The HL8 and HL4 are available for preorder now. My email says the HL8, fully built and burned in costs $1,399 and the HL4 is$1,199. Drives are extra.

https://store.45homelab.com/presale/hl8

https://store.45homelab.com/presale/hl4

You can also buy just the Chassis, Backplane, and PSU if you want to add your own hardware.

I routinely monitor my zpool scrub reports. All clean.

Periodically I run $smartctl on each disc.

Error corrections were accumulating.

These discs were getting old so I pre-emptititvely swapped them out, but rather than 4gb SAS drives, the new ones are 8gb SAS.

Hi guys,
I was looking on the NAS topic for the last weeks and I was wondering in which direction we (the audiophile community) will turn. our interest in storage.
Reflecting my personal behaviour, I have noticed that I use streaming for the ease of use, but quite often for the possiblity to pursue a higher level of selection when it comes to buying a whole album or specific titles.
Thus, the growth level for disk capacity has really slowed down for me, moreover the VOD streaming offers have substituted a big share of our family videotheque, which had been a major contributor to capacity growth. In music terms, DSD and Hi Res definitely have had a good impact on disk deployement, though the supply of interesting new music in these formats does not really correlate to Moore's law for capacity anymore.
For a future project I like to get a picture where the focus of interest for the AS members will be located.
Thanx in advance for participating. Comments are welcome!
Tom aka DuckToller

I spotted a device on AliExpress, seems to be a new one from LHY Audio, the Chinese company that makes the excellent SW6, SW8 and SW10 Ethernet switches.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807078993423.html

The device is basically a RPI4 with custom linear power supply and a good quality OCXO clock. What intrigued me the most is the 10Mhz master clock input on the device. 
 

So the idea is as follows: install Audirvāna (Linux version) as a DLNA server on it and play audio files to my active speakers (with built in streamer and DAC) - Bang Olufsen Beolab 28, which would act as a DLNA renderer, whereas the signal would travel through a LHY SW6 switch. I could also add the LHY OCK-2 master clock and synchronize the clocks on the RPI server and the SW6 switch.

Does anyone have any experience with upgrading clocks on the their servers and how does it affect SQ if such a server outputs audio only over LAN?

The ability to run Audirvana on QNAP has me really excited, but it isn't a showstopper for me if the NAS can't run Audirvana. 

Does anyone have any other recommendations? Also interested in recent experience with the HS-453DX if I decide to go that way. I need 4TB, expandable; RAID. Storing music files only and able to run Minimserver. Pretty simple.

Thanks for any feedback.

If you are using Windows 11 Home operating system or logging in Windows 11 Pro computer with Microsoft account, it is necessary to check sync settings of OneDrive.

For security reasons, it is better to not store items onto "My Documents" "My Pictures" "My Videos" "My Music" "Desktop" because it is typical target folder of “ransomware”

We are currently offering 2 test samples for experienced CAT users who willing to share your experience and feedbacks, if you are willing to participate in the experience, please send private message.

Audiophile NVMe M2 SSD specification

• 1TB 3D NAND flash in pseudo SLC mode = 333GB
• Crystek Crystek CCHD-957 Femto clock ossilator
• Audionote Kaisei 2x 220uf capacitors
• External 5V DC power input 2.1mm or Internal MB power with capacitor pass through
• 2oz copper 8 layer PCB
• Milspec PCB stiffness
• 300% grouding area
• 5u gold plated connectors
• CNC copper heatsink

1. Intel X25-E Sata II SSD

2.Samsung 860 Sata III SSD

3.Toshiba 7200rpm HDD 3.5 inch internal 

4.Samsung 970 Pro plus NVME

5.Intel Optane 64gb

Test PC was 1. Lenovo Ideacentre Y900 Z190MB 6700k Hqplayer 4.0  

2. Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Ultra/ Intel 10700k Hqplayer 4.0 

The findings were largely driven by external power supply using quality 

5v LT3045 LPSU with 2A 

The NVME was installed on a USB holder plugged into a USB slot on a PCIE 3.0 card with an external power supplied from a  12V DC LT3045 LPS  with 1.5A

The Toshiba HDD was powered in the Lenovo PC using the ATX PSU with a Elfidelity SSD/HDD filter just as a baseline for SQ. The music files in the Lenovo PC are also stored in this HDD.

The Intel Optane COULD NOT Boot from the same arrangement USB/PCIE USB 3.0 hookup as the Samsung 970 Pro Plus. 

So it was used in the NVME MB slot first in the Lenovo Z190 MB and the Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Ultra 

The Music Files in the Gigabye Aorus Intel 10700k PC was stored in a Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB SSD.

All the drives including the Toshiba HDD were installed with WinServer 2019 Core stripped of most processes (usually down to 35 and threads about 500)

HQPlayer 4.0 4.60version is common.

The best SQ in Top to Lowest is:

1. Samsung 860 Evo 250gb

2.lntel X25 64gb

3.Samsung 970 Pro Plus in PCIe USB3.0 mode

4.Intel Optane NVME on MB slot

5.Samsung 970 Pro Plus in MB slot

6.Toshiba HDD in the Lenovo 6700K PC

The SQ differences were in the Color of the Sound presentation(not flat and lifeless), more dynamic, better stereo separation and depth. Not extreme differences but Audible using the same songs, Headphone mode (Abyss Phi/CC - Dana Lazuli Ultra) direct to 2 x 30watt Class A Monoblock Headphone amps from the speaker Taps using a resistor Lpad setup.

There was more difference to in the SQ due to the speed of data transfer == The Toshiba HDD could be found to be lacking as the System probably had more CPU/Data Exchanges as this was also the Boot Drive as well as the Music Drive. 

I am NOT saying the SQ differences are Absolute and Universal in all setups. No---- my conclusion is:

1. Powering the SSD MUST be done on as high quality a PSU as possible. I went from ATX to external 5v chinese LPSU to the Light Harmonic LPSU. The real jump is when I used 5v LT3045 LPSUs.

2.NVME is not so good for SQ - the remedy should be High Quality MB power - a LPSU with ATX capability is needed

3.NVME powered through PCIE/USB external power hookup is far better but still loses out to the winner

4. Music files MUST be separated from the Bootdrive

5. Data Transfer rates matter for Upsampling Music software such as HQPlayer 4.0

6. USB3.1 drive (Toshiba) was tested OK but was affected by Noise in the USB

    Controller. This fared a lot better plugged into the PCIE USB3.0 drive 

7. USB2.0 drives are so slow that HQPlayer stutters at the ASDM7EC/DSD256 setting

AND the winner is :>>

Samsung 860 Evo powered by LT 3045 PSU.

Please note that the above is only in my setup and to my ears. As always YMMV,

Thanks

Kelvin

now I just have to wait a week or so for all the data to be uploaded.

I've posted a review and measurements of the Wavedream NET here, it's currently the highest performing digital source I've had the pleasure of trying.

https://goldensound.audio/2021/08/28/rockna-wavedream-net-review-and-measurements/

I think I know why the difference in sound quality, and it has to do with the nature of ZFS and how it works. When I press play on an album on JPLAY on my iPhone or iPad what happens, if I selected a local file for playback is this: JPLAY sends that information to HQP Embedded, HQP Embedded requests that file which happens to live on a ZFS pool. ZFS in the blink of an eye reads the file, checks that it's not corrupted by comparing it to parity, and then loads the file into the ARC. The  ARC (Adaptive Replacement Cache) is where all files that are in use from a Zpool live. If you want the TL:DR of it, here is the Explain Like I Am 5 version of it in pdf form: https://papers.freebsd.org/2019/FOSDEM/jude-eli5_zfs_caching.files/ELI5_ZFS_ARC.pdf The ARC is RAM, essentially half of the RAM in a system, unless set up differently, is used by ZFS as the ARC.This is where the ECC memory comes in handy as any changes to the file, whether made by you intentionally or a bit error, are then written back to the file on the drive. ECC memory will fix any single bit errors and help ensure your files are correct, aka: bit perfect.

Anyway, this is the why, in my opinion, of why I think the files played back from a local ZFS pool sound better than files played back from a more normal file system. The entire file is loaded into memory after being checked for errors, and possibly even corrected if any errors were found. Below are 2 screen captures. The first as you can see shows I am really bad at taking screen captures, however if you look in the top the 66.89MB number is the amount of data in the ARC when I start my computer. It is essentially empty except for whatever Minimserver has in there as it scans my music library. In the second image you can see that I a) took a better screen capture, and b) that the ARC current has risen to 144.56MB after I played an album and the first song was loaded into RAM.

This effect does not manifest if your files live on a ZFS system someplace on your network and are accessed by HQP via SMB share.

So, when I compare to the same files, played back via the same way, on the same machine, and the same data, the files from the EXT4 SSD just don't sound as dynamic, attack feels softened and they sound darker, softer, and thicker.

If you have the SSDs and Linux know how, you can easily test this yourself and let me know if you think I am crazy. Having the music files on a ZFS pool essentially means HQPE is playing the files from RAM due to the nature of how ZFS works, and that is why I think files played back from a ZFS pool sound better.

Caveat, before you try this there is one thing you should know. Trying to read music files on a ZFS pool with HQPE directly by trying to add them to the library will use up all your RAM instantly and crash your system. Minimserver however does not have this problem.

Fortunately, I don't use Microsoft Account Logon on my Windows 11 Pro computer and not affected by this disaster.

How to know if BitLocker drive encryption (BDE) is enabled or not:

Quote

Run CMD as administrator and run

manage-bde -status

Software encryption seriously degrades drive R/W performance and negatively impacts to user experience. This is my opinion, software drive encryption should not be used and should be avoided at any costs

There are several workaround to this problem:

1. Use hardware-based self encryption drive feature to accelerate/offload encryption/decryption
2. Disable BitLocker encryption

Option 1 is technically interesting. Most modern SSDs support Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Opal security subsystem class (SSC) 2.0 self encrypted drive (SED) feature. It seems, in order to use this feature, drive data should be cleared, enable OPAL with some tool, and clean install Windows operating system, then set BitLocker to use hardware-based encryption.

Do you think it is more important for a system disk than a data disk?

What better NAS drives are out there for my use? For example, would a NAS with optical fiber output which allows me to use fiber cable connecting it to my Ether Regen switch imrove sq?

for NAS storage/ streaming, I'm pondering using a few large drives (4-8TB) USB3 attached to the Pulse. Is there a better choice for drives/storage enclosures

to minimize electrical noise into the Pulse?

program out there I could run against my FLAC music library and check against the results on my iPhone when out shopping?

looking to solve a problem with 2 Seagate Archive HDDs (each 8 TB of data - external storage)  that occurred on Monday mysteriously.

That Monday my Win10 machine did read both via usb3 HDD reading device. I checked them both as usual.
I worked on he one where I have stored my personal data in order to sort out couple of documents from the last century …

On Tuesday, the disk wasn’t recognized anymore. The 2nd disk, which wasn’t manipulated on Monday, neither!
I tried another Win10 machine with the same HDD reader via USB3, no success.
I was actually thinking, that either the reader or win10 are the source of the problem.
With test disk and Mini Tool PW I can identify the missing partitions.

Looks like I have a problem of reading the partition table (GPT) on the disk, but data is there.
Now I am looking for:
Anyone could guide me to an instruction how to repair this GPT under CMD /  diskpart or other utils free of charge?

I remember to have that done once, but it looks now like a decade ago. Using search engines is of no help as wondershare, easeus, minitool and all other companies with the same product have occupied the first 200 or so entries no matter what you ask about GPT table recovery …

An alternative is to recover the data on another HDD, but that’s not free of failure risk and its about 12 TB of data (personal / picture / music)

Of course, beyond basic storage capacity and drive storage redundancy to prevent user file losses, a NAS or any server and its file system (zfs or btrfs) are only as useful as they enable you to prevent data corruption. Save for the crazy maths (and terms like “pool” which seems to have multiple meanings in the data storage biz), these reports were helpful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checksum for learning about hash functions and the tables of hash codes (“hashes”) they (apparently?) create for each document, photo, audio or video file.

But please to these questions:

Is a hash code automatically created for every user file (e.g., document, photo, audio, video) the first time it gets written to the NAS? Or do you have to use some kind of app or NAS utility and enable it to generate and assign a hash code to every one of your files?

And where are those codes stored? Inside of the file’s own container? Or are all user file hash codes stored someplace else? In a “hash table” and/or on a drive partition on the RAID drive array?

Are these hash codes used by the zfs and btrfs file system for routine data scrubbing?

https://blog.synology.com/how-data-scrubbing-protects-against-data-corruption

https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/how-to-prevent-silent-data-corruption-by-using-data-scrubbing-schedule

https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10100012

Then, as mentioned in the above links, following data scrubbing, are these hash codes also usually used for routine RAID scrubbing?

But for both data and RAID scrubbing, is data integrity ensured by comparing the hash code of each file with its initially (first ever created) hash code (stored wherever) to the hash code currently in the file. If the system’s comparing calculations show that the codes are different, then one or more of the file’s bits have flipped, so then it knows that the file is therefore corrupt?

If yes, then at that point will it flag me and ask if it wants the system to attempt to repair it?

If I say yes, then it will try to overwrite the corrupt file with the mirrored copy stored on a redundant (e.g., RAID 5) drive.

CAUTION: As RAID scrubbing puts mechanical stress and heat on HDDs, the rule of thumb seems to be to schedule it for once monthly-and only when drives are idle, so no user triggered read/write errors can occur. https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/probably-a-dumb-question-raid-data-scrubbing-bad-for-disks-if-done-too-frequently.1413781/

Beyond scrubbing, what else can I and the zfs and/or btrfs do to both bit rot?

And to minimize the risk crashes:

Replace the RAIDed HDD array every 3 (consumer) to 5 (enterprise grade) years.

Do not install any software upgrade for the NAS until it’s been around long for the NAS brand and the user community forum to declare it to be bug free.

What else can I do to minimize the risk of crashes?

Finally, when backing up from my (main) NAS to an (ideally identical??) NAS, Kunzite says here “…and I'm check summing my backups...”

https://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?t=168535

But as hash functions are never perfect, and while rare, data “collisions” are inevitable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_collision So as those hash algorithms are used for data and RAID scrubbing, they are evidently also used for check summing to ensure that data transfers from the NAS to a backup device happen without file corruption.

Apparently, CRC-32 is among the least collusion proof hash algorithms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_collision#CRC-32 

Thus, for backups from main NAS to backup NAS, how much more is the SHA256 hash function (algorithm) worth using to prevent collisions and to verify data integrity of user files via check summing than MD5, because it uses twice the number of bits?

But if not much more advantageous for even potentially large audio files https://www.hdtracks.com/ , then would SHA256 be a lot more so than MD5 for check summing during for backups of DVD movie rips saved to uncompressed MKV and/or ISO files, because video bandwidths are so much bigger than audio?

And what would be a recommended checksum calculator app? https://www.lifewire.com/what-does-checksum-mean-2625825#toc-checksum-calculators

But if the app returns a check sum error between the file on my main NAS and the copy to be updated on my backup NAS, how then to repair the corrupt file?

Again, by using the file’s original hash code (stored some place) created the first time that it was ever stored in the NAS?

If yes, would that app then prompt me to choose to have the system repair the file?

■ Why RAID1 boot drive

The same data is written onto two drives. If one of the drives failed, it is not need to reinstall Windows, just replace the failed drive to fresh one. If you are lucky enough, the system continues to work.

This provides some feel of safety BUT if you are not so lucky, or, accidentally you replace wrong drive, RAID is destroyed, it is need to reinstall Windows and restore your data from the daily backup. (I recommend to take the backup onto NAS or different computer). So backup is still necessary.

■ Hardware RAID and software RAID

There are two types of RAID exists.

• Software RAID does not require special hardware, just connect 2 or more drives onto PC and software do the RAID job. Recent years Software RAID becomes more popular.
• “Hardware RAID controller” is needed for hardware RAID setup. Two or more drives are connected onto the controller, and the controller do the RAID tasks and operating system see it as a single drive.

■ Performance gain from DRAM cache on the controller

Hardware RAID controller has DRAM cache. My 3258-16i/e has 8GB DRAM: 4GB read cache and 4GB write cache. This means, operating system disk write request smaller than 4GB are translated to

• Copy the data onto the DRAM queue on the controller
• Reports “write finished” to operating system (it is called write back operation)
• Queued data will be written onto disks

When sudden power loss is happened, 

• The controller continues to work with dedicated battery or super capacitor as a power source and DRAM cell refresh will be continued to keep the data alive for some time.
• Data queued on DRAM will be copied onto flush memory on the controller before backup power drained.
• On the next boot-up, DRAM data is restored from flush memory and the controller resumes RAID tasks.

Therefore 4GB of data loss does not happen (at least in theory)

PCIe Gen4 x8 Hardware RAID card DRAM cache performance

■ Tri-mode adapter

Tri-mode hardware RAID controller is recently introduced. It supports

• SATA drives
• SAS drives
• NVMe devices

Especially NVMe support is attractive, it is expected to build faster RAID than traditional SATA/SAS controllers. I chose Adaptec 3258-16i/e tri-mode hardware RAID controller.

■ NVMe devices used

I'd like to go cheap, chose M.2 NVMe,

Seagate Firecuda 530 PCIe Gen4 2TB

The M.2 drive is converted to U.3 drive using Micro SATA Cables M.2 to U.3 adapter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GCV9BG1

then connected to the controller with SlimSAS 8X to 2*U.2 NVMe Adapter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098JBS7QD

I tested several other adapters and cables and found it is only setup to work properly.

Hardware RAID controller, super capacitor, and U.3 to M.2 adapters

■ Computer parts list

• AMD Ryzen 7950x CPU
• ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard, BIOS 1.24
• Corsair Vengeance DDR5 DRAM 5600MHz 48GB x2
• Coolermaster ML360L V2 cpu cooler
• Silverstone SETA D1 ATX case
• Seasonic Prime 850W ATX power supply
• Adaptec 3258-16i/e hardware RAID controller.
• Seagate Firecuda 530 PCIe Gen4 2TB M.2 NVMe device x2
• NVidia Titan V
• Nvidia RTX 4090 connected with Thunderbolt 4 with Razer Chroma X

I tried one Intel 12th gen computer and one Intel 11th gen computer and both does not work with the Adaptec card: BIOS does not start. It works with Intel Xeon E5 v4 Supermicro X10DRL-i. It does not work with AMD Threadripper 2990WX Asus Zenith Extreme.

■ Windows setup procedure

• On first boot-up, enter UEFI BIOS menu, on the menu list, select Adaptec 3258 setup, then Create Array → choose two NVMe drives and select RAID1 to create the logical drive.
• Run Windows 11 22H2 boot USB, surprisingly it has the device driver of the controller and it recognizes the logical drive. OS installation process is smooth.
• Logon to Windows and install Max Storage Manager and see backup power is charged or not (DRAM cache is enabled when backup power is ready), tweak controller parameters, then run disk performance benchmarks.

U.3 adapter SMBus EEPROM jumper settings. It is recognized as SFF-TA-1001 PCIe (U.3)

• POS 4-9 Hi(1)
• POS 5-8 Low(0)
• POS 6-7 Low(0)

BTW Gen-Z is now part of CXL.

U.3😉  Drives connected

Controller setup

RAID1 drive configuration

relevant links:

https://www.45drives.com/

https://45homelab.com/

For Qnap I was thinking of, TS-231-US or TS-231+-US and for the Synology DS216j.

Thanks for the help.