Just reading a thread on here about wireless music playing has set me off thinking.

Can anyone give me a quick dummies guide to using a NAS drive for two things;
1. Playing digitally stored music around the house
2. Saving files centrally

At the moment I play a lot of music from my Iphone and Nexus 7 via a Bluetooth receiver plugged into a mini hifi. I’d like to split the playing of this music between the kitchen (current location) and another room.

I then have 3 computers at home, two laptops and a desktop which both my wife and I use but at the moment most files are saved on the desktop but there is also some stuff saved on the laptop and it all gets a bit confusing as to what is saved where. I’d also like to put some safeguards in place as the files include family photos which I’d like to protect.

I’ve not got loads to spend either so a cheap solution would be preferred.

Ta.

There a million solutions to your problem but the solution I have opted for is:

1. The synology NAS I have comes with it’s own music playing apps that allow me to stream music around the house using apple airplay so I have a Raspberry Pi in a couple of rooms and an Airplay speaker or two to play the music to. One of the other advantages is that I can stream the music when away from home as well 🙂

2. Centralised storage of files on a network drive (Synology DS212J+) which then also backs up via USB overnight to a removable USB drive. So this safeguards from hardware failure of any of the other devices and also of the NAS itself.

A cheap solution would really depend on what you already had, some routers these days allow you to plug a USB removable drive into them and share it on the network. That could be used for your central file backups?

Synology NAS is very good.
ReadyNAS is cheap, but does the basics (DLNA, File Server, iTunes/Squeezebox)
Raspberry Pi NAS – Very cheap, you’ll have to make it yourself tho

Have NAS drives got better? I had one a few years back but found it a right hassle to work with. Cloud backup/sync using G-Drive or Dropbox seems easier and faster (you’re working from a local copy of a file), more secure (you’ve got rollbackable versions off site) and it also copes with laptops when you’re working away from the network.

I then take periodic TimeMachine backups which give cover in the case of a hard drive failure for the OS install and stuff that doesn’t change that often (music collection is pretty static – if you lost a month of rips or downloads it’s easy enough to replace).

One of your computers (rather than the NAS) then acts as the music server with Wake-on-lan and delayed sleep/timer controlled sleep as appropriate.

Think of it as a wi-fi version of a hard storage drive. A lot-Readynas for example also have an operating system built in which can run a music application to enable you to access all the music or pictures stored on the drive without having to fire up a pc. These files can also be accessed remotely via the internet by say a work pc or a mobile device.
You then need some kind of streaming device connected to your hi-fi like Sonos or the now unfortunately defunct Squeezebox (which I have) which enables you to view,select & play your music, again, without a pc. Connection to the streamer can be wi-fi or hard wired (preferably) via. ethernet cable or power plugs around the home. Any PC files can just be sent to the NAS via ethernet or wi-fi.You simply rip your music to whatever format you like (FLAC is high quality & Lossless) and the streamer should play it. It will probably cost £200+ for a single 1Tb disc setup which can be expanded if you buy a 2 disc NAS unit

Erm thanks for the suggestions chaps. It seems like a buy box X and plug into socket Y solution (as I was hoping for) isn’t that straightforward.

What’s a rasperberry pi for instance?

Sounds like I should stick to my current means of listening to music although this is limited by the iTunes storage capacity of my phone and then google for external wifi enabled hard drives for my file storage.

I was hoping to keep the files off the main pc as I don’t necessarily want this sat whirring away all day long.

@st – the raspberry pi is a very small, very cheap computer that runs Linux and is ideal for people who like to tinker with computers. You do not need one to achieve what you are trying to do.

In some ways a NAS box is as simple as plugging box X into box Y and there is penty of help out there on youtub, google, here to help you get it all set up.

They are a very good way of having everything backed up centrally, they tend to be very quiet and discrete also.

Cheers

Danny B

So many people seem to be trying to organize all of there digital collections these days and this question I see coming up all the time. A lot of my friends are in similar situations. For me, I try to keep things simple with a few easy steps:

1: No apple products will be catered for in my household, despite that my g/f owns an iPhone.

2: Use a media server as a media server, a media player/device as a media player/device and a computer as a computer. Have a backup strategy. RAID is not a backup. Simplify the setup where possible.

3: NAS’s are over priced. Build your own for cheaper, better performance and more flexibility.*

*If you have the time and knowledge.

Basically write down everything you want to be able to play on every device you have. Account for future devices you are likely to buy. Then decide from there how best to do it. There are so many different pieces of software and devices. But to get you started, yes, starting off by centralizing all of your files/media is a good idea and a NAS or Server is a good way of doing this.

You don’t sound the sort of person that likes to tinker with computers and things. I would buy a Synology or ReadyNAS, they work pretty much out the box (buy box x plug into y) and have a nice wizard to get you setup. Once you centralise and organise all your files, make sure you back it up.

It took me a month to organise all my mp3’s, as a housemate decided to strip them of all their tags! All done now and works flawlessly with iPhone, Androids, PS3’s, LCD’s and anything else that can connect to it. I was even able to watch films from the NAS when I was in another country.

Another happy ReadyNas user here. Plug it in, put drives in it, copy files across. You can set it up as a network drive that appears on your PC, and it streams music/ films etc as required.

3: NAS’s are over priced. Build your own for cheaper, better performance and more flexibility.*

*If you have the time and knowledge.
was nearly what I did, but in the end realised that a NAS is not only an off the shelf device with everything pre-configured (drop in disc, plug in, switch on), but also uses peanuts amount of power. Only thing that comes close is the right Atom (etc.) based mini-ITX or a tiny Atom box. The latter will only take 1 system disc, the former takes effort to install, and both end up much the same price as a consumer grade NAS.

Just got a Synology 2-bay. New disc ready to go in it tonight.

Looked at various, but they’re all much the same. Also looked at FreeNAS etc. to stick on a custom build, and decided it was too much effort, and would end up being just yet another PC.

@st – have you considered using iTunes Match if you are an iTunes user?

Cheers all. Captinslow, I tunes is one of my options and I do also use spotify but I’d like to listen to my own collection more locally rather than stream everything.

It’s a bit out there but I guess I could listen to my CDs.

Looking at it a bit more a wifi hard disk would seem to be the easiest way for a technical numpty like me to sort file storage just leaving the music aspect to sort. I guess that’s the trouble with wanting to use modern technology to do everything for you, you have to have an understanding of the technology!

but also uses peanuts amount of power. Only thing that comes close is the right Atom (etc.) based mini-ITX or a tiny Atom box

Can you DIY with a Raspberry Pi for similarly low power consumption?

Can you DIY with a Raspberry Pi for similarly low power consumption?

You could, but they only have 10/100 ethernet on the Model B, and none on the Model A. In other-words, it’s very slow for transfer data over. I wouldn’t like to comment on how many computers could stream audio through it simultaneously either.

Erm, cool?

The synology and readynas boxes are starting to make a bit of sense to me so ill look I to those now.

Ta.

I rip in ALAC on my MacBook Pro, my iTunes library is pointing to my Synology DS212j NAS which is connected via USB into my Rega DAC with fantastic results! All controlled with DS Audio app on my Ipad.

And NO I do not drive an Audi A3

But I do have a Nomad!

Well i do drive an Audi A3

I do not have any itunes/alac/mac/ipad nonsense though (the A3 came with a ipod connector though) but just use a micro SD card!

i rip to FLAC and mp3 on my hp craptop, with music stored on my headless HP microserver running linux controled over the web in webmin

i mainly serv music up over madsonic or serviio or nfs and samba shares.

backups automated with cron and rsync

the amp has built in dlna so can play music through that, controlled by android phone using aps and upnplay if needs be or browsed using the TV.

i dont know what a Nomad is?

i dont know what a Nomad is?

In this context, I presume a bike

So I buy a DAT rip into into FLACs and shove it up my mp3? Or is it my NAS?

You might want to use compression there.