Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming MC200 nearly full - new HD, MD600 or Roon

Hi all,

My MC200 is nearly full with 1200 albums. I now have 18 GG left and I’m looking for a way forward. Should I try to install a bigger hard drive or maybe go to an MD600 I’ve spotted on eBay, or should I move to Roon.

The MD600 would allow a massive boost in storage. But how about the reliability of these “older” machines.

I love the Sooloos interface, but feel it is getting a bit long in the tooth… The upgrade to Roon would have the benefit of being able to play my 5.0 downloads from eClassical. I can play these now (in 3.0) through the Oppo 103, but the interface is terrible.
However, the upgrade to Roon is at a not insignificant cost.

Torn three ways; any recommendations?

I think this would be more a matter of taste, really. Roon can and does find music that is locally stored and dovetails with other sources like Qobuz and such. If you are looking for something reliable, a single drive system isn't it. Some version of RAID and/or cloud storage (Backblaze, etc) would ensure your album library stays safe.
I run Roon and find it easy to use except it can't send info back to the other services so making playlists and favoriting albums and such is always a two-app process.

Really it amounts to the fact that you need more space and need to consider an upgrade *anyway*. Roon is just an interface and aggregator, in a sense. The hardware part is still something you may need to address not from a music server standpoint but from a safe data archiving standpoint.

TL;DR get a RAID or such NAS and backup on Backblaze or similar. Whether you go the Roon route or not.

*edited to add that I know the MD600 mirrors the drives but it is not the option I'd personally go with for storage*

Hi,

I wonder if you could just buy another MC200 and use it as a 'store' while retaining your original unit as "Core & Store". I haven't tried this but i think it works with some of the older C10/ C15 units, so someone may have done this.

I went with Roon when Sooloos lost access to Tidal and MQA material, but I still run my Sooloos system in 'parallel' with Roon.

I like the simplicity of Sooloos and run a MD600* (two 3Tb drives) with a MS600 in my main system (for Trifield) and a number of MS200's around the house for secondary systems. My MD600 has generally been pretty reliable although I had to have the power supply replaced (the same problem as G series kit) by Mr TechGuy.

MQA playback (Roon Lifetime + Tidal Subscription) is via a MC200 converted to a Roon 'core'. Network input is via a 218 between the G65 and the DSP5200SE L/R pair. My Roon Library is based on a Sooloos 'export' to a 3Tb portable drive (+backup to a 4TB SSD) with new CD material ripped on a M1 Mac Mini.

I tend to investigate 'new' material via Roon and I purchase things I like on CD. These then get ripped to Sooloos and to my Roon Library.

Yes, I appreciate there is a 'cost' associated with Roon/Tidal.

* Forgot to mention that the MD600 can be a bit noisy, so isn't something that can live in the listening area.

Brian

Hi

Happy New Year all.

Just to clarify, the unit that I have seen on eBay is a Media Core 600 (MC600) which is the big brother to the Media Drive 600 (MD600), the difference being that on the MC600 it has the ability to service 6 zones coupled with the RAID drives; the MD600 just has the the RAID drives. From your description, I would suggest that you should be looking at the MD600 if you are purely looking for additional storage. The MD600 is considerably cheaper (circa £500ish for the last one on eBay) and alot more common as the original price point was much lower than the MC600.

I have had a MD600 and IMHO is a pretty old tech. I sold mine and went for bigger SSDs fitted into my C10, C15 and MC200. Certainly 4TB SSD is perfectly possible with a C10/C15, I guess the same is true for the MC200, although from personal experience I have only gone to 2TB in a MC200.

When you consider the cost of an appropriate 2TB SSD, circa £100-£150 depending on quality, I suggest higher end for reliability, plus either your time or a competent techy to copy over your existing collection and fit into your MC200, it may prove to be better value. As previously mentioned, the alternative is to purchase another MC200, I would suggest the later 1TB version.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Jon

Hi All,
Thank you for your valuable comments. I hadn't actually thought of just adding an MC200 as a storage location.

As it stands I've done it even simpler. I bought a 1TB WD NAS SSD and made a clone of the harddrive with a two-bay hard drive dock; this took about 2 hours. A knowledgeable friend helped me extend the music data partition using a laptop running Unix and GParted. In a matter of minutes this was completed, and I have added about 500 GB to my MC200. The docking station cost about EUR50, and the SSD EUR95.

This adds years of ripping CDs and making downloads to my Sooloos system. I can sit on the fence a bit longer before committing to Roon or similar. I love the reliability/simplicity of Sooloos. The docking station allows me to make a backup of the hard disk with less hassle than the backup options from within Sooloos. I've never managed to get the additional backup option working so must always do a full backup which takes time.

As for the future, I will keep an eye on developments in the industry, although I can't imagine ever parting with Sooloos. If an MD600 crosses my path cheaply, I might go for the redundancy. In the meantime I will enjoy listening.

Thanks again, Jan

Great stuff, it's not that difficult when you have the right kit to clone the drive and then a bit of know-how/bravery/help to extend the partition. It does take a long time to clone the drive though, standard format drive partitions seem so much quicker in comparison, which adds to that anxiety that it's not going to work! I think in the past "we" decided the MC200 should support a 2TB drive so you may have room to expand even further. For serious expansion room/future proofing (if not from hardware obscelesence) I would keep an eye out for an MD600. they do come up and should be reasonably cheep these days. You may need to keep your MC200 as an audio end-point as the MD600 doesn't do that bit. I presume in that case you can use the storage capacity on both units but you can only have one "core" running on the system.

I like to have access to music I have bought and paid for (with appropriate monies going to the artists who made it). I'm not a fan of streaming and the insecurity of what format the music might be available in next time I look to play it doesn't help persuade me to part with my money; to a broker who might give the artist a small share.

At the moment Sooloos still works really well for me. It's going to be a rather sad day if/when it finally breaks.

Regards

Richard