Hmmm, my learning curve grows longer…
I am fearing setting up one NAS drive, let alone two, I think it’s probably best to stick with one NAS drive and a plug in back up hard drive when I get round to doing this, which hopefully will be over the Christmas period, going to be a busy time!
One, or two, NAS drives for automatic backup will still be easier to set up than a UnitiServe…… don’t know how long I spent trying to persuade it to appear on my network or let my network find it - yes, when it was configured correctly everything was fine but it took me ages and I’d spent 40 odd years in the world of networked IT……
And if you do get one, make sure it’s been updated to firmware v1.7c, otherwise you’ll have another extra special treat in store 
Of course, I may have been a slow learner 
ATB, J
For me the Unitiserve was an out of the box solution that allowed me to rip and serve CDs without having to figure out how to set up a NAS, and it seemed like an easier option at the time, but I think the OP has moved on from that idea now.
I was initially interested in the Unitiserve as it seemed a simple solution to my needs. My computer knowledge is limited and so I often find them quite frustrating, hence looking for a plug & play answer.
But after reading many reports of unreliability and the very aged operating system I am looking elsewhere, shame as aesthetically it would’ve been a perfect match.
A Naim Core is plug and play too . . . and there are several other one-box ripper/storage/server devices on the market as well. I got started that way years ago and then got more comfortable with the networked devices stuff and moved to a Synology nas . . . and then ultimately to a Roon Nuc.
The person that I purchased the NDX from was very pro Naim Core, he used it with the NDX and the replacement NDX2, but I haven’t read many positive reports since, many saying that it’s very outdated. Is it still a viable product?
As a plug and play unit the Core seems very much on the cards.
What are the other suggestions for plug and plug units?
Innuos Zen Mini!
ATB, J
The limitations of the Core are in it’s extremely basic range of functionality. For example, you cannot browse by any but a small handful of metadata fields, compilation albums are not handled properly, you cannot switch between WAV and FLAC, etc.
These issues may or may not bother you. If your dealer has one on demo they should be able to let you play with it and see what you think. Personally, I would not buy one if I ever need to replace my Unitiserve. For an off the shelf box I would choose an Innuos Zen Mini.
Thanks for the explanation.
I had a brief look at the Innuos Zen Mini at Martins in Norwich, the user interface seemed very slick and pleasing on the eye, especially compared to my NDX, I do understand that there is a huge age gap between them though.
I had a non SSD US back in 2010 ish. It went for repair when it ate CDs. This happened twice I think. The Naim rep swapped it out for an NS01 at no cost instead. That ran very reliably. Have had one lingering issue. One was it refused to read some CDs in any way. (brand new shrink wrapped) Second was the POWER OFF button stopped working. So the required ‘long hold to shut down safely’ could not happen anymore. Sent for repair aroundf £400 IIRC. It stopped again a year ago and I decided to live without it. It’s at Naim now and the repair is £650 now. I think I will check my music is backed up to NAS and then see what happens.
I have and love a hdx. Very nice machine. But it had some issues and was repaired. It crashed again and now it is running again very bravely.
So I checked an Innuos zenith mk3. See thread here.
Yes - there is a difference in sound and User Interface.
I would suggest to take a look at the zen mini.
For the zenith I must say that it is more demanding than the hdx. It plays very lively and groovy. No way of not listening to it 
Totally agree - the core is more limited than hdx/us. The interface is very basic and others are much more user friendly
Blast from the past… you don’t hear about those too often now.
Too bad … as mine has gained a good companion with zenith mk3. Hdx are very often on sale here recently - for a steal price !
An HDX was on my list, but the age of this unit put me off.
What would be the modern day Naim equivalent?
Still haven’t made a decision yet as there has been a few life problems that have cropped up, but I do need to sort something over the coming months.
There is no current equivalent from Naim. What they want you to buy is a Core and a streamer.
Despite its limitations, the Core does have a good digital output, but Naim no longer make a standalone DAC to use it with, so a used Naim DAC or something from a different brand are your options.
The Core is an excellent option if you want a simple rip and play solution with excellent sound quality. Others are not so keen on it as it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles. I was attracted by the simplicity and getting my streaming separate from ripping and playing from a Mac and it’s a perfect solution for me in my set up. Some software improvements would be nice, but aren’t a deal breaker for me.
I’ve owned a Naim Uniti Core for about four years now. It works very reliably and sounds very good, but I found it very limiting. I wanted to be able to also stream Qobuz or Tidal and access radio. It doesn’t do that. It is very very simple, just rip, edit metadata and stream. And to stream you need a Roon ready DAC to feed your stream into your stereo system. If that’s all you want, I can recommend it.
If I had it to do it over again, I’d skip the Uniti Core and go with Innuous. In my case I moved to Roon. I’m happy with Roon, but it goes down on me from time to time and I’m glad to have the Core for backup streaming, and I still use it to rip. I probably ought to rip using dbpoweramp, get better metadata affixed before sending it on to Roon.
No you don’t. You just require UPnP to stream.
Only if you intend to use Roon as your UI do you require Roon Core and a Roon End Point…The Naim Core is actually Roon Ready, so can be used as a storage point for Roon Core…
The Naim Core is a Ripper and UPnP Server and was never meant to be anything more. True, it’s limited in its metadata handling when tagging and serving UPnP streams….but if you want other streaming services such as Qobuz, Tidal and general iRadio, surely you would look at a Naim (or alternative) Streamer……
SC
To confirm, if I was to purchase a Naim Core I would need a streamer - which is my NDX?