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NAS for Music Servers

Prana Ferox

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As a rule, don't make yourself an administrator of technology you depend on but don't understand.

That being said, RAID 1 (i.e. drive mirroring) is fine for home use. Drives are cheap and RAID1 is cheap insurance. If you want backup for the other errors / malice you can set up snapshots but that's getting more advanced. Generally the issue there (especially with stuff like ransomware) is exposing the box to the open internet too much without knowing what that means and what must be done to protect it.

Don't use SMR drives at home, SMR should have never been sold for non-commercial use, it's way too quirky for the layperson. You can see here some of the issue with SMR and some models to avoid, but roughly it seems like if you want to use WD Red, stick to Red Plus / Red Pro, not the base line. I run 6 HGST drives in RAIDZ2 and the array has made it through two drive failures and two online upgrades, but HGST is no more.
 

Berwhale

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When you think about it, it would make more sense to have an automated backup at another location, say at your parents' house. Or to the cloud. And skip raid.

Iirc Apple NAS systems only have 1 drive. A big plus ime is that the synchronisation is seamless and backups easily restored.

( I suspect many on windows pcs delay their backups or don't do them at all. In which case a wake up call by 1 or 2 drives failing and data being preserved by raid configuration can be a life saver.)

Indeed, I have one NAS in the house (in the attic) and another one in the garage at the end of my garden. I asynchronously replicate data between them and replicate important data 'off-site' to the cloud.

In fact, I could run my Synology NASes as an HA cluster, but it's not worth the bother at home (like RAID :))
 

Kal Rubinson

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Beyond the scope but if you are doing non-music stuff that requires moving files quickly you're more likely to be limited by the storage subsystems on either end. It's pretty hard to saturate even 1gb Ethernet with spinning rust drives. Generally in the home the key for large file transfers is just to do it while you're doing something else so you're not waiting (or at a time you aren't even there).
I transfer files via direct-wired local connections and not via LAN.
 

NiagaraPete

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Wino

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Use a Synology DS920+ for Plex. A WD My Cloud Mirror for Logitech Media Server files. I run nightly backups to a WD My Book hanging off my router. House is wired for ethernet and everything is gigabit. Never had a problem.
 

maverickronin

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I run two Synology NAS...

Primary: Synology DS920+, 8GB RAM, 6TB, 4TB & 6TB HDDs+ 500GB Nvme configured as data volume for apps, etc.
Secondary: Synology DS420+, 6GB RAM, 6TB, 4TB & 3TB HDDs + 250GB Nvme configured as data volume for apps, etc.

Shared folders on (non-RAIDed) disks are replicated between the devices using Synology 'Shared Folder Sync'. Important stuff is also replicated to cloud storage (iDrive) and I occasionally make off-line copies on USB disks. Avoiding the use of RAID allows me to purchase the cheapest possible disks (usually shucked from USB enclosures) and maximize capacity.

So are you just running all the HDDs in JBOD?
 

Berwhale

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So are you just running all the HDDs in JBOD?

No, single drives, with one or more shared folders on each drive. Shared folders are replicated to the corresponding drive in the other NAS, so folders on 6TB disk go to the other 6TB disk, etc. The last pair of drives is 6TB to 3TB because I picked up a cheap external 6TB drive recently, there's only 1.5TB of data on this drive, so there's no issue replicating to a 3TB drive. I will replace the 3TB with a 6TB (or bigger) drive when I see another decent deal as the 3TB drive is over 5 years old now.

Some benefits of this setup over RAID:
  • I can buy the cheapest disks available. These can sometimes be 2/3 of the cost of a NAS certified drive of equivalent capacity (this offsets the cost of the second NAS)
  • I don't have to worry about matching disks.
  • I can spread my purchases out - I don't have to replace a whole array every 4 or 5 years.
  • Power saving - single drives can be spun up and down individually. I sync folders in the early hours of the morning, the drives in my secondary NAS are usually asleep for most of the day.
 

maverickronin

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No, single drives, with one or more shared folders on each drive. Shared folders are replicated to the corresponding drive in the other NAS, so folders on 6TB disk go to the other 6TB disk, etc. The last pair of drives is 6TB to 3TB because I picked up a cheap external 6TB drive recently, there's only 1.5TB of data on this drive, so there's no issue replicating to a 3TB drive. I will replace the 3TB with a 6TB (or bigger) drive when I see another decent deal as the 3TB drive is over 5 years old now.

Some benefits of this setup over RAID:
  • I can buy the cheapest disks available. These can sometimes be 2/3 of the cost of a NAS certified drive of equivalent capacity (this offsets the cost of the second NAS)
  • I don't have to worry about matching disks.
  • I can spread my purchases out - I don't have to replace a whole array every 4 or 5 years.
  • Power saving - single drives can be spun up and down individually. I sync folders in the early hours of the morning, the drives in my secondary NAS are usually asleep for most of the day.

That's pretty clever if you don't mind shuffling stuff around and/or don't think you're likely to run out of space on any particular drive.

I prefer the convenience of big arrays, though you do pay for it.
 

Berwhale

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That's pretty clever if you don't mind shuffling stuff around and/or don't think you're likely to run out of space on any particular drive.

I prefer the convenience of big arrays, though you do pay for it.

I can aggregate capacity in software. For example, by adding multiple shares (on different disks) to a media library in Plex. No need to shuffle anything around and I have a spare drive bay if I want to add more space.
 

hdkeith

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My NAS is a Windows server I built. It has AMD Ryzen 5900X with 128GB RAM I have 6x1TB SSD Raid 5 and then 11 x 8TB WD Gold Raid 6. I use a LSI 16 port RAID adapter I got off E-bay. I run several VMs and one is the Emby and Plex VM that serves all my movies, music, tv shows to my Shields and ATV4K. I have about 20TB of content. I have another VM that runs Syncback Pro to sync all the data to Amazon Cloud Glacier as a backup.
 

Digby

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No, single drives, with one or more shared folders on each drive. Shared folders are replicated to the corresponding drive in the other NAS, so folders on 6TB disk go to the other 6TB disk, etc. The last pair of drives is 6TB to 3TB because I picked up a cheap external 6TB drive recently, there's only 1.5TB of data on this drive, so there's no issue replicating to a 3TB drive. I will replace the 3TB with a 6TB (or bigger) drive when I see another decent deal as the 3TB drive is over 5 years old now.

Some benefits of this setup over RAID:
  • I can buy the cheapest disks available. These can sometimes be 2/3 of the cost of a NAS certified drive of equivalent capacity (this offsets the cost of the second NAS)
  • I don't have to worry about matching disks.
  • I can spread my purchases out - I don't have to replace a whole array every 4 or 5 years.
  • Power saving - single drives can be spun up and down individually. I sync folders in the early hours of the morning, the drives in my secondary NAS are usually asleep for most of the day.
Can you elaborate on how you have set this up? It sounds complicated, but probably isn't, it does seem more sensible than RAID 1, which is not an answer in and of itself.
 

Berwhale

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Can you elaborate on how you have set this up? It sounds complicated, but probably isn't, it does seem more sensible than RAID 1, which is not an answer in and of itself.

I use Shared Folder Sync tasks replicate changes from shared folders on the drives in my primary NAS to similar drives in my secondary one. I do this every 24 hours, but you can set your own schedule for each task or replicate continuously if you want to - I prefer a replication delay to help protect against any 'fat finger' mishaps.

A folder sync task can replicate multiple shared folders. I have 9 shared folders, distributed across 3 disks, with 4 sync tasks replicating all the shared folders. This layout was driven by the size of the shared folders and the slight complication with the setup of the sync tasks...

Shared folders are created automatically on the destination NAS when the sync task is created. However there is no way to specify which volume (i.e. disk) the shared folder is created on. This means the shared folder will often end up on the wrong disk for my disk to disk replication scheme.

The solution is:
  1. On the primary NAS - Create the sync task, let it create the target shared folder. Then cancel the initial sync as soon as it has started to copy data.
  2. On the secondary NAS - Go to Shared Folders in Control Panel and relocate the target shared folder to the correct volume - this should be quick as there is not much data in it yet.
  3. Back on the primary NAS - Restart the Sync task and let it finish replication.
  4. Repeat for each Shared Folder that ends up on the wrong disk.
 
OP
Bob from Florida

Bob from Florida

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Finally pulled the trigger on a Synology 220+ with 2 enterprise 4 TB drives Black Friday deal - $505 shipped from Amazon. Finally setup today - invested 5 hours getting it set up and actually working with both my raspberry pi’s running Volumio. I just need to document what I had to do to get the pi’s to actually populate the library on Volumio. These computer adventures never fail to impress me with the amount of “bug and play” required at times….
 

restorer-john

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These computer adventures never fail to impress me with the amount of “bug and play” required at times….

Computers are a giant sponge for your time. They soak it up and you really have nothing tangible to show for it.

1674347065954.png


Yeah, 10 minutes. Right oh.
 
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Bob from Florida

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Computers are a giant sponge for your time. They soak it up and you really have nothing tangible to show for it.

View attachment 258962

Yeah, 10 minutes. Right oh.
That’s pretty funny and in line with my personal experience. Although, after you lay the “tracks” with the first one it is easy from there on out. At least until an update comes along that fucks up all your hard work!

At the moment listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn - Little Wing - NAS over the wireless network to pi to Schiit Modius DAC balanced out to Luxman 507 mk2 to Reference 3A Grand Veenas with a SVS 3000 micro sub thrown in for good measure! I can say it sounds “glorious” and I am certain sounds exactly the same as using the USB drive directly to the pi. Except now I can rip new CD’s to one place only instead of 3 drives. This should motivate me to get that stack of CD’s waiting to get on the music server drive done.
 

restorer-john

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So do you control the entire thing with a keyboard/mouse/screen on the Pi or use a smartphone/ipad?
 
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Bob from Florida

Bob from Florida

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So do you control the entire thing with a keyboard/mouse/screen on the Pi or use a smartphone/ipad?
You use any device on your home network from any web browser. Either type in the IP address of the pi or the name you assigned the Volumio and it takes you to a home page where you can pick your music, build playlists, set repeat, random play, etc. There are also Apple and Android apps for a different interface. Pretty convenient and I use either my iphone or ipad while listening.
 

Wino

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Finally pulled the trigger on a Synology 220+ with 2 enterprise 4 TB drives Black Friday deal - $505 shipped from Amazon. Finally setup today - invested 5 hours getting it set up and actually working with both my raspberry pi’s running Volumio. I just need to document what I had to do to get the pi’s to actually populate the library on Volumio. These computer adventures never fail to impress me with the amount of “bug and play” required at times….

What made you choose Volumio over Moode or Picoreplayer/LMS?
 
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Bob from Florida

Bob from Florida

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What made you choose Volumio over Moode or Picoreplayer/LMS?
Been using it for years. It was free, they provide the iso image file, and the link to the image file burning software. It literally worked first try with the external usb drive.
 
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