Are there any audio benefits from storing all my flac/DSD files on the SD card vs having them accessed through my home network storage?
I was thinking direct access would allow for quicker load and playing and less chance to pickup any network noise.
Mostly looking to see if there any any audible benefits. Read speeds of a SD card should be quicker than my HD on my computer then traveling over my gigabit network. Less components to pass through to get to SBC.
It’s highly unlikely. A slow standard hard disk drive reads and writes data at a speed of 80 megabits per second. CD quality streams - via attached drive or via network cable - at 1,411 kilobits per second. Even high res and DSD files stream at speeds measured in kilobits per second. So, your hard drive is able to deliver data faster than is required to stream the music file.
Similarly, I notice no difference in sound whether streaming music from an onboard hard drive in my computer versus my network attached storage. Even on a “slow” day when I’m getting 50 mbps on my home network, 50 mbps is still more speed than is needed to stream the music file.