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Media Storage: Hard- & Software Tools & Tips & Tricks (All Music & Video Content)

JensA

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Might make sense to open a thread similar to the Media Ripping Thread:

Will start with my setup (which copying from another thread I posted this earlier this year):
 

Music Files Data Storage and Backup Strategy

my music files are all being stored on a 2-bay NAS (Synology 218+) in RAID 1 mode, i.e. the 2 x 6TB HD drives on the NAS (file size of the music library is about 1.6 TB) are mirrored and have identical content. 

Each night the contents are backed up in the Cloud (I am using C2 service from Synology) plus I make regular backups of the music library to an external HD via USB.

Music Media Server

Like many other users here I have Roon subscription for accessing my media library.

Roon requires a pretty decent CPU (computer) to run the Roon Server which Roon calls „Roon core“.

This can be basically any computer but the CPU of a NAS is usually a bit too weak for this purpose.

I am using a fanless NUC computer to run the Roon core (with the music stored on the NAS) but a Mac Mini can also be used.

Jens

 
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Coalboy68

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Audio Storage

I am on Synology 212j 2 bay with 2x2TB SSDs by Samsung 860 pro, now whisper quiet as had 2x3TB WD HDDs in RAID 1 using 1.6TB.  It was a bit of a pain to “downsize” but got there in the end this holds all my CDs

my surround sound music is on a 1TB usb SSD stick by TCSUNBOW, which can go into my Blu-ray player or NAS, or computer upstairs

 
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Nestor Turton

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I use a 2012 Mac mini with Thunderbolt Attached Storage as a music server. I do not use RAID, but keep two 6TB discs in sync.    That way if I accidentally delete an album from one disc I can restore it from the other. I also have a copy in my fire safe and keep an off site copy. I use JRiver MC28 to maintain my library. The folder structure is Collection/Genre/Album Artist/Album and everything is tagged though some songs are missing lyrics and song writing credits. ThIs serves an ADSM (Lounge), MDSM (Bedroom) and Chord Choral System (Music Room), The CPU seems fine to run UPnP for the Linn and USB Audio 2 with room correction for the Chord. 

 
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Newton John

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I have a Roon ROCK NUC installed in a fanless case. Stereo music files are stored on an internal 4TB SSD.

Previously, I stored the music files on a four drive Netgear ReadyNAS. Now, this is used for back ups and storage of other data such as surround music files and video. I also make extra back ups to external removeable HDDs and keep a couple of these offsite for safety.

 
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JensA

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I have a Roon ROCK NUC installed in a fanless case. Stereo music files are stored on an internal 4TB SSD.
John, may I ask which 4TB SSD you are using?

I have a fanless Roon Rock NUC but the music sofar stored on the Synology NAS.

 

JensA

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It's a Samsung 870 QVO which was the cheapest one I could find, Jens.
Same here in Germany but will wait for some Black Friday offers.
Would love to put my NAS to a more remote place and use it for backups only like you.

Sofar it's - for performance purposes - directly attached to my FritzBox which for various reasons has to be placed very close to my Hifi system.

Due to this setup listenting to music is  - sometimes - disturbed by HDD spinning noises from my NAS 😡
 

 
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MickC

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I use Roon ROCK on an 8i5 NUC, with internal 2TB HDD for local files, and a subscription to Qobuz. It’s in our tiny loft conversion two floors from the kit so no worries about mechanical noise!

Files are ripped to the main pc before being copied to the NUC to check metadata so that’s one local backup. There’s another local one on an HP Microserver which uses Microsoft’s version of RAID - Storage Spaces. Two off site backups as well - one in the cloud using BackBlaze, the other at our flat in another NUC running Roon ROCK, and I take newly ripped files there whenever we visit.

It’s probably overkill but seems to work well for us.

Mick

 

LudwigD

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Music Media Server

Like many other users here I have Roon subscription for accessing my media library.

Roon requires a pretty decent CPU (computer) to run the Roon Server which Roon calls „Roon core“.

This can be basically any computer but the CPU of a NAS is usually a bit too weak for this purpose.
I also have a Roon subscription, which I like very much. In the beginning I installed everything on my  NAS (QNAP TVS-671), and indeed, as JensA said, a bit too weak.

So, for now:

Music storage is on a Roon Nucleus, very nice.

Backup is on a Mac mini 2020 (M1), also for when I use Linn Kazoo. Also running very well.

Second copy (part of) of my music is on my MacBook Pro

And I also have the original CD's in a box in a storage depot. 

LD

 

fschmeis

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I also have a Roon subscription, which I like very much. In the beginning I installed everything on my  NAS (QNAP TVS-671), and indeed, as JensA said, a bit too weak.
how many tracks do you have in your library? which CPU? which amount of RAM installed?

I am also running ROON (I LOVE it) on a QNAP TVS 671, with i5 CPU and 16 GByte of RAM; it handles more than 300.000 tracks and the performance is reansonable; as the performance of ROON is very dependent on the speed of a single core of the CPU, a i7 might improve things even more

5 disks each 6 TByte in the 671 are RAID 1, one SSD for the ROON database in the remaining 6th bay, an incremental nightly backup to another NAS in a separate room, and monthly I do a backup to a WD DuoBook which is stored physically far away (in the office)

And to be honest:

  • Due to disk failures I already took advantage of the RAID 1
  • Due to a HW failure of the 671 I took also advantage of the 2nd NAS
  • Due to a vulnerability issue of the web admin page of the ROON qpg on my NAS (all files on the 671 and the 2md NAS have been encrypted 🥴) I took advantage of the offsite backup

=> this kind of 3 level back up is strongly recommended!!!

 

d88

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Music storage  - NAS Synology 220+  containing 2x 4GB Seagate Ironwolf Pro in a RAID 1 configuration.

Back up - Whenever I add or update my collection I backup to a Samsung 4GB SSD, and mirror this to a spare HD I had lying around (which is kept off site). 

Is anyone running Roon from their NAS drive ? I know the general consensus is that it may be underpowered (as Jens highlighted in the opening post), however you can give Synology drives a modest boost in performance with a RAM upgrade and was wondering if this would be sufficient or do I need a more dedicated computer to run Roon? 

 

LudwigD

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how many tracks do you have in your library? which CPU? which amount of RAM installed?
Mine is the i3 version of the TVS-671 with 8GB RAM. So this explains the difference in satisfaction. 

There are about 500-600 CD’s in my collection.

Due to a vulnerability issue of the web admin page of the ROON qpg on my NAS
And after this I made the change to a Mac Mini for Backup and a Nucleus as Core. 

 

JensA

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I have a Roon ROCK NUC installed in a fanless case. Stereo music files are stored on an internal 4TB SSD.

Previously, I stored the music files on a four drive Netgear ReadyNAS. Now, this is used for back ups and storage of other data such as surround music files and video. I also make extra back ups to external removeable HDDs and keep a couple of these offsite for safety.
John,

my internal Samsung 870 QVO 4TB SSD should arrive today 😀:

Just learned from the Roon Knowledgebase: ROCK Internal Storage that it is not possible to copy the music library first to the SSD and then install the SSD in the NUC but I have to install the empty SSD first and then fill the content. No big deal but will be a bit more time consuming (for abt 1.6 TB).

However I would like to keep some info (like no of times a song has been played, date whenalbum was added to library etc..) even after migrating the music library.
Do you know how this can be achieved?

Jens

 

Newton John

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John,

my internal Samsung 870 QVO 4TB SSD should arrive today 😀:

Just learned from the Roon Knowledgebase: ROCK Internal Storage that it is not possible to copy the music library first to the SSD and then install the SSD in the NUC but I have to install the empty SSD first and then fill the content. No big deal but will be a bit more time consuming (for abt 1.6 TB).

However I would like to keep some info (like no of times a song has been played, date whenalbum was added to library etc..) even after migrating the music library.
Do you know how this can be achieved?

Jens
I'll explain how I did as best as I can remember. As you've already seen Roon Knowledge Base is helpful, but it's not always obvious where to look. I'm not an IT expert by any means, but still managed ok, eventually.

It's probably a good idea to back up Roon before you start. I presume that you are already familiar with inside NUCs from putting in memory, etc.

I had difficulty fitting the SSD. For some reason, it didn't make a good connection. I had to reopen the NUC reconnect everything a couple of times. It has been fine since then.

After installing the new SSD in your NUC, you need to set it up for use by Roon. If I remember correctly, it was pretty obvious how to do this when I went into Settings Storage in Roon on what ever you use for control laptop, ipad, etc. I preferred using a laptop. I think Roon had recognised there was an SSD that needed setting up.

Then you can find the SSD in Explorer on your PC or laptop. I guess you'll also be able to do it on a Mac, but I haven't done so. Use the path \\rock\

I found all this fiddly at first, but soon got the hang of it.

You'll find the SSD in network > data > storage > internal storage

Then you copy all your music folders and files from the NAS or wherever they're stored at present.

The final stage is go to settings storage again in Roon and you will be able to redirect Roon to look for the music files in the new SSD.

Click on the three dots of the current path and then edit. Then you can use browse to find the new SSD.

Roon should then just treat the new location exactly as if it was the old one with all your info still intact.

I found it useful to Map a Network Drive on This PC in Explorer. That gives you a shortcut to find the SSD when your copying files. Same for the NAS.

Also, copying files can be very slow - sometimes takes a couple of days. In my case, the data was going from my NAS in the garage across the network to laptop in the lounge then all the way back across the network to the NUC in the lounge next to the hifi. It was possible to speed things up a bit by connecting the laptop by ethernet to the switch nearest to either the NAS or the NUC. Even faster if I moved the NUC and the laptop to the NAS in the garage and conected everything to the same switch as the router.

Hope this helps and that I am not confusing the issue.

It's a shame Kelly200269 isn't here any more because I am sure he would have been able to help

 
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JensA

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Update Nov 21, 2021:

1) Music Files Data Storage and Backup Strategy


a) New music (Vinylrips, CDs and downloaded content) is first edited on my Mac

b) Music Library:
Once I am finished with the editing the files are being transferred to a special Music Folder on my NAS which serves as my "Master Music Library")

c) Music Libray Folder structure is pretty straight forward

Music/Artist/Album Name/Trackname
with compilations being stored in
Music/Compilations/Album Title/Trackname

d) RAID 1: My music library of presently about 1.6TB (as well as a lot of other stuff...) are all being stored on a 2-bay NAS (Synology 218+) in RAID 1 mode, i.e. the 2 x 12TB HD drives on the NAS are mirrored and have identical content. 

e) Cloud Backup:
Each night the the music contents are automatically backed up in the Cloud (I am using C2 service from Synology, not cheap but reliable) by using Synology's HyperBackup App

f) USB HDD Backup
Synology's HyperBackup App is also being used for automatic backups of the Music Library to a USB HDD attached to the NAS.

g) Keeping a copy of the Library in my Office
I keep a USB HDD with the entire Music Library in my office (remote place). I update this copy from time to time (about every 1 -2 months)

I admit that d) to g) above looks a bit like overkill combine with paranoia but I don't want to risk losing my music library and except for g) everything works automatically...

2) Music Media Server

a) Roon Subscription

Like many other users here I have a ROON subscription for accessing my media library.
Roon requires a pretty decent CPU (computer) to run the Roon Server which Roon calls „Roon core“.
This can be basically any computer but the CPU of a NAS is usually a bit too weak for this purpose.
The roon core can also run on a PC, a Mac, a Intel NUC or - if money doesn't matter - on Roon's own Roon Nucleus

I am using a fanless NUC computer ( it's a Cirrus7 Nimbini ) to run the Roon core with a special Linux OS from Roon called ROCK installed.
ROCK is a true one trick pony, i.e. with Rock installed you cannot use the NUC for any other purpose than running Roon. If you want to use the NUC also for other apps you can install a "full" OS like Windows and then simply install Roon.

The "Roon Database" (this is NOT the music content/music library but metadate of the music library like playlists etc..) is stored on a 128 GB SSD M.2 installed on the Nimbini (according to Roon this database should for performance purposes be kept on a SDD (NOT a HDD), but 128GB are more than sufficent for the

Music Library: Until today there were no music files stored on the Nimbini NUC. Instead within the Roon setup the music library folder on the NAS was configured as storage folder. Performance was OK.
Howver, with the latest drop in SSD prices I have bought an internal 4 TB SSD from Samsung (prices are now well below 300 Euros for 4 TB...) which I have installed as internal storage device in the Nimbini NUC.
In order to keep my good backup system of my Music Library described above I have decided that I will continue to keep my "Master Music Library" on the NAS and a kind of "carbon copy" of the library on the NUC only.
So I need a tool with which I can synchronise the 4TB SSD with the content of the "Master Music Lib" on the NAS.
There is indeed a Unix tool called Rsync that does just that.
Unfortunately, I am not a Unix/Linux expert, but there is a very good thread in the Roon forum that describes the whole thing very well, even for laymen:

Backing Up USB Drive on Rock to NAS

I changed the whole thing a bit for my purposes and it actually works!
 

Jens

 
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Nestor Turton

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That looks comprehensive @JensA

rsync is in the unix system resources (usr) binary (bin) folder on my Mac /usr/bin/rsync 

I use

rsync -av --delete <music server> <backup disk> 

to synchronise my music server with my backup music server. If rsync finds a file on the backup disk that is not on the music server then it deletes it. If rsync finds a file on the music server that is new or changed it will copy that file to the backup overwriting if necessary. 

On a Mac you can drag the folder icons for the music server and back up on to the command line rather than type them, which can be a pain to type. The -a makes the command drill drown through the folders and the -v is for verbose so it writes anything like deletions to the screen - you could redirect these to a file by adding 2> ~/Desktop/musicbackup.txt which will put a file on your desktop instead of writing to screen. 

I could use crontab to run this every night, but I run it manually when I decide to resynchronise the disks. 

I have no experience of Roon or your NAS so cannot be sure it would work in the same way, but I would think it should. And if I've made errors or typos then somebody will correct me (please). I used to use the cpio command for backups, but rsync is a bit easier.  

 
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JensA

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I have no experience of Roon or your NAS so cannot be sure it would work in the same way, but I would think it should. And if I've made errors or typos then somebody will correct me (please). I used to use the cpio command for backups, but rsync is a bit easier.  
@Nestor Turton

Yes, rsync works the same way on a Synology NAS.

I first had to mount the internal storage drive of the NUC to the NAS (as described in the link of my previous post)

Following Rsync command works for my setup:

 rsync -av --exclude '@eaDir' --delete <my Music Directory on NAS> <internal storage drive on NUC>

--exclude '@eaDir':
Excludes the - virtually thousands - of directories Synology creates with Thumbnails of the album covers etc from being synced as Roon has no use for the thumbnails.
 

 
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