Paul's Posts — 02 October 2012
By Paul McGowan
Thanks for the great feedback on our continuing ideas on music storage and how to best build a library from a hardware perspective. Several of you have asked me what my recommendations are for putting together a solid foundation for a library and I’ll start to detail them here.
A NAS can be a good building block for a library if two conditions are met: it’s a small library (less than 500mB), or you invest in a really good NAS. So what’s a really good NAS? In a word – expensive.
To do it right the NAS must have built in backup capabilities – which means it’s going to have to be twice the size you’re ever going to need for starters. Next, the NAS should be expandable in case your library grows. These are fairly tall orders if you consider where we started, with a 1tB cheap NAS which has none of these features.
So yes, you can go this route if the one single advantage a NAS offers is important to you: working without a computer and using the built in computer on a NAS.
But if you’re ok with using your computer, what then is the best alternative to a NAS?
We’ll look at that side tomorrow.
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ncpl
Hi Paul,
I think you’ve overlooked a few things here.
You noted – To do it right the NAS must have built in backup capabilities – which means it’s going to have to be twice the size you’re ever going to need for starters.
This is not really true and depends on what you think backup is.
A NAS with RAID5 will use just one HDD to protect against single HDD failure. e.g. a NAS with 4x HDD uses one of those to manage the other 3. This is not twice the HDD capacity.
Sure, a NAS that uses RAID1 to mirror one HDD against another is twice the capacity, but, it only protects against single HDD failure.
Having a NAS with twice the capacity you need is also no real back-up for NAS hardware failure (either the unit or the HDD’s). If your backup is on the same NAS it isn’t really a backup.
I think readers could benefit from considering other backup strategies e.g. backup the NAS to a USB HDD (3 and 4TB USB drives are actually cheaper than internal HDD’s right now).
Even keep a backup offsite if house fire/flood etc could impact a collection that is irreplaceable.
kind rgds
ncpl
Paul McGowan
Great minds think alike. Tomorrow I suggest USB 3.0 as the alternative.
DavidL
Hello Paul
Have you not missed out a third option (taking into account the above comment) – a simple NAS having a powerful processor but without on-board backup?
I don’t want my general-purpose computer running all the time and I don’t want a poor-performing NAS. Can you give some recommendations for a good NAS? I was half expecting you to say just wait for the forthcoming PS server!
David
MountainSufi
To all…. A great source for related info is computeraudiophile.com and their CASH list of reviewed components.
I lost my music on a Bufalo Terastation NAS (raid protected) because of a software problem in the device.
Bottom line… You’ve got to back up your NAS.
dr.goodears
Hey Paul,
You neglected to comment on my inquiry regarding the new Pono launch from the heart, mind and soul of Neil Young. Neil’s mission is two fold, to save the world from mediocre sound and secondly, noting that pirating music files today is the new FM radio, the Pono platform will provide a new revenue stream for artists, musicians and songwriters. Understanding Neil’s continual reference to the audio performance of the Blu-ray format my assumption is that the Pono platform just might be 192/32.
Personally owning a small mountain of analog tape, vinyl, VHS, CDs and DVDs I have watched patiently from the side line as the vast options and choices of computer audio based storage and retrieval technologies flood today’s marketplace. I am yet convinced that we have reached the peak in terms of musical performance and i’m not one who mines the torrent sites for free music.
Back in the golden days of the high-end, many of the consumers were passionate music lovers who embraced the artists, frequently attended live music events and the gear was simply a vehicle to connect to the performances, (think Mike Kay). Today, so many folks seemed focused on the storage medium, the ability to swap files and the organizational aspects of computer audio (touch panels / smart phones) and candidly i never find myself tapping my foot while streaming music from the computer to my audio system, if you catch the drift.
I understand why you wouldn’t respond to the inquiry regarding wether or not you’ve digitized any/all of your vinyl collection but what puzzles me the most is why you seldom qualify or recommend the great sounding and performing high-end products from PS Audio to folks in this forum? Your products are designed to serve both communities.
I believe that the industry at large today could be doing a better job of introducing the magic of the musical performance of high-end music systems to the masses while focusing less on chasing Apple for market share or for that matter the proliferation of wireless mp3 portable music crap intended to attract the smart phone masses.
I’ll close with a quote from Nelson Pass; “It’s about the music, Not chasing zeros”.
Paul McGowan
Neil’s mission to get better sound distributed is a very admirable one – and one I hope he succeeds at – I am sure we all do. Let’s cross our fingers that he succeeds.