Hotter than when connected to my laptop, I would say in the Nova red hot, the bigger thumb drives aren’t as bad.
Strange, I’ve never noticed a USB stick getting particularly warm when connected to any Naim streamer I’ve had. I wonder if the USB port is supplying it with more power that it should?
I don’t think, too much power can be pushed; the voltage is fix (5V, unless you move to USB-C and USB-PD (PowerDelivery)) and as such, the device can pull as much power, as it needs (as long as the host can supply that).
What might be a reason for difference:
- Many PCs will “power-down” attached disks/devices after some time. Hence, they may cool down. I think, the Naim equipment keeps them “on”, hence if a device gets warm over time (though idle), it will do so.
- USB-3 devices can draw more power, than older USB-2 devices. And then it will depend on the “smartness” of the controller in the stick/SSD, how much it draws “on idle” (=without active read/write access). Typically, the cheaper devices (=sticks) have less optimized controllers (compared to “real SSDs”). I’ve read tests, that especially USB-3 sticks designed for “higher speeds” (which is not needed when playing music, but may be convenient when putting new music onto it) draw significant power in idle (1+ Watt), hence not advices to keep connected to laptops. (Sucking the battery empty.)
- Then, the USB-to-SATA (or USB-to-PCIe, …) converter chip also has a big impact here.
- Last, the smaller the device, the more difficult it is to radiate the heat. The higher the average temperature.
So, getting a “better/smartet” but also “slower” device is advisable.
An external SSD containing a PCI-Express SSD drive (which is capable of very fast speeds, even beyond 1 GByte/s) is surely not advisable for an always-on storage for reading music. (They can draw 4-5 Watt on idle and the speed is wasted.)
Unless it really gets hot (especially in cramped spaces), it should not really hurt; except if concerned for the power draw - which is still small, compared to other parts of a kept-on HiFi equipment?
All just to be clear USB drive like this (Red hot), but the bigger ones also get very warm, same with around 6 of these i have all San Disk.
The Naim USB ports provide a fairly generous 12W to cover the use of more power hungry USB3 drives, and the drives do remain powered up in standby. Whether this accounts for the heat you feel from a memory stick I wouldn’t know, although I would guess that it’s harmless enough unless there’s a fault somewhere.
My, this is tiny indeed. Little surface to get rid of the heat. 
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12 Watts? Yes, that should be power aplenty for all drives.
(USB-2 only had 2,5 Watts (as per standard), USB-3 only requires 4,5W. Many ports deliver more today, mostly for charing phones and tablets and stuff.)
Woops! Sorry, I meant Watts, of course. Post edited.
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Hmm I wonder what is going on there? I have seen this in a previous post somewhere. I have never felt the Samsung 500 gb ssd to be warm when plugged into the Atom at all. The only time I have felt it warm is after transferring 150gb of files to it. I would say it is to do with the read speed of the drive you are using. Are these memory sticks high speed like the Samsung? I mean, I can transfer 100 gb to it in a matter of minutes. For reference I use mine in server mode and use standby majority of the time. Sometimes put it in deep sleep over night.
I am a new user and love the music quality - but wish there was a full user manual - even if it was not fully up to date. I bought myself an Integral 512GB USB3.0 flash drive and this seems to work fine without getting hot. I was previously storing albums using Asset UPNP on a laptop. However this did not allow me to use the functionality integral to the Atom to save Album, Artist and Track favourites and retrieve them from the opening menu. Is this right or am I missing a trick?
A further question which may be naive - what do the Presets do? Is it purely an additional filter to save Favourites? And does it only apply to radio stations?
Are there any other information sources I should look at to improve my knowledge?
To be honest I am not entirely sure. I haven’t played with those myself yet. I know you can save favourites and have it come up on the home screen. Maybe someone else knows more…
Presets are currently for iRadio and I think also for “streaming services” (Tidal/Qobuz).
Might be, UPnP sources are also supported. (Not sure from the top of my head.)
Main difference to “ordinary favorites” is access via on-unit interface / remote.
The Muso2 has 5 preset buttons; the Unitis and streamers have the * (Star) Button for quick access.
To improve this access via “simple interfaces” you can also manually sort the presets. (Which does not work for favorites.)
Hence, if you don’t use the app only, you can have a manually sorted favorites of favorites sub-selection from the presets. (And not much more.)
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