NAS recommendation

[audiomuze (R.I.P)]

Has anyone tried the Logitech Media Server on the new Synology DS213j (the budget model)? Or is that asking too much from this device?

 

It has a 1.2GHz cpu and 512G of RAM. Link here: http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS213j?=us

Ideally load LMS on the Microserver.  The Touch needs to connect to LMS on the Microserver, which it'll do as long as they're on the same LAN subnet.  This may help you re installing LMS: http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/index.php?/topic/55426-using-your-microserver-as-a-squeezebox-music-server-ubuntu/

Edited September 2, 2013 by audiomuze

[Juicester]

Hi all. Just thought I'd post an update - I've taken a leap for faith and ordered a Buffalo Link Station Duo 4TB - they had a sale on, and for $270 (I reckon $200 it would cost for the hard drives alone!) I thought it was worth the risk (3 year warranty doesn't hurt). Buffalo released native support for Squeezeserver from firmware 1.41 onwards, so I don't have to stuff about with doing weird computer programmy things. Will report back.

[hired goon]

I need a NAS for my squeezeboxing and photos/videos. 4TB would not be enough, but I will be I interested in yer thoughts.

--Geoff

[Juicester]

I need a NAS for my squeezeboxing and photos/videos. 4TB would not be enough, but I will be I interested in yer thoughts. --Geoff

same - but given the cost to entry I thought I'd start with this and just upgrade to 6TB later...  Will let you know.

[Jventer]

Hi all. Just thought I'd post an update - I've taken a leap for faith and ordered a Buffalo Link Station Duo 4TB - they had a sale on, and for $270 (I reckon $200 it would cost for the hard drives alone!) I thought it was worth the risk (3 year warranty doesn't hurt). Buffalo released native support for Squeezeserver from firmware 1.41 onwards, so I don't have to stuff about with doing weird computer programmy things. Will report back.

Where did you get that special please?

[Rob181]

Where did you get that special please?

 Ditto....

[mjs]

Currently have a Readynas Duo V2. Works ok, but expect to replace it with a Syno 513+ before the end of the year. Readynas is a bit flaky.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Juicester]

Shoppingexpress.com.au - sale ends today I think.

[bwhitesox]

I need a NAS for my squeezeboxing and photos/videos. 4TB would not be enough, but I will be I interested in yer thoughts. --Geoff

 

Go for a 4 bay Synology or Qnap with 3-4Tb hard drives in either a Raid5 or use the Hybrid Raid...Should be enough to do you for a while and if you need more space later on just replace one of the disks for a larger one wait for Raid to rebuild and do the same one at a time with the remaining disks.

Edited October 17, 2013 by bwhitesox

[Juicester]

I need a NAS for my squeezeboxing and photos/videos. 4TB would not be enough, but I will be I interested in yer thoughts. --Geoff

 

OK - so I've had some time to play around with it - so here are my thoughts.

 

Pro's - Love having squeezebox server running 24/7 without the PC having to be on. Love the webaccess feature which allows you to get your files easily over any web browser. simple web interface (I'm not THAT tech savvy and found it fairly straight-forward. Very small.

 

Cons - Hard-drives are fairly noisy when reading/writing files (this might be improved when I upgrade to WD Red 3TB drives in the future). When playing 24bit 96khz files occasionally I get skipping. I'm not sure if that's because I'm not using a gigabit switch (yet) or if the processing power of the NAS is a little on the weak side. Maybe it's both. Also - it has an older version of Squeezebox server on it (7.5) - so make sure you disable the 'update automatically' feature - because I 'upgraded' from 7.7 on my SBT to 7.5 because the server was saying there was a new version. This caused all sorts of problems, but I've got it working now.

 

 

Overall, for $270 - I don't think you can go wrong really. This will definitely do me for a while. I haven't tried movie streaming yet - that's the next cab off the rank.

[Al Leece]

Nice write up, Juicester. Was it tricky or complicated (or at least long winded) to get the server running on the NAS? I looked into it for my DNS323 but did not fancy trying it. If your experience was not too bad I will possibly look into this NAS and try the idea myself. Any guides you used to do it?

 

Oh, and did you RAID-1 your drives or JBOD them?

[Juicester]

Actually the new firmware on these (I'm using 1.65) has Squeezecenter installed as part of the package - so it was simple as pie. This was a must for me in buying a NAS as I'm not technically savvy enough to be able to hack it like others did. Using Raid 1 - I think that's possibly limiting performance but I wanted the data redundancy ; I don't trust hard drive reliability these days.

[Al Leece]

Oooh that's interesting - built in Squeezecentre. Nice!

 

I prefer the data redundancy of mirrored drives, too. Actually, for read performance, mirroring improves things as there are two drives with identical data from which to read - it is only on writes that it is slower. That is a minor trade for data availability, though. I have had only a couple of disk drives fail so I am not overly concerned with their quality - it is better than a lot of things I have worked with in the past, both professionally and at home. Most HDDs are pretty good and I have even got by with the dreaded WD Green drives in my RAID 1 set-ups because I tend to use the mirror sets as a data repository, not for flogging to death in stripe sets! Never had a problem (touch-wood).

 

If your NAS supports hot-swapping you can use that as a backup: every month / week / whatever timescale you like drop out one of the disks and add a third HDD. Take the removed disk off-site (or in a fire safe, etc.) and you have one backup. The price of HDDs these days makes it perfectly viable and you should be able to read the drive under Windows using some or other flavour of Linux file server.

 

I think I may look into this particular NAS beastie... Thanks for the input.

[A J]

I think the hardware will be the bottleneck in this setup as I've found with a readynas setup - fine with sub 24/96 bit struggles with hi rez. The green drives are fine if you flash them with the anti crc firmware fixes.

[Demondes]

An alternative to buying an expensive NAS is to use a local USB3 drive as the primary device  for music (faster) and keep the master copy on a NAS that maybe cheaper, but not fast enough to run hires direct (due to the quality of the NAS or network speed e.g. 100Mb network instead of Gigabit speeds.

[Al Leece]

AJ I have never done anything to my green drives - they seem fine as they are. Long may that continue. I would agree with the NAS being a bottleneck were it not for the fact that the Squeezebox even glitches at .flac files as well as high-def audio. That, and the fact that my laptop plays them happily from the same source connected by network seems to indicate more of a Squeezebox problem. It also loses connection to my laptop(s - either of them) while using one or other as its server; the only reliable way to run is using the Windows GUI on the laptop. If it were connected by wi-fi I could understand it, but I use wires and switches - Gb ones - and there ought not be any problem!

 

Demondes, I would like to add a local drive to the Squeezebox but it does not have a USB - I thought of that one. I do need more redundant HDD space anyway, but Squeezebox is proving to be too uncertain for me. I may go another direction.

 

Still, all useful information and ideas are welcomed - the more information, the more informed. Possibly.

[Demondes]

AJ I have never done anything to my green drives - they seem fine as they are. Long may that continue. I would agree with the NAS being a bottleneck were it not for the fact that the Squeezebox even glitches at .flac files as well as high-def audio. That, and the fact that my laptop plays them happily from the same source connected by network seems to indicate more of a Squeezebox problem. It also loses connection to my laptop(s - either of them) while using one or other as its server; the only reliable way to run is using the Windows GUI on the laptop. If it were connected by wi-fi I could understand it, but I use wires and switches - Gb ones - and there ought not be any problem!

 

Demondes, I would like to add a local drive to the Squeezebox but it does not have a USB - I thought of that one. I do need more redundant HDD space anyway, but Squeezebox is proving to be too uncertain for me. I may go another direction.

 

Still, all useful information and ideas are welcomed - the more information, the more informed. Possibly.

 

I bought 4 WD 2TB Green drives a few years back for my DS1010 NAS (because they were cheap and it wasn't widely known about the issues).  Whilst I wouldn't recommend buying them again.  2 Of the drives failed early on in the NAS but they still work ok in pc's (Synology picks up SMART status as drive failing)

 

2 other WD Green drives are still running almost 3 years later.  

 

Note I leave my Synology 1010 and DX510 expansion unit on 24/7.   

[PKay]

I have the synology and I am have found it to be flawless, and incredibly reliable as well as fast in copying across music as well as photos.

[sthpaul]

Hi All

 

I have been following this thread (and a number of others) with interest and have finally jumped in and ordered the new Synology DS214play with a starter hhd, the WD red 2TB.

The DS214play is new and I may be a guinea pig here, as there doesn't appear to be many if any reviews, and it may be a little overkill but thought it may furture proof me for a while.

As per their marketing guff it sounds like a NAS geared to what we're after.

Anyway thanks for the informative posts, they have been quite helpful.

 

PS it won't arrive until the end of the month so it'll be a while before I can post any feedback.

[A J]

Congrats - sounds like a great choice !!

[mdm1979]

I've been talking to a mate recently about NAS servers. He's suggested doing it properly the first time. Go for more than what you need. He suggested a 4-6 bay server & capable of taking 4tb drives. I guess this sounds like overkill. Could cost over $1500. Considering I bought a 2tb external drive a few years ago for half that price it seems reasonable. I've had so many drives fail over the years. A NAS is peace of mind.

Looking to stream to my squeezebox/Oppo105. I may end up getting a mac mini with audiovarna. Then will come the arduous task of ripping my music/dvds

Looking at qnap http://www.qnap.com/en/index.php?lang=en&sn=822&c=351&sc=514&t=2742&n=13701

Edited November 11, 2013 by mdm1979

[Jventer]

I bought a used HP micro server this weekend for $250. Going to put 4 3TB drives and run 6 TB in mirror. OS will be on usb Should be enough in the short term

[holliswhy]

Anyone used the Synology NAS as a music player? 

 

As in direct USB to, say, AP2, and then DAC? 

 

How does the sound compare to a, say, Mac Mini, or dedicated streamer, or CDP? 

 

I use the 212j, flawless so far. 

[bwhitesox]

I've been talking to a mate recently about NAS servers. He's suggested doing it properly the first time. Go for more than what you need. He suggested a 4-6 bay server & capable of taking 4tb drives. I guess this sounds like overkill. Could cost over $1500. Considering I bought a 2tb external drive a few years ago for half that price it seems reasonable. I've had so many drives fail over the years. A NAS is peace of mind.

Looking to stream to my squeezebox/Oppo105. I may end up getting a mac mini with audiovarna. Then will come the arduous task of ripping my music/dvds

Looking at qnap http://www.qnap.com/en/index.php?lang=en&sn=822&c=351&sc=514&t=2742&n=13701

 

I found the Qnaps to be quite a bit louder in operation in comparison to the Synologys so if it is going to be in a quiet place I would go Synology.

[Demondes]

Previously when I had the luxury of a house I ran the synology from a spare room, and ran a Cat6 cable under the floor to the mac mini in the lounge.   Whilst I agree the synology is generally quiet, nothing beats the removal of the NAS from the listening space entirely.