Could anyone please confirm if the Uniti Atom USB ports are “hot swappable” or not ?
Is it possible to remove or plug usb drives without shutting off the Uniti ?
Thanks.
Yes, should be perfectly ok.
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Yup, done it often enough to also be able to say that it works with no issues.
Plus with a USB plugged in the system will remain mostly on even in sleep mode. Your had to put the unit to deep sleep or pull the power cord to cut USB access. Which would not a very usable system.
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Thanks for your comment @Kryptos
I’ve been hesitating between deep sleep mode and usb plug on-off (in order to avoid energy waste and constant signal to speakers when in standby).
Neither of them are ideal for a daily basis use.
Just trying to figure out which one is more convenient (and less stressful to the equipment).
I’m not totally into the technical figures but as far as I know the extra power consumption of server mode when in sleep is nothing to lie awake about.
Perhaps you are right but the constant signal to the speakers does bothers me (audible when very close to them)
Ag yes it does that. Never bothered me when I drove my speakers with a Uniti, had to put my head right up tot the tweeter to hear it. But on other speakers, listening positions etc who knows.
Thing is that added extra startup time when using deep sleep and remember that if the usb is disconnected and reconnected it will re index the whole drive.
Depending on how much you listen from usb it may be an option to look at something like Roon as a better solution.
This can be a bit annoying, but recently I’ve found that my Atom no longer loses the data when put into deep sleep like it used to. I don’t recall any firmware updates addressing this but something seems to have changed.
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Oh no was specifically referring to removing and reconnecting the USB. Have no idea what mine is doing with deep sleeps. Mostly as I never use it 
But that said the rescan of the drive will be a lot shorter than booting from deep sleep.
If usb is not reindexed after deep sleep the best way is indeed adopt the deep sleep procedure (avoiding energy waste and constant signal to speakers). Thanks.
If you are ok with the boot time each time you want to listen it is certainly the most ergonomic solution to your problem.
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I’ve got a drive with about 350 FLAC albums on it, and it takes far longer to scan it than it does to wake the streamer from deep sleep.
I would guess that the read/write speed of the USB drive might influence this.
I haven’t quite figured out whether the cached data is lost after a certain time in deep sleep.
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Hmmm I am using the 500 GB SSD I used on my Star as usb drive on my HE and did not get the idea it took long to activate. But then again, as I said, I do both rarely enough not to really be the most reliable source on it haha.
The mystery is that we don’t know for sure (after deep sleep) if the drive is indeed being full reindexed.
I’m using a nearly full 1TB Samsung T5 SSD and I still haven’t found a way to confirm that it’s being re-indexed.
Well here’s the thing. If it is not noticeable that it is being re-indexed after deep sleep perhaps it is something for the “I don’t care how it works as long as it is works” box giving more space in the mind to enjoy the music? 
If you look in the Server input you will see the contents of the drive gradually filling up, album by album as they are scanned. If this isn’t happening it’s not re-scanning.
Go to the bottom of the album listing and you’ll see the number of albums available, which gradually increases until the scan is complete.
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As a trial I’ve just left my Atom unplugged from the mains for 3 days while I’ve been away. The attached USB drive with 397 albums on it did not require a rescan after powering it up again, and could be browsed and played immediately.
On the other hand, unplugging the drive and plugging it back in to the powered up Atom requires a full rescan if it is disconnected for more than just a few seconds.
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