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I have a new Mac mini. But with an externl SSD drive that I have all my music on. ITunes 9or whatever it is called recognises the disc and play music from it.
But no matter what I do Sonos won’t ... it tells me there is no pathway.
I have checked firewall settings etc - so am prepared to crept that is is Sonos just being shit. And it somewhat reduces the appeal of the product.
However, I have just download Samsung SSD drivers 9 as the ones supplied will not work) - and that doesn’t recognise the Samsung SSD is loaded ...
What am I doing wrong
My Sonos recognises my NAS no problem, that could be the problem, is your external drive just connected to your mac mini via usb? If the drive is just a usb external drive you will need to be plugged into something that can then make it available over wifi, some home routers can do that, and it may be possible to get your Mac Mini to make it available as a shared drive.But if it's just plugged into you mac mini via usb and not set up as a shared drive. The Sonos won't be able to see it.
It is plugged directly into the Mac Mini - and on sharing files & Media have both been ticked ... so not through a USB hub.
Do I need do do something specific to make the out-board drive "shared" so that Sonos starts seeing it?
Another option would be to plug it in via the Time Capsule - could that work ?
The thing I know about SONOS is that it reads exactly the same when viewed upside down.
Sounds like the folder is not shared properly.. can you see / access it from any other devices?
Have you tried this?
As a side note, if your SSD is USB (or you can copy your music to a USB) and your router is suitable you may be able to plug it directly into the router and share it that way - saves having to have the Mac on all of the time.
The thing I know about SONOS is that it reads exactly the same when viewed upside down.
and the answer is -
The external disc is formatted in ExFat - and SONOS cannot read ExFat when routed though a Mac.
Now I have no idea what exFAT is??
It can only view OS Extended file system.
So next question.
I am on Virgin - but I only use the Virgin router as a hub. And then I have a Mesh Deco system doing the wi-fi. While the Mesh Wi-Fi discs have a network connection - they do not have a use port. So I cannot connect the outboard disc directly.
Or are there any other solutions?
Loosely, ExFAT = windows formatting, OS Extended = Mac OS formatting. Both OS can read both (I think) but as you're finding out, not everything plays nicely.
Got enough space on the mini's main drive for the music?
Lob it on there temporarily, reformat your external drive to OS Extended and copy it back...
Just in the process of doing that - so thanks Jim W,
Will then reformat and import back etc ....
I suspect JW's response above has it, the only thing you are likely to be able to do it rewrite an entire disc in a file system Sonos can handle. Just out of interest are you not a streaming service user?
Re- formatting has worked. So all music on a different disc - but now transferring everything so that I can re - format the SSD correctly (every day is a school day).
And I do use Spotify as a stream service - but I find it very clunky to find anything new / interesting on. It tends to just scan "what did he listen to last time" and then keep on developing play lists based on that.
so if anyone has tips on how to use Spotify better that would be great ....