Comments on Profile Post by dubharmonic

  1. Vansen
    Vansen
    Yep! I have my music on a NAS, but I host it as an NFS share and rsync music library from the NAS to an NVMe drive on my Roon Server and the performance is great.
    Jan 30, 2023
    dubharmonic likes this.
  2. Thad E Ginathom
    Thad E Ginathom
    You can play music off a CD, which must be slowest storage device on any computer that doesn't still have an antique floppy drive.

    On the other hand, having one's OS and programs on an SSD makes a huge difference. And I keep my current photos on it too for speed of access/saving when post-processing. But music: no.
    ...
    Jan 30, 2023
    Cryptowolf, dubharmonic and zottel like this.
  3. Thad E Ginathom
    Thad E Ginathom
    ... OK, so I am using WD Black, which is nippy for HDDs. But only, really, Why-because-I-could. And my root filesystem was on one before I went SSD for that.
    Jan 30, 2023
    dubharmonic likes this.
  4. Vansen
    Vansen
    Even with a top of the line consumer HDD, you're most likely to achieve a max transfer of 120 MB/s, and slower with DB I/O. SSDs on SATA can reach ~550 MB/s. NVMe drives can vary a lot, but modern drives of mine are ~3000 MB/s.
    Jan 30, 2023
    Cryptowolf and dubharmonic like this.
  5. Thad E Ginathom
    Thad E Ginathom
    Even with the slowest HDD... it still plays music.
    Jan 30, 2023
    dubharmonic likes this.
  6. YMO
    YMO
    I'll do weed over an upgrade.
    Jan 30, 2023
  7. GoldfishX
    GoldfishX
    My DAC snitched on my HDD's. After 7 years, I know what a MB BF1 sounds like...and it sounded like it hated being fed music from a HDD.
    Jan 30, 2023
  8. caute
    caute
    Doesn't a garden variety FLAC actually play at less than the stated bitrate, at around 900 kbps on avg?

    Honestly wondering why an SSD would sound better, or does this have to do with the tech of platter drives?

    Or something more akin to the recent speakers thread about more power (past the threshold even of the speakers top rating) equaling better sound sometimes?
    Jan 30, 2023
    Cryptowolf and dubharmonic like this.
  9. Vansen
    Vansen
    It isn't about the sound quality for me, but is more related to performance of accessing Roons DB for a smoother experience. The DB and app I/O is what benefits.
    Jan 30, 2023
    Cryptowolf, dubharmonic and zottel like this.
  10. Vansen
    Vansen
    I don't see any sound quality or performance differences if I keep the DB and app on an SSD and just add my spinning disk NAS locations to Roon for the music.
    Jan 30, 2023
    Cryptowolf and dubharmonic like this.
  11. Vansen
    Vansen
    I let my NAS disks sleep most of the time, and don't want to wake the spinning disk if it is not needed, so that's why I rsync my library to the Roon server.
    Jan 30, 2023
    Cryptowolf and dubharmonic like this.
  12. zottel
    zottel
    Technically, all content from storage devices is loaded into RAM before it is worked on by any software, so the actual playing or streaming will always be done from the RAM, not from the disk.
    As spinning disks are known for generating lots of electrical noise, I could imagine a benefit in SQ, though, if the DAC is directly connected to the Roon core.
    Jan 30, 2023
    Cryptowolf, dubharmonic and Vansen like this.
  13. Thad E Ginathom
    Thad E Ginathom
    Really, I think "imagine" is the right word there.

    Mind you, old HDDs used to make a noticeable amount of physical noise.

    But in the depths of the machine (or the internet) it really is all data. Just data. I know some audiophools just hate the idea of just ones and zeros. Tough shit.
    Jan 31, 2023
    Cryptowolf and dubharmonic like this.
  14. dubharmonic
    dubharmonic
    Bitrates, electrical noise, and physical noise aside, the performance drop I noticed right away is library management. Thousands of albums and their metadata need faster I/O than playing lossless content.
    Jan 31, 2023
  15. Thad E Ginathom
    Thad E Ginathom
    Yes. That might well take more than playing the music.
    Jan 31, 2023