Thanks for that! I plugged the drive into the Bridge USB port and can access and play from there but browsing is virtually non existent. Only a alphabetical list in each of the folders the guy set up when he transferred my CDs. Not acceptable so must do something else. Probably try Roon, at least for 14 days. I thought the Bridge was going to be plug and play for my CDs but guess not. Looks like Roon may do what I need done without having to build an entire computer network just to listen to a few tunes! Of course there is the matter of backupā¦
Yes, essential. If you are storing your music library on HDDs they do not have have an infinite lifespan. There is quite a lot of research out there on longevity and if I recall correctly for ordinary ( i.e. non-enterprise) drives the average life is three years of regular use. I used an HDD into JRiver running on a PC as my source for some years and would not disagree with this as I had several drives corrupt during this time. Some I could reformat ( to erase the corrupt data) and copy clean data to them from a backup, some just became inoperable. However I only got a few more monthās use out of the reformatted ones.
However, sticking with HDDs for the time being it is easy to make a backup from one to another just by using your computerās copy and paste facility. That seems to be the most reliable way of doing it from experience.
I would suggest making at least two backups and preferably three. Two because what has caused one drive to corrupt may subsequently affect the backup when it is installed. If you have a drive go down then install your only backup then at that point you are left with no backup and are vulnerable again.
I suggest a third backup which should be kept offsite ( e.g. with a friend). It does not matter how many backups that you keep at home they will not offer any security against burglary, fire or flood. BTW a good friend was burgled two years ago and all of his computer equipment was stolen including all of his backups on HDDs. These contained his wedding and kids growing up photos etc. The emotional loss was huge.
You could try cloud storage ( which is how I keep my āoffsiteā backup). This will cost but prices have come down substantially over the recent years. I use a service called LiveDrive and that costs me 48 g.b.p per annum for unlimited storage. It all happens automatically so once signed up and installed you can more or less forget about it. I like LiveDrive but it is slower than some to upload because it encrypts your data to military standards for security. There are many alternatives so you may want to look around.
You are probably realising this but involvement with file based music storage and replay will involve you in having to learn more about computing than you may have intended 
Yes, I am realizing that now. I am almost too old to start this but still love my music so guess I will have to try.
Does running ROON on a computer with the HDD plugged into it degrade the sound? Will it work if the computer in wireless? Seems a lot for HDD content to stream wireless to Bridge?
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No problem AFAIK ( but note I am not a Roon user), you just tell Roon that your HDD is a folder that it needs to watch.There would be no obvious sound degradation, you will hear what the Roon player provides to the Bridge. However the only wireless connection to the Bridge is Apple Airplay which will not handle any resolution better than 16/44.1. Any hi-res files will be downsampled to this.
Maybe some other contributors who are Roon aficionados can add some useful information for you? I think that you would be best with an ethernet connection from the device running Roon to the Bridge ( the Bridge is a Roon endpoint) via your gateway.
That is as I had assumed. Guess I need to replan or run some wire!!