What Solid State Drives (SSD) are WBF members using in their digital network transports?

[mxk116]

I'm in the process of adding storage to our Aurender N20 digital network transport and was hoping to learn from the experiences of others.

Aurender "recommends Samsung QVO or EVO series, Western Digital or Seagate internal SSD drives." on the support section of the website. After doing some additional research I was leaning towards the Samsung EVO series.

Anyone have experience with adding SSD capacity to their digital network transport (whether Aurender or another brand)?

Any recommendations from Aurender users?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Happy Holidays

 

[flowcharts]

In the past, Antipodes has recommended the Samsung PM893 enterprise drives. I use one for music storage in my diy server and prefer it all-around compared to the EVO & QVO lines.

 

[mxk116]

In the past, Antipodes has recommended the Samsung PM893 enterprise drives. I use one for music storage in my diy server and prefer it all-around compared to the EVO & QVO lines.

Thanks for your reply. What is it about the Samsung PM893 that you prefer v. the Samsung EVO SSD?

 

[flowcharts]

Just a bit more realism and tonal density.

 

[mxk116]

Last night I installed and mounted a 4T Samsung 870 EVO SSD to the MUSIC1 slot on the Aurender N20. Once the MUSIC1 SSD was mounted it was a simple task to transfer (copy and paste) from any Mac on our local area network. I was enjoying music in short order.

As a heads up to those like me that need to muddle through this sort of thing only on occasion while it was a straightforward process, the steps in the "How to" guides provided by Aurender in the support section of the website differed significantly from the actual process using a current Mac OS (I'm using Sonoma 14.1.1) and latest Aurender Conductor app. It's probably an impossible task to update the website for every change to the Mac OS or the Aurender Conductor app (not to mention the Windows, Android,... etc alternatives) but until Aurender makes the instructions more contemporaneous, as long as I took my time, and wasn't slavish to the Aurender "How to" guide, I was able to understand how the process worked and take the necessary steps to connect the proverbial “dots.”

My only regret is that I did not do this sooner.

The improvement is SQ varies with the recording but it is apparent to me that the downloaded files provide more low level information making instruments and voices more "complete" for lack of a better word. Leading transients are cleaner and in complex densely arranged recordings (for example the tracks "On Day One" or "Rise Up" on the Pat Metheny Unity Group recording Kin) each instrument remains more coherent and retains its tonal variety and dynamics within the performance. The result is one can concentrate on a single element or take in the entirety of the music in a more effortless manner.

Put simply the playback is more musical and engaging (again with the caveat that the recording must be up to the task). Very happy with the results.