Everybody on this thread uses usb which is flawed. If you get a quality network dac, there is no reason for a music server. All these music servers are computers with hacks to try improving usb. Sure, if you have to use usb, then go for it and keep trying all the tricks to make it better and then spend the $10k that some of these servers are getting so they can try to optimize the USB port.
For a dozen years now, it’s been proven that ripped music sounds better than played they a cd player. It doesn’t have to be ripped to cd, it can be ripped to the slowest hdd out there, there is no difference in sound in ssd or hdd.
I laugh when I read the headlines about the 256G ssd in the Aurender for caching or the review of the Wolf music server, wolf claims its ssd can read 3.5G per second. Big f&$&ing deal!
How much cache do you really need when a song is 50-100M. Do you want to cache 2500 songs? For the Wolf, do you want to read 35 songs a second? What are you going to do with all this songs? If you think ssd cache is going to help in streaming (remember all data has to be fetched into ram before going out they usb) or you need to read 5 albums each second, go for it