Got Sonos recommend me a NAS

[twokcc]

Eventually bittten the bullit and bought 2 play 5 and bridge(£££'s ouch!), all music still on CD's so been ripping these to laptop as a shortterm solution but really want to be able to use Sonos without having laptop on so now looking for NAS which I know nothing about.Can get something like WD My Book Live Personal Cloud Storage 2 TB for approx £115 which is about sort of money thinking of spending but usually find someone who knows more about these things has got a better piece of kit looking for ideas before max out credit card.
Any suggestions, thanks

[MagicalTrevor]

That's pretty much what I'd recommend at that budget, just remember that when the hard drive dies then you'll lose the contents.
If you're keeping a copy on your laptop as well then fine.

Note: I said 'when the hard drive dies' because it WILL at some point'

[gherkins]

MagicalTrevor said:

That's pretty much what I'd recommend at that budget, just remember that when the hard drive dies then you'll lose the contents.
If you're keeping a copy on your laptop as well then fine.

Note: I said 'when the hard drive dies' because it WILL at some point'

Best solution is a NAS with 2 drives that are cloned. I can personally recommend Synology products, which also have good software and apps for phones/tablets/etc...

[74merc]

I've got a WD MyBook Live for my Sonos system. It sounds like the one you have mentioned, 2Tb which can be configured as 2 1Tb drives, mirroring each other. Have you got a subscription to Napster or Spotify? If so, check to see how many of your albums they have in their library, you might not need to burn all your CDs.

[barryrs]

I could sell you a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo thats now surplus to requirements.

http://www.readynas.com/?p=177

Can take up to 4TB's (2no 2TB drives).

No drives included £55 inc P&P assuming your in the UK?

[MagicalTrevor]

74merc said:

I've got a WD MyBook Live for my Sonos system. It sounds like the one you have mentioned, 2Tb which can be configured as 2 1Tb drives, mirroring each other. Have you got a subscription to Napster or Spotify? If so, check to see how many of your albums they have in their library, you might not need to burn all your CDs.

Maybe you partition it as 2x1TB drives, but it's still a single 2TB disk. It doesn't matter how many copies you have on that disk, when it goes your data is gone.

The Synology NAS options get a good write up but they're going to be nearer the £180+ mark

[MagicalTrevor]

barryrs said:

I could sell you a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo thats now surplus to requirements.

http://www.readynas.com/?p=177

Can take up to 4TB's (2no 2TB drives).

No drives included £55 inc P&P assuming your in the UK?

This would be a good option OP, depending on your budget for disks then you could start with one and then add another later on

[twokcc]

barryrs said:

I could sell you a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo thats now surplus to requirements.

http://www.readynas.com/?p=177

Can take up to 4TB's (2no 2TB drives).

No drives included £55 inc P&P assuming your in the UK?

Ok like the idea what drives whould I use thinking buy !tb now then another months time say, back into garden whilst sunshining so will look later
thanks for replies

[MagicalTrevor]

twokcc said:

Ok like the idea what drives whould I use thinking buy !tb now then another months time say, back into garden whilst sunshining so will look later
thanks for replies

I used to have one of those myself, great bits of kit. You don't need any more than a 'green' drive i.e. a 5400rpm drive so don't bother wasting your money on any high performance drives.

[Tea Pot One]

I bought 2 of the WD my book live 2tb drives mentioned above for my Sonos.

One mirrors the other and backs up every night. I get an email to tell me it has been done.

The reason I bought two was my buffalo NAS died after 2 years and was the only bit of my system not backed up .... Nearly 250gb of songs I am still copying cd's back onto it ... It has taken ages ... But the WD drives seem well sorted and are very quiet.

[twokcc]

Tea Pot One said:

I bought 2 of the WD my book live 2tb drives mentioned above for my Sonos.

One mirrors the other and backs up every night. I get an email to tell me it has been done.

Tea Pot One how does the back up work is it some software that comes with the drives or in windows(I'm on XP) is it easy for a novice to set up?

[74merc]

MagicalTrevor said:

Maybe you partition it as 2x1TB drives, but it's still a single 2TB disk. It doesn't matter how many copies you have on that disk, when it goes your data is gone.

The Synology NAS options get a good write up but they're going to be nearer the £180+ mark

No, it's got two physically separate drives. RAID 1 I believe.

[MagicalTrevor]

74merc said:

MagicalTrevor said:

Maybe you partition it as 2x1TB drives, but it's still a single 2TB disk. It doesn't matter how many copies you have on that disk, when it goes your data is gone.

The Synology NAS options get a good write up but they're going to be nearer the £180+ mark

No, it's got two physically separate drives. RAID 1 I believe.

I'm going to sound really pedantic now but that's the 'Duo' version. Yes, you're right, as it's the Duo then it has RAID.

[thehawk]

I have Rhapsody and Spotify, I just don't even bother with my NAS content now.

In fact I even downloaded all my CDs instead of burning them, quicker to do. (Maybe not strictly legal but I did already have the physical copies)

[Blue62]

How easy is it to get stored music from itunes folder onto the NAS? I'm tearing my hair out with losing the connection to my mac, going NAS seems the only viable solution now.

[thehawk]

Blue62 said:

How easy is it to get stored music from itunes folder onto the NAS? I'm tearing my hair out with losing the connection to my mac, going NAS seems the only viable solution now.

Just move/copy your iTunes music folder to the NAS. Simple as that.

[ADP68]

Just bought a Sonos and have some obscure CDs which aren't on Deezer, so need to buy a NAS, as I don't want to keep my laptop on all the time for the Sonos to look at these ripped CDs on the laptop. considering I spent two hours on Saturday moving ripped music from an old ipod to ITunes (on the same laptop) I'd say I was an IT numpty.
So I have two questions, which I'd be very grateful if someone could answer:
1. Is the WD mycloud NAS with 2x drives mirroring each other still the best option for me with a budget of say under £200, and;
2. how easy is it really to copy the ITunes music to the NAS from the laptop (considering how long I spent on Saturday)!
Thank you
Andy

[Du1point8]

Cant help with the NAS Im afraid as I play with HP servers as my NAS which is a bit more than £200...

Are you on macbook or windows?

look/search for 'iTunes media' everything should be in there and drag onto an external HD/Hooked up NAS to the location you want.

[nyt]

+1 for Synology

It works well as a NAS
Works faultlessly with SONOS
And it's ITunes server makes iTunes available to all of the iDevices (or PCs running iTunes) that you own.

You *might* want to rip your music in losses format (apple lossless is fine). You'll notice the difference between an mp3 and lossless on half way decent audio gear.

The SONOS also works well as a DLNA server if you have video stuff that you'd like accessible via a smart TV or PS3 etc.

I'd probably settle for a cheaper single disk Synology if your media are likely to be unchanging. Just back up the Synology to a USB HD every few months.

Be sure to buy one of the faster Synology boxes. IIRC the have a 'j' suffix, but check.

• - Other NASs would probably do a great job too. I'm only familiar with Synology.

Edited because I'd mistyped SONOS for Synology <blush>

Edited by nyt on Monday 24th November 15:20

[sparkyhx]

many years ago when I bought mine, Synology or QNAP were simply the best. My research concluded they were by far the most stable, and I have to say in the 4 years of NAS ownership I've never had to reboot my synology. I occasionally have to switch it on when the cleaners have unplugged it

p.s. above post - unless I've missed something, SONOS isn't a NAS

I also use Google Play as a backup to the Music on the NAS

Edited by sparkyhx on Monday 24th November 13:12