Just a quick question. Can a Uniti Core be used without an internal disk?
Can it rip CDs directly to network storage and UPnP stream directly from network storage to a streamer? Or does if have to have disk installed to operate at all?
It doesnāt have to have an internal disc and yes you can define a NAS as the Music Store, in which case rips will be saved to the NAS and the Core will serve them to a streamer.
Thanks David.
Just to be clear, can the Uniti Core be the UPnP server with the NAS be as the music store? Or once CDs are ripped to the NAS, does the NAS have to be the UPnP server?
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No you are quite right. My answer was wrong.
The Core will serve music that is stored on a NAS and you donāt need the NAS to be running a upnp server.
I will edit my earlier post.
Thanks for confirming. The manual online is pretty scant on how to use it
Iām running my Core with no internal disks, using my Synology NAS for both the share and store. I can rip music on the Core, and it gets placed onto the NAS file share Iāve created automatically. I can also copy music (e.g. that Iāve ripped on another computer, or downloaded) onto the NAS file share, and the Core automatically identifies the music and allows me to play it on my NDX 2 almost immediately.
The file shares Iāve set up on the NAS are running as SMB file shares, and Iāve set up a unique username and password paid for the Core.
Thanks - thatās exactly what I wanted to hear.
My issue is my NAS and streamer are on different subnets (for several security / technical reasons). Although I can route SMB (I have a Layer 3 switch) I canāt route UPnP, so I canāt use my NAS for UPnP streaming. But with a Uniti Core I can use the NAS for storage, rip my CDs to it, and stream UPnP from the Unit Core by pulling media from an SMB share on my NAS.
I had been considering getting a new CD player - probably just a transport - as my old one is dying. But I think the Uniti Core will kill two birds with one stone - as they say :-).
I used to be a network architect in a previous life, so I know what youāre talking about. Iām one of a very small number of people I know that have my IoT devices (mostly google speakers) on a separate network. For me, my Naim equipment made the cut and is on the āhomeā network with the NAS.
Iām not running a uPNP server on the NAS (although I do run Roon Core on it). The thing to remember is that you canāt use the Core as a playing transport - the CD drive will only rip.
Indeed - I have put all mobile devices and those that stream / access the internet (TVs, game consoles etc.) into a separate āMediaā subnet so they are separated from my core network devices (router, firewall, main L3 switch, Domain Server, NAS, VMs etc.). Obviously my hifi needs to be in the same subnet as my mobile devices so I can control them with an app - hence the problem.
Shame the Uniti Core canāt play CDs, but I will have it in my comms rack anyway and not in my listening room. Now, if it could run Roon that would be fantastic - maybe in the next version.
When I first bought the Core I did some experimenting with solid state vs standard internal drives. I even had a portable standard drive for attached usb. All this to experiment with some of my favorite cdās before I committed ripping my collection. Anyway, at one point out of curiosity, and just to be thorough, I tried the attached usb drive without any internal drive. It certainly worked but for whatever reason the presentation was dull and lackluster. Reinstating an internal drive to the Core restored the usb drive to normal performance. Also, I ended up preferring solid state over standard drive for the internal Core. Finally, I found (in my brief experiment at least) that a particular internal drive (ssd vs standard) influences the performance of a usb attached drive.
Thanks. Thatās interesting. Although my main reason for asking about having no drive was to ascertain if the Uniti Core could rip and stream directly to and from a NAS over SMB (and not require the NAS to use UPnP) without writing to a local drive.
If I go this route I will definitely test it out as you have.
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