Qnap HS-453DX-8G, ROON, and a NOOB

paul79 · « **on:** 4 Aug 2019, 09:34 pm »

Hi all,

I am trying to set this up in the best way to use as a Roon server in my system. It will be used with an Ethernet endpoint or a player. I have no idea what to do to get it set up properly, past adding the hardware needed. So many options to choose during setup.

Here is what I have in the NAS:
In the large bays, I have 2 4tb SSD's I would like to use for storing my music files
I also have 2 M.2 SATA drives installed internally. These are both 250gb.

I have not done anything else with regards to setting up the drives or any settings. I know some of you may believe this is not enough processing power, but without using any of the more taxing features of roon, I think it will do fine. My HS-251+ actually runs quite well with roon as it is.

Here is what I would like to do:
One of the M.2 drives will be where roon resides and does its thing. I think I have to make a shared folder here for roon after the drive is setup properly.
The other M.2 drive I would like to use for caching during playback.
The larger bays will have all the music.

Some of what I do not understand is how to best configure the drives to do what I want to do. I do not require any raid security, as I have all my backups elsewhere.

With this, I would like to use Raid 0 for best performance on the 2 larger drives? I am not sure what to make the M.2 drives (JBOD?) with regards to what I want to accomplish with cashing and roon storage, or even if I can or should do all of them differently?

I am trying to use this translated link as my guide, but I feel it was a bit different than it is now with regards to options in QTS, and I am not seeing the information I need because I am doing things a bit differently, not requiring any raid 1 (etc.) security. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Freview.u-audio.com.tw%2Freviewdetail.asp%3Freviewid%3D1599

I think I want to start a storage pool, I also think I want to use the Qtier option. However, I am not sure where to start, what options best to select at each step, or in what order.

So to start, how do I begin?

I am great at following orders and look forward to the many questions.
Once this is complete, I hope to have an excellent sounding, low power consuming, and quiet ROON server. Once this is all hashed out and optimized, I would love to create a thread on how to do this the best way using this NAS for others to enjoy as well.

I appreciate the help.
Paul

Vincent Kars · « **Reply #1 on:** 5 Aug 2019, 11:55 am »

An obvious first is that RAID is about high availability, not about security.
RAID 0 = striping; the file is split between 2 disk’s. In case of mechanical disk’s this makes sense to speed op the I/O but does this helps in case of an SSD?
BTW: as it is audio why do you need high speed I/O?
One thing is sure, if one drive fails you, the whole RAID 0 become useless.

JBOD, you see multiple disks as 1. If one drive fails you, the rest is useless as well.

I recommend to use each disk as a single one. No RAID, no JBOD

paul79 · « **Reply #2 on:** 5 Aug 2019, 02:26 pm »

Thank you Vincent. I did not word properly. I said security, but meant it in the redundant backup sense. Thanks for the correction.

I will share some screen shots with questions here and there as I go. Thank you again Vincent for the help.

Paul

joeling39 · « **Reply #3 on:** 7 Aug 2019, 04:07 pm »

I have 2 of these in different residences. Set up as RAID 0. Max out on the storage pool. Follow instruction set up the various bits. Set up Roon using ROCK. Point to the NAS. Important - address of the NAS needs to end with home : 192.`168.1.XX/home (can't recall whether it's forward slash or backward slash). This little bit took me a while to figure out

paul79 · « **Reply #4 on:** 7 Aug 2019, 11:48 pm »

I have it all set up now. I did as instructed, treating all as individual drives, with exception to the larger storage drives. These I made JBOD to make it easier as I have allot to copy.

sampei · « **Reply #5 on:** 21 Mar 2020, 08:50 am »

Hi Paul79. if you don't mind I have few questions because I am looking to buy the same player. if you are willing to answer, it would be very helpful for me. The configuration I have in mind is done like this: 1 10tb with video on that will go into one 3,5 slot, 1 1TB SSD Samsung 2,5 for the Roon library on the other slot, 2 256GB or 512 wd black pci-E.

1. Is it possible to have a raid 0 Pci-E instead of 2 JBOD to speed up the Roon system? Because if so, I can move the audio library into a share on the 10tb and use the 1tb for caching (instead of the pci-E as you did)
2. Is it possible to stream the audio content from Roon using HDMI into a HT receiver? I am asking so because I am looking in the future for a Roon ready ampli like NAD M10, but at the moment the budget doesn't allow it. When I'll have the NAD, I can use ethernet instead of hdmi.
3. Have you tried to split the audio into one hdmi and the video into the other using kodi? I am asking so because following the previous question, at the moment using a HT receiver, there is only hdmi as valid audio trasportation. Even with the NAD, if I playback using Kodi, the only way I have to enter the HDMI ARC (or standard HDMI) input into the NAD is via HDMI. [/li][/list]

Thanks a lot for your help.
Valerio