What do you do to store music and avoid listening to whirring drives?

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Thanks. Appreciate it.

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So just curious if I were putting a SSD into a Roon Rock does that need to be a certain kind? I have been looking at Samsung 860 they have the cheapest 2tb drive as the QVO, then the EVO and last the Pro. Any thoughts on which to go with?

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I use many Samsung EVO drives M.2 and 2.5 inch SSD snd they work everywhere I’ve installed them.

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Any SSD drive from what I know.

I’m partial to Crucial SSD drives but Samsung seems to be popular.

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Another writer at PFO has convinced me to try something with equipment I have on hand, so I’ll do that first in the next couple days.

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With regard to high speed multilayer SSD drives, the Samsung 860 Pro seems to be at the top of the food chain for audiophile use.

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Yeah, it is also about 150 more for the 2TB size so about 450ish vs 300 for the evo. I suppose not much in the scope of the cost of the rest of systems, but I wasn’t sure if it mattered, other than making sure it doesn’t die quicker or lose data to corruption vs the
cheaper options.

Thanks for letting me know!

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what’s PFO? Sorry, I sometimes totally miss obvious stuff. I had to ask @cardri what CCW was…As soon as he wrote counter clockwise I was pretty embarrassed considering he was talking about volume controls…

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Positive Feedback Online

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AHA! Thanks!!

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@Veneet I used an 860 EVO that I got from Newegg. I also took out the 8G memory and added 2 x 8g chips back in for 16G total. You have to remove the SSD platform to get to the memory chips but its a simple task. I think @cardri used the 860 PRO SSD. I thought about using a 4TB drive but didn’t want to spend the extra $. I will probably regret that move and update to the larger drive if I decide to move my music there. I still have everything on my NAS for now.

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I retired 4 years ago but do respite volunteering a few hours a week.

Oh, you had a different topic in mind…

Use Tidal and a 600 album CD based library that fits on each of my computers. CDs are kept at home. Additional backups: Time Machine external hard drives on each computer plus additional Time Machine external hard drives kept in a safety deposit box (in case of theft or fire, but we are remotely monitored for break-in and fire). So have a 7-way backup.

Considering 1 TB holds roughly 2,500 Redbook albums at a original street cost of about $30,000 USD, you guys with huge libraries are/were filthy rich or have stolen music.

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Thanks Baldy! I really appreciate the advice and the info on memory! You don’t mean memory in the drive but for the NUC itself I assume?

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I am just at 1 TB now but high resolution audio is painfully big, red book cd wise I was just over 650gb the high resolution stuff fills space alarmingly quickly.

That and I am mid 40s and have been buying cds since high school so it does add up over the years, and when I got married it basically doubled the amount of cds as my wife had all of hers too.

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Correct. I took out the 8G it came with and put 16G in its place. 1.2v laptop memory. You have to remove the SSD platform to get access to the memory chips.
And yes its easy to stack up a bunch of CD’s or audio files from the web sources. Roon shows my collection @ 2961 albums and 28,962 tracks and still growing.

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Vern is right, I am going from 1TB 860 pro to 4TB EVO. I talked to @brett66 about RAM and 16GB is huge RAM capable of millions of songs. However, my library has grown from 0.5TB to 2.5TB in 6 months so I may just upgrade like Vern and not have to ever think about it. Right now I have 600+ albums of hi res and 60+ albums of SACD files in 1TB that I change around with my 8TB back up drive. Buying a 4TB EV cost $600 while 4TB PRO cost $950 and you don’t need the PRO so I will upgrade to EVO.

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That sounds like a good plan, that is a massive increase in 6 months! I do also go in spurts where I buy a lot of music in a short amount of time. Maybe not quite that much!

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Yeah, I have purchased quite a bit in the last 6 months. Like you, I go in spurts. Hind sight is always 20/20. However, If you have a plan, it hurts less. Right now I will be going to PF 2.16 in a few years and the Samsung 4TB I can swap over. Also, I can use the (2) 8GB RAM banks from my Nucleus+ so these moves fall in line with my 5 year plan.

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I am not sure about the 860 line of SSDs as some of the technology did change from the 850 line. But, when I was in the market and researching drives when the 850 was the latest and greatest, these are the differences that I discovered between the EVO and PRO models. In the end, they are both amazing drives and will perform awesomely in any audio application they are installed. These differences will only matter when factoring in your intended use and objectives (just like everything else in this hobby) and your willingness/ability to spend more or less.

These are just a few of the more significant things to consider which in the end may amount to something worth considering, or not. If interested, you could easily find the differences between the 860 EVO and PRO with regard to the attributes listed below:

  1. MEMORY TYPE: The PRO uses 2-bit MLC NAND while the EVO uses 3-bit TLC. With 2-bits per cell, rather than 3-bits, you do get improved performance and longer lifespan. If this is a drive you plan to keep for 5+ years, I would take this into serious consideration. This is why the PRO comes with a 10 year warranty and the EVO with only a 5 year warranty. You of course will have a back up, but it is a pain to hassle with a dead drive and if not diligent with the backups, you may lose data.

  2. POWER CONSUMPTION: The PRO uses significantly less power overall than the EVO and in my opinion, maintaining low voltages in your streamer is a BIG deal. However, the biggest power differences were in the write operations as opposed to the read operations which is good, since most activity will be READ, but when it comes to saving new music, metadata, etc., WRITING will occur and those higher voltage demands will need to be met - meaning drawing more power into the circuit of the streamer.

  3. HEAT: Heat is never good for electronics - this is especially true when you are running passive cooling in a fan-less case. In a performance test conducted specifically to measure heat, both drives ran an idle temperature of approximately 27C (80F) which will depend on ambient environmental temperature. However, when ran hard to push the limits of the drive, the PRO maintained 50C (122F) which is rather cool while the EVO reached 62C (143F). It may not seem significant, but every degree matters if looking to own a piece of gear long-term and especially if running in a fan-less environment.

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@JeffofArabica - WOW, thank you… these are important considerations, not just performance; MTBF. I can use the 4TB 860 PRO when I jump to the PF 2.16 so I have not lost anything when I sell the Nucleus+ w/ 1TB 860 PRO and Sbooster 18V LPS…

Now the pro has to come down to $500 and I’ll be happy. I am running out of runway with my library already shuffling things around…

I live in AZ and the electricity is 1/2 the cost of LADWP… :slight_smile: so the power consumption is not an issue… we have a nuclear reactor in our back yard… :slight_smile: