Audio Streamers & NAS Drives

[Lewis's Friend]

I am looking at getting a NAS drive (probably a 3TB Western Digital) to put in my network.

My grand plan is then to re-rip my CD's into a lossless format (not decided on yet), and then get a network streamer (possibly a Pioneer N30, though I need to research it a lot more) to play it all.

What I would also like to do is move all of the music on my laptop to the NAS too, and then get iTunes to just play music from the NAS when I want to.

Is this possible? Can streamers play lossless files from a NAS? I'm confusing myself trying to research it all. Some sound as though they will only play lossless through a USB, while others will only play FLAC and not ALAC etc.

Does anyone know about such things?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[mike_knott]

You can get streamers that will pay lossless files from a NAS, and the required bitrates are fairly low so even a relatively modest NAS will cope. Other comments:

1. Definitely rip to lossless. The actual format doesn't really matter as lossless formats can always be converted to others without any problems.
2. Choose the lossless format according to what your streamer will play (personally I would avoid ALAC unless already immersed in Apple's ecosystem).
3. Maintain a lossless master, then get all the tagging, cover art, etc., sorted. Then copy to lossy if required.
4. I am not familiar with the nes you are looking at but make sure it is at least a 2 drive nas, and keep another copy on a usb hard drive at somebody else's house as additional backup.

For info, I use a modest Netgear nas duo streaming flac files to two Logitech Squeezeboxes. I also have all my DVDs ripped to .mkv format and these are sent through a different streamer to the tv. A copy of all the flac files are kept in mp3 format for use in the car and on my phone, and everything is copied to three USB hard drives.

[Lewis's Friend]

Thanks for the reply.

I use iTunes on my lap top, but if necessary I would rip any new CD's twice (though I don't really want to). Once to a NAS in lossless, and once to the laptop in 320mp3.

Is it possible to have a streamer and iTunes work off of a NAS though, with both using the same files? It seems iTunes won't recognize FLAC without some messing about.

Another question. Does the streamer just treat a NAS as a hard drive, (so that videos etc could also be stored on there for my tv to play), or does it 'take over' the drive and nothing else can use the space?

As you can probably tell, I'm not too sure what is possible with these bits of kit and I don't want to spend a load of money and then find out they can't do what I want them to...!

[GregE240]

I wouldn't discount ALAC to be honest. A lot of commercial non-Apple products do support it. My only gripe is that it doesn't support 5.1 format, so I can't rip DVD-Audio MLP files and play them through anything. There is a 5.1 FLAC format.

Your idea of ripping everything to lossless is spot on.

[Cheib]

Lewis's Friend said:

Thanks for the reply.



Is it possible to have a streamer and iTunes work off of a NAS though, with both using the same files? It seems iTunes won't recognize FLAC without some messing about.

I'm about to go through this myself....it's absolutely possible to have a streamer and iTunes work off a NAS....but I think it's easiest if it's ALAC which does limit you with some streamers but a lot do support it.

If you rip ALAC to your NAS you can point your iTunes at that and then in iTunes you can set the bit rate for MP3 copies on your iPhone/iPod.

That's what I am going to do anyway. Not too bothered about 5.1 audio personally but if that's an issue then you can't use ALAC by the sounds of it.

Just FYI QNAP and Synology seem to be the best regarded NAS's although I am a big fan of my current WD drives I use for back up's.

[mike_knott]

Lewis's Friend said:

I use iTunes on my lap top, but if necessary I would rip any new CD's twice (though I don't really want to). Once to a NAS in lossless, and once to the laptop in 320mp.

No need to rip twice: rip once to lossless, sort out tagging, etc., then batch convert these files to mp3 (with foobar2000, iTunes, etc.)

Lewis's Friend said:

Is it possible to have a streamer and iTunes work off of a NAS though, with both using the same files? It seems iTunes won't recognize FLAC without some messing about.

I don't use iTunes so don't really know. I seem to recall a few people saying that you can't stream off a nas from iTunes unless you have another computer switched on, but I can't see why this would be the case. Both should be able to stream whatever files they like; the nas will serve up whatever is requested. I'm sure somebody with iTunes knowledge will be along to advise.

If you are going to stick with iTunes I wouldn't recommend flac as the two do not exactly go hand in hand. ALAC will be fine. (And as I said in my first post you can always convert the lossless files to another lossless format if you realise you need to change.)

Lewis's Friend said:

Another question. Does the streamer just treat a NAS as a hard drive, (so that videos etc could also be stored on there for my tv to play), or does it 'take over' the drive and nothing else can use the space?

Yes, it is treated similar to a hard drive as it is just a network location. We have music, videos and various company files on our nas and our four separate streaming devices, plus laptop, tablet and two 'phones just take what they need, while the nas gives them what they request. The nas also pulls data off the laptop occasionally for backup.

Lewis's Friend said:

As you can probably tell, I'm not too sure what is possible with these bits of kit and I don't want to spend a load of money and then find out they can't do what I want them to...!

I know what you mean: I was in the same boat a few years ago. I can't really comment on the iTunes side of things but it isn't rocket science to do what you need, and you are doing the right thing by reading up and asking. If you get it right you will only need to do it once so it is worth persevering with.

Mike...

[Lewis's Friend]

Thanks for all the responses - just what I was after.

I think what I'll do is buy a decent NAS (maybe a Christmas present to me!), and start ripping/moving my music.

Then, when finances allow, I'll add the streamer.

I wasn't really planning on any of this, having just bought my first house but I find that CD's are a pain and I have no space to store them all. And while I'm no kind of audiophile, 320kbs mp3s really don't cut it even on my extremely modest stereo.

[TameRacingDriver]

Lewis's Friend said:

And while I'm no kind of audiophile, 320kbs mp3s really don't cut it even on my extremely modest stereo.

Its all in your head pal. I've fooled 'audiophiles' with MP3s on many an occasion, even on expensive kit, and with a lesser bitrate than what you're suggesting. They aren't impressed and they won't admit it in public. But you keep telling yourself that...

[Lewis's Friend]

It may well all be in my head, but it keeps me happy (if poor).

[TameRacingDriver]

Lewis's Friend said:

It may well all be in my head, but it keeps me happy (if poor).

Mind you, I'm pretty tight also, which helps. I've tried but honestly couldn't tell the difference, but that keeps me happy as I can get away with less storage

[TameRacingDriver]

Lewis's Friend said:

It may well all be in my head, but it keeps me happy (if poor).

Mind you, I'm pretty tight also, which helps. I've tried but honestly couldn't tell the difference, but that keeps me happy as I can get away with less storage

[TameRacingDriver]

Back on topic, is there any point really if you just have a small amount of data? I mean I can certainly see the benefits, I'm just not sure its worth the hassle of setting it all up when a laptop can perform the same tasks when just using small amount of data (less than 1TB by a substantial amount at this stage). I'm an IT tech and so I can easily set it up; but I'm just not sure I'll use it to its full potential.

And if I did, it almost seems better to re-use my old Dell Optiplex and stick Windows Home Server on it and 1TB hard drive, surely that would be massively more flexible than a NAS as well as easier to set up?

[Lewis's Friend]

My problem is I have about 250 CD's, which I don't really have room for. And my laptop is about 6 years old now and rapidly running out of disc space and speed!

If I could move all the music onto a NAS in any format it would be helpful. And if I have space, I may as well try lossless. I would also start using the NAS for films etc for the TV.

At the moment I back music and the like up on a wired hard drive, and I think a NAS is a more elegant solution. I just didn't initially realise the money they were!

[ism123]

I took the easy/lazy/expensive option and had my CDs ripped for me and the files in both FLAC and 320kb mp3 installed on a 2x 1TB NAS drive.

Don't think iTunes plays FLAC, at least it didn't used to.

[TEKNOPUG]

How often do you load/change music for your phone/car? Any decent software will be able to just convert your chosen FLAC files to MP3 on the fly, for you to transfer to USB/Phone. No need to have duplicate copies of everything.

With regards to the rest of your queries, I'm always happy to learn more as it's something I'd like to do in the future. I have an old XP machine that is networked and also directly connected to my amp. Streams fine to laptops, TV's, Blu_Ray etc but my AVR is not networked, so I need a direct connection. I have about 1TB of music which is easy to manage on a PC/Laptop using Media Monkey but unwiedly when streaming to other H/W. Not sure if Squeezebox is the answer - think I may be better off with a small custom PC handling the audio for my main system. So may possibilities, so many questions. As you say originally, it's all about reading as much as possible to fill in the blanks and come up with teh best solution.

[RizzoTheRat]

How it operates for streaming depends on your streamer. I've got a WD Mybook Live which has Twonky media server built in. The server is set up to stream everything within a specific folder, and any machine capable of streaming media (in my case a PS3 or my HTC phone) can then connect to the server and stream. For music you can either stream like that or have it as a shared drive on the network and use it like a normal folder.