preventing usb bus overload.

"04-04-15: Yioryos
Cerrot
Are you suggesting to connect a NAS with Ethernet cable to the macmini. I thought a NAS drive connects wireless, and to be honest I don't like WiFi all that much.
Thought?
George"

You can do it either way. The hard drives need to be connected to the network. It doesn't really matter if its a wireless connection, or not. You're probably thinking of a cloud type setup.

I've heard connecting multiple USB cables is a matter of audio quality/jitter concerns. I know independent labs measured it high. I use a Mac mini as a music server and there was a question of which port to use for audio. Most said the USB port closest to the A/C outlet was preferred as this would eliminate "noise" in an aluminum bodied Mac mini. Personally, I didn't notice noise, regardless of USB port used. Of course, I use a DAC.

But Apple seems to have eliminated audio quality/jitter concerns with the release of the current/uni-body generation of Mac minis.

My experience with NAS over WiFi wasn't very good.
I was using a Sonos with WD MyBook Live 2Tb about two years ago.
The sound was satisfactory but I was getting buffering problems,sound stopping,spinning balls.
Then on someone's advice I bought a powerline device by Dlink. It definitely helped a lot,most problems went away but still on occasion I had music dropouts.
I abandoned that setup in favor of the macmini server.
It works 100 percent with never a hickup since my music files are in an external Lacie 3Tb USB3 drive directly attached to the macmini via USB.
Should I expect an improvement if I connected a NAS drive to the macmini via Ethernet to avoid WiFi or it doest matter.
I ask this because every experiment seems to cost a few hundred dollars, and if don't work I am, left with gadgets all over the house unused.
Thanks
George

Correct, George. Hardwire the NAS to your router. You are right about not liking wifi. It really isn't ready for prime time if you don't have some networking experience.

George, if you dont have any problem, stay how you are. I don't use USB except for my mouse and keyboard. I use my NAS drive via ethernet to my router and ethernet from my router to my PC. I have a soundcard and use a 10 metre spdif cable into my sound room next door where I reclock and upsample the sound card to make up for the long cable. I use a squeezebox for tidal streaming. The Lacie is a great drive and I would not change it. I was going wth Lacie but ended up with the Drobo only because it was more practical. Lacie drives are the best you can get (next to drives we don't know about).