more platers they have improved the internal design since the inception of the originals.

Blockquote if I then subsequently installed a UPnP server on the NAS, that software wouldn’t find the metadata contained in the Naim WAV rips?

Yep. The Naim metadata isn’t any use to anything apart from another Naim server. I had a music library on a UnitiServe, and the transfer to the Uniti Core was simple, but another music server wouldn’t be the same. It’s the reason that I prefer to rip in FLAC now

Yes. And the metadata is NOT ‘contained in the Naim WAV rips.’ It’s in little .xml files that the Naim ripping software adds to each folder. Which no other UPnP server will recognize. Thus . . . no metadata in those Naim wav rips.

I was there; and converted all my Naim rips to flac before moving them off a UnitiServe. Even then, the metadata is a bit ‘basic,’ and the album art is very low resolution (Naim puts TINY files in the folders), but it was certainly usable and over time I’ve beefed up most of those rips.

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Since the incoming NAS will be there just as a back up to my HDX, then, should that die the death of a thousand cuts, I’m beginning to wonder whether the simple answer, would be to replace it then with a UnitiCore, or whatever the current model might be at the time, as I assume the WAV files on the NAS could successfully be copied over?

I’d not heard before about the metadata being less than wonderful, so that’s something else to consider before doing the conversion to FLAC.

Never straightforward, is it. :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes:

I believe the Core has even more limited metadata than the HDX. If you’re happy with the HDX in that respect, you’re sorted. If you want better metadata handling, I’d go with Minimserver or Asset and use DBpoweramp.

I started with the nas just backing up the UServe…then put MinimServer on the nas just to try it . . . and then sold off the UServe as redundant! I’m firmly in the camp of ‘I would not buy a Naim server in 2020.’ There are so many other options. But some love them, and that’s great.

So you have a networked player other than the HDX - I forget.

Hi Bart,

The HDX is just used to rip and store CDs, and them serve them to my ND555.

The NAS is simply a back up to the internal drive on the HDX.

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Not quite sure that gives the right impression Chris! The metadata is the same as in HDX etc, but there are limitations. You have to choose at the rip stage whether to rip in WAV or FLAC and there is no transcode on the fly option. You can’t rip into MP3 or get the Core to make an MP3 copy.

The metadata editing of rips is I would say as good as with HDX etc, but there is a limitation that although you can search on composers and conductors, you can’t edit those fields, so the search facility is pretty well useless because you are in the hands of whatever the metadata publisher chose to put there, including for example nothing, spelling mistakes, odd characters that corrupt the search, never mind whether the surname or full name is written. Naim said a year or two back that they would fix that, but from the discussion we had with Tom J at the factory when we both visited recently, he obviously hadn’t got that on board at all.

But still I would still buy another Core if someone were to make off with mine in the night.

Best

David

Even if only a mere 50 years, it’d be OK for me.
I doubt I’ll be here for the 100th anniversary release of Abbey Road.
However whoever is can play it through his or her DAC with a billion taps

It’s this that I had in mind. Unless you have no classical at all, I would see that as inadequate, whereas I see the US/HDX as being adequate for my needs.

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Then I definitely recommend the path I took - if/when the HDX dies, just use the nas to serve. Back it up to a usb drive and/or the cloud. Cheers!

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Hi Chris,

I’ve successfully installed and set up the new Synology NAS, which was a relatively painless operation.

I’ve now got to wade through the HDX manual and get underway with converting my music WAV files to FLAC, as you advised, together with having it do any future rips in FLAC … and also decide which UPnP server software to install.

Also, I’ll set up the HDX to automatically back up the resultant FLAC files to the NAS.

I take your point about transcoding to WAV on the fly on the NAS, so that the streamer still sees a WAV file, but I can’t see any reference in the HDX manual, suggesting that the newly converted to FLAC files can be transcoded within the HDX, which, of course I intend to retain as the server to my ND555.

Am I just being fick? :man_shrugging: :man_shrugging:

No, most of this stuff is in the manual somewhere if you trawl through it, but not everything.
To convert your existing rips to FLAC, this is what you do in the N-Serve app on a Mac (If you use a PC, there will be a way to do it in the DTC, but I haven’t used it myself.) Just Ctrl-click on an album, and you will get a short dropdown list which includes the option to convert to FLAC. Just select it, and it will start. To do your entire library, Ctrl-click Albums on the list on the L of the screen, and it will convert the whole lot.

There is a setting to transcode to FLAC for any new rips too. Once a rip is done, it takes a little time to convert to FLAC, so there will be a short delay before the album becomes visible, especially if you rip several albums at once as they will be in a queue.
There is a setting to convert to WAV on the fly, if I was at home I could find it in the menu, but I’m afraid I’m away at the moment. With a new generation Naim streamer, you may find that this makes little or no difference compared to the old ones, so maybe worth making a few comparisons.

Good luck!

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Cheers, Chris,

I’ll have a trawl through the manual tomorrow, and if I can work out how to transcode the HDX files from FLAC to WAV, then I’ll bash on with converting all the stored files to FLAC tomorrow night, when I’m firmly in the Land of Nod.

As a precursor, I attempted to download MinimServer via Synology’s “Packages” app, but it didn’t happen, so that can wait until tomorrow too.

Never straightforward, is it?

Many thanks for your assistance thus far. :+1:

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I also download Minimserver tomorrow morning, if you have any info send here the photos of the installation … Thanks. Hello

I haven’t taken things any further yet, regarding converting everything to FLAC format and backing up to the new NAS.

After trawling through the HDX manual, I understand how to have the HDX do the conversion, and how to set it up for automatic back ups to the NAS.

I appreciate that I can set up the NAS software to convert files back to WAV on the fly, during replay, but my only remaining concern is that I can’t find any reference to the HDX being able to do this too, as I want to retain the HDX as my server, rather than play from the NAS.

I’ve contacted Naim support, and will wait for their response before taking the plunge.