Music Servers/External Drives


I'm seeking some basic info on server technology to store digital music. I'm looking to rip my CDs to an external device and be able to access it through my Marantz SACD 30n which I use as a Roon endpoint. Will any external drive work or do I need something specifically made for audio files? I would be ripping CDs using a MacBook Pro. I will also want to store digital audio downloads to this server. What approach & software do people use to do this? I appreciate your insights.

 

128x128steveinthebeach

No matter what drive solution you pick, make sure you have adequate backups. You can get a NAS unit with multiple drives, but even with that you should have an external drive backup that is not connected to your computer or network, in case of a virus or ransomware attack. Another copy should be kept off-site or in the cloud.

I used JRiver to rip all my CDs to FLAC files. They are stored on my desktop PC, but also backed up to a single-drive Buffalo NAS drive. All my streamers (Bluesound) are pointed to the NAS drive. I also have a copy on an external HD (disconnected from anything) and a copy in a cloud backup service.

 

I back up everything to an external SSD Drive. Very simple using the Innuos Sense app. Not that this stuff is hard. 

You can keep it simple and inexpensive.  A spinning hard drive connected to your Roon server will work just fine.  It is important, however, to have backup copies of your music someplace else.  Any hard drive, be it spinning or SDD can fail.

I rip and/or download new music onto a Mac computer and then copy the music files over my wireless network to a USB hard drive that is attached to my Roon server..  That way I have a backup of my music on the MAC, which is also backed up on the Cloud.