There are reasons why some people may want to stay away from adding a NAS. Some of them in no particular order:
1. Spinning drives generate noise. You may not want that noise in your listening room. But since it's recommended to have the NAS connected to the DCD, it will most likely need to be in your listening room. They also vibrate, and so you need to be careful with placement. You may not want to put it on top of your dCS Vivaldi Master Clock for example.
2. You can get a NAS with Solid State Drives but those are more expensive. At that point internal storage in the Olympus might be more convenient.
3. You are adding another device to your system. That means more complexity, more cables, possibly another shelf, etc. One of the benefits of Olympus XDMI is that it's an all in one solution, especially if it also replaces your DAC.
4. You may need a beefier linear power supply to be able to power all of your devices.
5. You may not have a DCD... in that case you will probably need to buy one to get the best out of a NAS.
6. Last but not least - Technical Support and Usability - For those who are not technologically inclined, managing a NAS can be challenging. While it typically operates smoothly, troubleshooting issues can be frustrating.
Ultimately, the decision to add a NAS should start with assessing your specific needs. Consider how much of your music collection is unavailable on streaming services or consists of high-quality recordings not matched by streaming offerings. For myself, I find that less than 1TB of my music isn’t available on platforms like Qobuz or Tidal, making the default 4TB internal storage of the Olympus more than sufficient. Therefore, I'm opting out of using a NAS.
Emile shared with us that streaming sounds better than local. That's a dream come true for me. I am planning to use Qobuz / Tidal and avoid the complexity of adding a NAS to my system.
But of course you might be in a different situation than me. In that case you can either get the convenience of adding extra internal storage or you can get a NAS. It seems like there is a slight sound quality preference towards an external NAS. But it also seems to be so small that convenience may win. If I was in that situation, I would still start with the default 4TB storage and compare that to a NAS and then decide which way to go - either upgrade the internal storage or keep the NAS.
