Sonos and NAS

Boyley

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I recently bought a Sonos system for the house and am now looking to add a NAS. I'm completely new to this and so am hoping that someone with experience can give me a push in the right direction. I understand Hi-Fi and have (what I thought was) a decent grasp of computers but the terminology used in many of the NAS forums I have come across leads me to straight to another Google search.

I've been looking at a WD 4TB My Cloud EX2 or a Synology DS213J (using the same WD Red drives). I mainly intend to use the NAS to store photos and to stream music around the house (ripped from CD using iTunes) but would like the ability to stream video in the future (up to 1080P would be best). I've also read about the possibilities of being able to access my photos and music away from the house (via an iPhone) and this is something I would be particularly interested in. I'm really looking at a maximum of £400 but anything cheaper would be great.

I can see that similar questions have been asked before but nothing for some time and a lot of new products have come to market in the last year or so. Any guidance would be much appreciated.
 
Synology would be the way to go.

Sonos are not NAS specific from what I understand you merely point it at the network shared folders on the NAS and it scans them for content.

Synology NAS also come with their own built in music system though it is basic compared to Sonos, Audiostation scans folders on the NAS for content then this can be accessed via web browser or via phone/tablet apps, it also allows setting a default network music output like a DLNA or Airplay audio system. Audiostation can also be accessed remotely over the internet too. You can use the Sonos and Audiostation in tandem they wont conflict with each other.

Photos are the same with Photostation and DSPhoto.

Videos can go through VideoStation and DSVideo but streaming video over the internet can be problematic and it depends on a lot of factors like the source material your internet link at home and remotely. Synology have an app for the PC with creates low res shadow copies of the videos which are better suited to streaming then the native video.

However if you can afford it Synology have two models the DS214Play and DS414Play that feature a built in video transcoder, this hardware converts the video in real time so streaming internet video from your NAS is no longer a problem. If you have no interest in streaming video over the internet only over your local network then whatever is cheapest from Synology will suffice.

Synology also feature a DLNA media server which can stream the media to any UPnP/DLNA client.

They also feature a so called iTunes server but this is nothing of the sort, it's a very old pre-modern iTunes system from way back before Homesharing and it doesnt work with iOS devices and only barely works with desktop iTunes.
 
I agree with next010 - not much else to add. I'm using 3 Sonos speakers with a 4 bay Synology NAS. Happy to answer any specific questions you may have. I know it's a nightmare when buying new kit like this and this forum has been very helpful when I wanted to purchase this setup.
 
Thanks both for your replies.

So, if I were to go for a Synology DS213J I shouldn't have any difficulty streaming video around the house? It would likely only be to a PS3 in the front room (hard wired to the router) but I like the idea that I could stream to different rooms in the house in the future if I wanted to. I'd likely only access photos or music outside of the house and then only rarely.

duffbeerdrinker - do you use iTunes to organise your music? I'm looking at ripping all my old CDs to iTunes, organising the library and then transferring everything to the NAS. Is it fairly simplistic to access the music via Sonos (without anything else turned on)? I've only had Sonos for a week so all of this is new to me.
 
It was announced by Synology earlier this year and shown off, probably isn't on sale yet.

Thecus use the same chip as do Asustor in the AS3 series but I dont know if they have transcoding enabled in their companion apps or DLNA media server, Synology have it enabled in all their stuff from videostation to DLNA.
 
Thanks both for your replies.

duffbeerdrinker - do you use iTunes to organise your music? I'm looking at ripping all my old CDs to iTunes, organising the library and then transferring everything to the NAS. Is it fairly simplistic to access the music via Sonos (without anything else turned on)? I've only had Sonos for a week so all of this is new to me.

I don't use iTunes - I avoid anything made my Apple. Not sure why you would want to use iTunes to organise your library. All you need to do is add the folder containing your MP3 tracks to the Sonos software and it will organise them all for you.
It is very easy to access all the music from this point. As long as the NAS is awake you can select all of the music from the Sonos application. The only thing you need to be aware of is that the Sonos system doesn't send a "magic packet" to the NAS so I will not wake up from the power off state, but it will wake the NAS up if it's in hibernation.
Nothing else needs to be powered on - only the NAS and the Sonos.
 
I don't use iTunes - I avoid anything made my Apple. Not sure why you would want to use iTunes to organise your library. All you need to do is add the folder containing your MP3 tracks to the Sonos software and it will organise them all for you.
It is very easy to access all the music from this point. As long as the NAS is awake you can select all of the music from the Sonos application. The only thing you need to be aware of is that the Sonos system doesn't send a "magic packet" to the NAS so I will not wake up from the power off state, but it will wake the NAS up if it's in hibernation.
Nothing else needs to be powered on - only the NAS and the Sonos.
What do you use to rip your music? Everything I have was ripped using iTunes. In the last few years I've tended to listen to music by docking my iPhone, prior to that everything was CD so I don't have experience with any other software.
 
There are dozens of CD extraction tools available and many of them are free. I use EZ CD Audio Converter - I bought it a few years ago. Free alternatives are CDex and Freerip.
 
dbPoweramp is also a very good ripping tool. It's paid for software but relatively cheap.
 

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