Need advice on what to purchase to hold 1TB of music and connect to my new Innuos Pulsar.


I just need 1TB of file space and won’t ever need more.  I am most interested in sound quality and staying under $500. The less money the better - if possible.    It will be hooked up to an Innuos Pulsar that has no internal storage.  The Pulsar is streamer only. My music, only 1100 CDs, is already stored on a Raid and I will only use this Raid for backup. 
 

No idea what I need. Don’t think I need a NAS, but may. Do I just buy a 1TB SSD drive? Which one? Connectivity? This is not an area I am well versed on as in the past I have always owned servers which had on board storage ( Innuos Zenith 3).  
 

I am a little lost here fellow Agoners. Thanks for your help.  Bill 
 

 

128x128grannyring

What a stupid decision by the manufacturer to have usb ports that can’t be used used to play stored files.  That is such a basic feature of most streamers.  I won’t recommend Innous going forward until they change that 

I have a lifetime Roon membership, but only use Sense because it sounds so much better. Therefore, I have no need to use my Pulsar as a Roon endpoint only. Really am disappointed I have to buy a NAS with the added complexity of processing built inside these NAS units. Probably also need to power the NAS with an LPS to get the best sound and avoid introducing unwanted noise. 
 

I really feel Innuos needs to offer direct connectivity of a nice SSD. I have owned the Zen, Zenith and now the Pulsar so I am a big Innuos fan.  The Pulsar sounds better than the Zenith and by a good margin when streaming. I would still buy the Pulsar knowing this issue, but it is unfortunate.  
 


 

@asvjerry

I don’t see me ripping anymore CDs or buying music files in the future. Since I have 1100 CDs ripped only using some 60% of 1TB, it seems reasonable to buy a 1TB. I will look at 2Tb since it is only a little more money 🙂.

 

@thyname

My Raid is simply two HDD drives storing my music. The second redundant drive is a backup in case the first one fails. No ethernet connection so won’t work with the Pulsar. I purchased this for backup only, not intended for daily use.

@thyname

Tbe Samsung SSD drive cost me $69 and if direct connectivity was allowed that would be my cost. Nice.

A NAS will cost me at least $300-$400 and many cost upwards of $600-$700. In addition, I will need to buy an LPS to power it if I want the best performance. So much added cost and complexity compared to a simple direct USB thumb drive or SSD. Am I missing something here? Learning fast now 😬.

Love to see links for a 1-2Tb NAS in the $200 range. Is this possible for a good one?

I did contact Innuos and shared my disappointment in a constructive manner. 

@grannyring : I hear you. I am perhaps biased myself as I already have two NAS devices, with redundant storages, which honestly don’t currently use for streaming audio, just for back up. I use them for file storage in my house, including family photos, video files, documents and so on. So general use, not exclusively audio.

Love to see links for a 1-2Tb NAS in the $200 range. Is this possible for a good one?

Maybe those simple WD My Book or My Cloud NASs? They carry them at Best Buy (I think), or they used to.

 

Actually I looked them up: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-my-cloud-home-4tb-personal-cloud-white/5990204.p?skuId=5990204

 

But granted, I don’t know if they work with Innuos. So do your own due diligence.

 


I did contact Innuos and shared my disappointment in a constructive manner. 

Good! You are right, such added functionality should have been easy to incorporate