Let's Talk SSD's inside the Zen NG (Zenith)

[Bill Allen]

Long time owner of Zen Mini MkIII & Phoenix USB, awaiting the arrival of my new Zen NG w/SPDIF Card. (No internal storage drives fitted)

I would like to install my own SSD storage but the website does not clearly explain the location & arrangement of the internal SDD's. I understand there are 3- SSD ports inside the Zen NG series, one NVMe PCIe for the OS, another internal NVMe PCIe for storage (8GB max), and an external accessible M.2 NVMe (8GB max).

The install guide for the external M.2 slot clearly shows a 22mm x 80mm sized drive, WD Red SN700 NVMe SSD 2280.

Installing an M.2 SSD module to ZEN Next-Gen/ZENith Next-Gen - Innuos - High-Fidelity Digital Music Servers and Streamers

This article will show you how to add an M.2 SSD to expand the storage capacity of your ZEN Next-Gen or ZENith Next-Gen, as well as the process for removing

innuos.com

Question is, how accessible is the open internal NVMe PCIe slot, and will it accept the exact same SSD as the M.2 NVMe above.

 

[Stephen Healy]

Hi Bill,

The internal drive is only intended to be accessed by Innuos and approved dealers, which is why there is a public guide only for the M2 bay found on the underside of the Next-Gen.
You cannot fit the same type of M2 drive straight in internally as the slot is a longer PCIe type. You'll need to speak to your dealer regarding fitting a drive internally if you choose not to have one pre-fitted by Innuos.
As an aside, I believe 8TB is not the technical capacity limit of the slot, its simply that there does not seem to be SSDs of this type that are any larger than 8TB available on the market currently. If this changes, then they may well be compatible.

 

[Bill Allen]

Understood!

No doubt Innuos spent endless hours perfecting the balance of the NG's and the last thing you need is someone installing a jack hammer of a SSD directly into the PCI bus on the motherboard. I have measured many SSD's and Jack Hammer is not an exaggeration at this level of the game.

The literature mentions very low watt SSD's are used for the OS in the Zen NG & Zenith NG, 3D TLC & pSLC respectively. I imagine someone huddled over a test bench for days to find ones that measures well, only to find out it sounds bad in practice due to unforeseen permutations. What further light can you shed on the choice of SSD's used for the operating system.

 

[Stephen Healy]

The OS drives used do indeed have a vanishingly low power consumption down to the milliwatts, meaning its electrical and thermal impact on the system is tiny. This is a good result considering what the system is capable of in terms of the overall scope of the OS, including Roon Core etc.
The power-loss protection is also worth remembering; drives can be quite susceptible to bad sectors/corruption in the case of sudden or unexpected power losses. The protection circuit means that the main OS integrity is helped considerably in terms of robustness, longevity and reliability.
The SSD itself also does plug straight into the mainboard without any kind of interconnecting SATA cable.

 

[Bill Allen]

Good stuff Stephen.
That's why plugging a storage SSD straight into the PCIe directly adjacent to the OS SSD is super critical.

That brings us to M.2 drives. I have nearly 6TB of music stored on a Sata SSD inside my Roon Rock, without access to the internal PCIe buss I am forced to focus on a 8TB M.2 SSD for my Zen NG. The choices at 8TB are limited to say the least.

Can you start by telling me what PCIe standard is onboard?

What Are PCIe 4.0 and 5.0? - Intel

Newer PCIe standards mean a higher-bandwidth connection to GPUs, SSDs, and other peripherals.

www.intel.com

DRAM or not to DRAM?
While the 4.0 & 5.0 drives are faster, I'm not sure all the extra monkey motion on these drives are required, or even desired with music storage. Maybe a simple 3.0 drive is best, let the onboard 16GB of DDR4 RAM handle the heavy lifting? However I have yet to find a 8TB M.2 drive without DRAM onboard.

Which then brings us to: Heat Sink or No Heat Sink?

 

[Bill Allen]

While I was still pondering what 8TB SSD to use in the M.2 expansion port the UPS delivery man arrived with my Zen NG.
My hard drive storage concerns can wait, let's fire this puppy up!
Took less then 10 minutes to unbox, sign into Tidal & Qobuz, imports my online playlists, and press play.

Innous Summer Mix on Qobuz ... Oh Yea!

I have it running now for over 24 hours and ... just ... Wow!

 

[Stephen Healy]

Good stuff Stephen.
That's why plugging a storage SSD straight into the PCIe directly adjacent to the OS SSD is super critical.

That brings us to M.2 drives. I have nearly 6TB of music stored on a Sata SSD inside my Roon Rock, without access to the internal PCIe buss I am forced to focus on a 8TB M.2 SSD for my Zen NG. The choices at 8TB are limited to say the least.

Can you start by telling me what PCIe standard is onboard?

What Are PCIe 4.0 and 5.0? - Intel

Newer PCIe standards mean a higher-bandwidth connection to GPUs, SSDs, and other peripherals.

www.intel.com

DRAM or not to DRAM?
While the 4.0 & 5.0 drives are faster, I'm not sure all the extra monkey motion on these drives are required, or even desired with music storage. Maybe a simple 3.0 drive is best, let the onboard 16GB of DDR4 RAM handle the heavy lifting? However I have yet to find a 8TB M.2 drive without DRAM onboard.

Which then brings us to: Heat Sink or No Heat Sink?

Sorry for the delay in replying, Bill
Regarding Heat Sink - no, there is not really any space for this so would get in the way of the enclosure. Also, you only really need a heatsink if being used on very high-speed drives for quite high-intensity applications. Keep in mind this is just music file storage, so the drive does not need to be that intensive.
To that end, we recommend the WD Red SN700. They have a very good balance of speed, power consumption and longevity. 5th gen pcie modules here are not really worth it. For storage you don't need a lot of speed and the faster 5th gens are more power hungry and get hotter for no real benefit pay-off.

 

[Bill Allen]

Thanks for clarifying my concerns regarding M.2 SSD drives for music storage. Unfortunately for me the WD RED M2's top out at 4TB size, as I explained I need 8TB, Western Digital does make the Black 8TB without heatsink. What are your thoughts on this drive?

For those following along that need this amount of storage, I recommend you add 4TB of internal SSD from the factory. 4TB appears to be the current sweet spot price-wise for SSD's.

I can't help to think that perhaps there's an enterprise grade 8TB M.2 drive out there somewhere that would fit the bill. I see you offer a 8 TB M.2 option on the website, can I ask what drive you guys are using?

 

[Stephen Healy]

Apacer have some enterprise options for 8TB, such as this:

PCIe SSD PT160-M280 — Apacer Technology

Apacer is recommended for DRAM/SSD. From high-speed data transmission to data protection, we could provide various industrial SSD/DRAM products.

www.apacer.com

As you say, the cost-per-GB once you go over 4TB does get steep, but as is ever the case the electronics like this it should improve over time.