Lets talk current NAS possibilities

I don't have much experience with current NAS systems but I've been looking at various options for upgrading my Pi based system.

Something that interests me is using M.2 format drives rather than the 2.5" format. I have the M.2 drives in several computers and am quite happy with the operation and size.

I don't need RAID here so a single 4 tb M.2 is tempting in a single slot carrier, I've seen a few multi-slot options that aren't much more expensive, the chance to play with lower capacity sticks and RAID make them interesting.

One thing I see as essential is a backup method, what I'm considering is an external spinning drive with a fast USB C connection on a smart power switch so it can be left powered down when not actively backing up the M.2 sticks.

I'd connect it to my existing UPS, if I didn't have one I'd add it. One with power management and equipment shutdown.

Most of that also applies to buying a ready-built NAS.

If I was buying my first concern would be reliability, both hardware/drive failures and firmware update disasters. At the very least I'd want manual updates so I could run a full backup before risking the update.

The m.2 sticks are a very interesting new player into the market.  I haven't had my hands on any yet but they have caught my attention. 

Like you I have no real need for a system running a traditional raid system.  For critical backup I simply keep a couple of copies of files on USB stick as well as a portable 2TB SDD that I used to carry media on when I traveled. 

Your last paragraph truely sums it up, I have grown tired across the years rebuilding data after a failed update.  If it's good leave it alone. 

I was briefly looking at USB hubs with rj45 ports but they don't seem to be able to stand alone from a computer to manage the file access properties although I haven't completely researched them. 

I recently migrated my NAS setup to an Asus Flashstor fs67 m2 nvme based solution.

. It works fine with Sonos 

. It’s expensive by comparison, the ssd nvme servers tend to pricey and the drives are double the cost of a typical hard drive

. It’s nearly silent, (quieter than my old hd based nas) although from the right angle you can just make out the fan noise from 3m away

. A little early to say how reliable nvme solutions are v HD but I have had 4 hard disk fails in last 10 years across all my devices and 0 ssd / nvme failures so far after 6 years of using them.

. You need to read the threads on how Sonos handles compilation albums so you are not surprised by the work involved (my advice would be to leave all alone and live with the fragmentation rather than suffer the downsides I have encountered after following Sonos instructions on re tagging. And remember that, if you follow their instructions, you will be doing this in perpetuity whenever you add a compilation album! ). search for “fragmented” or “compilation album” in the threads

. If you do follow Sonos advice on re tagging then convert any wav files to flac or similar lossless solutions as tagging on wav files is poor and gives inconsistent results when used by Sonos. 

I’ve not used a pi based solution but the workload is minimal in just serving audio files so long as you have a good network interface. I think the only grunt work that the pi would have to do would be when you first load all the data and whenever you refresh the Sonos index.

pi might be perfectly fine so long as you don’t mix other heavy nw traffic / cpu intensive work on it like backups or security camera monitoring etc. but others more familiar with pi capabilities should be able to give a better opinion.

I'm currently using an old Pi 3b as my Sonos / Music NAS and the load for four lossless FLAC streams is minimal, usually lost in the other background processes. I tested four streams on an original Pi Zero, that is a fraction of the computing power of the current Zeros and the total load percentage looked to be about 10%, so maybe 2% on a current hardware version.

Index refresh only shows a minor CPU usage spike, seems to be limited by the Sonos slow data requests, not Pi issues.

Initial loading was a bit slow due to the old USB connection between the Pi and and external drive. The Pi 5 bypasses that with a PCI link, the Pi 4 series has a faster USB subsystem. Updates from my main NAS or my working directories on another computer are pretty quick. I wrote a short sync based script to automate that task.

I'm currently wired to Ethernet but tried Wi-Fi connections when I was testing, seemed more than adequate. Since it sits a couple feet from my switch but is surrounded by other Wi-Fi devices that seemed to be the way to reduce crowding issues.

The Pi solution isn't for everyone but if you have a spare drive that can connect you are looking at a Pi Zero based NAS for under $30 that easily supports Sonos' data requirements. The Open Media Vault server software solution looks to be the easiest to configure and use.

​@Editor that looks like a good find.  I had not found that unit in my digging to this point. Since I hadn't found an interesting m.2 solution I was leaning toward a Buffalo nas box although that was mostly a fallback solution. 

I'll download the manual and do some reading on it. Am a assuming correctly the m.2 drives are needed in pairs for this unit? Who's drives did you settle on? That is a separate rabbit hole in itself. What is the space available in the case for the drives? I fast look at them shows some with heat sinks on them. It's there space for that format? 

​@Stanley_4 you've been running some m.2 for a while.  What are you running? I've picked up on some chatter about some instability that I'm sure is in the older hardware. Along with the amplification of "problems" since good function is rarely brought up the chatter may just be that. 

I have several WD Blue M.2 sticks that have given no problem. I don’t know the brand in my HP desktops but they are functioning well too.

As far as I can tell they are working as well as SATA 2.5 SSDs, nothing i’m doing is pushing either read or write rates so there might be issues there. Unlikely to push the limits in a NAS setup in normal operation, you just can’t move data in and out all that fast. You might see something when rebuilding a RAID array from a failed stick but again the data transfer rate from the host is likely to keep you from the limits.

In a dedicated NAS device with multiple PCI lanes and enough onboard memory and CPU running native RAID (rebuilds run internally) you might see the limits pushed but the devices that would do that usually also have enough smarts to avoid pushing into problem rates.

the reviews at the ‘nas compares’ website were really helpful in making my choice. Their reviews are thorough and detailed often with comparisons of similar products and listing all the pros and cons.  I would recommend a search on their site for reviews of any nas products you are thinking about.

happy hunting.