I have a Unitiserve with around 1000 cds ripped onto it but currently have no backup system in place . The US has now developed a fault in the ripping mechanism and no longer rips . I have attempted to get the backup side of things sorted in recent times but have failed thusfar due mainly to me being not very tech oriented .
I’m at a bit of a crossroads at this point with a 9 year old server that needs a repair and also needing a simple off the shelf method for backing up the cds .
Has anybody else got to this point and does anyone have any suggested routes for me to perhaps ditch the US and still be able to keep the ripped data ?
I currently have a US SSD variant that I don’t use .
Could this be utilised in some way as part of the solution ?
I would welcome your thoughts and be interested in the hardware choices you have made .
My UnitiServe has been back to Naim 3 times for repair. The first 2 repairs I didn’t have a back up of my rips/downloads. Naim managed to back up the hard drive and carry out the required repairs, though this is not something I would recommend.
After the second repair I got a QNAP NAS primarily for back up but also as an alternative server (using Asset), should the UnitiServe expire. Now each time I rip a CD or download an album to the UnitiServe, the QNAP gets updated automatically over night.
If I were you I would go for a decent NAS (QNAP or Synology) and get your music files backed up. Naim used to have some guidelines on their website for installing and backing up to a QNAP, but times have changed.
Also I have a Unitiserve 2 TB for several years. It all works very well. Question: in order not to ruin it, I keep it on all day for every day, that is, always on. Am I doing well?
Therein lies the problem unfortunately . I have a synology 216j and just can’t get it set up and as you say Naim are currently no help on this and synology were even less help .
All this is pushing me into looking for another more streamlined solution away from the US .
If your rips are in WAV, the first thing to do is to get the US to convert them to flac. Then back up to the Synology, load Asset on the nas and you are done.
Getting the US to convert your library to FLAC is a good idea as it makes it easier to use on a non-Naim server in future if you choose to do so.
You can do this on N-Serve for Mac, but not the iOS version. On a PC use the Desktop Client.
It will take quite a long time to convert your whole library. Best to do it in batches. For example, do one genre at a time, or one artist, just in case it fails due to a power cut etc.
The Unitiserve automatic backup works very well once set up. I would recommend using it. Setup is not entirely straightforward but if I can do it, it can’t be that hard.
If you really can’t get the backup working, at least make a copy of the Music folder on a USB drive attached to a computer. You can do this by simply copying the contents of the music folder to a folder on the USB drive. Do the FLAC conversion first, though.
You need to buy it.
There is a basic UPnP server included on a Synology NAS. It doesn’t have the versatility of Asset, but it will get you up and running easily if you enable it when you log into the NAS.
As a follow up to Chris’s post above, when I converted from WAV to flac I did it in one go, which took about three days to do 2,000 albums. Doing it artist by artist would have been really awkward. It’s certainly a good idea to test a few first, but I didn’t even do that. A few albums, say 10 out of the 2,000 didn’t get converted, and needed conversion and reassembling into albums later.
So get the conversion done and ask again if you can’t get the backup to work. That was the most frustrating thing I’ve ever tried to do on a computer, but it does work once you’ve worked it out. From memory I used the web interface to do it. The key thing seems to be ensuring that the folder you are backing up to has absolutely nothing in it. No subfolders. Nothing.
Once it’s on the Synology make sure you get a backup regime going from that to a backup drive. Then you can say au revoir et bonne retraite to the UnitiServe.
I would echo everything HH has said and it reflects my experiences with the QNAP.
All I would say is that since the last repair (in 2015) the UnitiServe (bought in 2012) has been faultless and in fact sounds a little better than my QNAP as a server. So worth getting it repaired and comparing to your Synology as a server IMV. Additionally the UnitiServe is great for ripping CDs, as you are aware.