Qnap TS-219P II ?

James, I have no experience with Qnap (I've got a Synology nas) but I can say that you're right on target with the 'backup' idea.  When my uServe was at the spa being upgraded, it was very nice to be able to use my nas as a server and still be able to play music.

I've kept my cd5xs for the same reason; it's nice to have multiple options.

Hi Bart,

Thanks for the reply! I just posted a separate thread for the question of whether the NDX can actually use rips from the UServe backed up to a NAS, as it seemed a slightly different topic - sounds like from your experience, they can?

James

I am using QNAP 219PII with NDS (and previously NDX). Doodle to set up and have worked flawlessly since I bought it in November 2011. Twonky is very stable and responsive too. Track info and album art are displayed properly. The only thing I'd like to have but isn't offered by Twonky is the ability to search tracks by composer. Apparently the navigation tree is user configurable if you know how to edit xml files. Unfortunately I don't so I decided not to bite more than I can chew.

All I need is a device to store, backup and deliver music to my hi-fi system. 219PII serves this purpose.

Hi Peter,

That's great to know, thanks!

May I ask how the tracks on the Qnap were ripped? It seems, on the other thread, that ripping from a naim server will sometimes produce tracks where the metadata can't be read, but it might be more NAS dependent than anything...

James

Thanks! That's a good tip about album art - I'll need to batch reprocess the files if I ever get a failure then, I suppose, and hope they're still compatible with the n-serve!

Not wanting to fly too much against popular opinion but from a support side of things, the NAS versions of Twonky do seem to generate a lot more support issues for people than - say - the UPnP servers on ReadyNAS...

Cheers

Phil

No - if you start batch processing files then they are unlikely to be compatible with your UnitiServe as you are likely to break the databasing that the UnitiServe does.

Please do not mess about with the files in a music store structure - we do say this in the manual.

Cheers

Phil 

Thanks Phil,

In that case what would the recommended procedure be since, in the case of the unitiserve, the end user can neither replace the HDD themselves nor, as I understand from the manual, restore the files from backup themselves, since the HDD is read only?

Would I create another, separate, copy of the files on the NAS before processing and use those for the NDX?

Cheers,

James

OK, interesting!

In that case, I suppose the question would be - is the ReadyNAS a better choice, then? Or are there other issues which mitigate this particular advantage? I need PC/MAC access...

Cheers,

James

I also have QNAP TS-219P II in combination with an NDX and it's working fine. I have never tried something else so I don't know if there are better NASses out there.

James......I have a QNAP NAS and can't fault it as a NAS. However, I did experience a lot of frustration trying to get Twonky to stream WAV files to my NDX (this was some time ago so upgrades may have changed things). All my files have metadata embedded in the files (ripped with dBpoweramp) but I couldn't get Twonky to structure and present all the data correctly to the NDX. It worked perfectly well with FLAC files, no problem at all.

I ended up running Asset on an old laptop and pointing it to my data on the QNAP and it works fine and I still rip everything in WAV. I know others also do something very similar.

I realise you have a slightly different challenge given you are ripping from the US (those rips have no metadata embedded for a server such as Twonky to read). So just a word of caution on the Twonky aspect.

Jack

Thanks Jack, that's a useful reply - exactly the kind of detail I was needing! I have an old PC doing nothing - could you detail what you mean by 'pointing it' at the NAS? I'm a little green with this kind of networking and I'd really appreciate knowing how you have that setup and wired, please! I've heard of people using Asset, transcoding to Flac and then instructing Asset to transcode to Wav before streaming to the NDX, etc., thereby avoiding the theoretical downside of Flac (additional processing load when uncompressing, which raises the noise floor, as I understand it). In that case, it would be easier to keep copies in Flac, which stores metadata much more efficiently anyway.

BTW - does that mean the audio data is actually routed through the PC, or is the PC, and Asset, somehow just controlling the NAS?

Cheers.

You are absolutely on the right track and you already understand more than you are admitting.

If you were to use your old PC to run ther server software, you would be better off to store your library on either the hard drive of said PC or on a USB HDD attached to this PC. You could skip the NAS altogether, the sense of which is to avoid having a PC running in order to be able to stream music.

If you choose to use your PC and the NAS, however, the data would indeed be routed from the NAS to the PC and on to the streamer from there.

Idem here. My QNap 219pIi works perfect and never let me down: stable, silent and performant. I am using Twonky only for video streaming. For the music-flacs I use assett. 

Would re-buy the QNap any time

iver

James I responded in that other thread; I've not tried to 'serve' the backup via the nas's upnp server, only other files that I had on my nas.  I could try it (from a backup of the backup in case anything goes amiss).

I use a  QNAP TS-219P II Turbo 512MB for last 18 month with HDX

Hopeless when I was trying ethernet over mains, fine since hard wired Cat5

Hi James,

I think PinkHamster has already answered part of your query but to add....

When I say pointing at the NAS what I mean is that my laptop is running Asset and I have that laptop configured to see the drives on the NAS where the music data resides, similar to how you would setup any PC wanting to use the NAS for additional storage (its standard config stuff)

So basically my NAS, Laptop (running Asset) and my NDS all plug into an Ethernet switch which connects to my wireless router - I then use n-stream to control the music playback from my iPad.

On the transcoding side, you may find that the latest version of Twonky supported on the QNAP supports transcoding (it wasn't a tick box on the version I had although it may still have been under the covers I didn't look too hard!) - this would allow you (as you say yourself) to store everything on the NAS in FLAC format with all the metadata and then get Twonky to transcode to WAV before sending to the NDX - this avoids the NDX having to do the conversion. This would probably work well if its supported. BTW you can always try Twonky out on your PC to start with and see how you get on (there used to be a free trial version)

Hope that helps

Hey Jack,

can your Twonky transcode to wav. What version do youvhave or where is the option stored in the menu. I have 7.01 but havent seen the transcode option.

cheers,

iver

Thanks guys, all very informative and helpful! It's led me to this-

http://minimserver.com/install-qnap.html

Sounds as if it might just be the ticket? Some good looking features for tags, metadata, etc., can transcode on the fly on Qnap NAS, and I can use it on OS-X too... too good to be true? 

Anyone tried it? 

Hi Iver,

I have version 5.1.6 installed.....there is a transcode menu but it seems to only be able to transcode to MP3! As I said in the earlier post I don't use Twonky just the storage aspects of the QNAP. I think there is QPKG package available for a later version. Might be worthwhile hunting around on the other forums if you are interested.....I seem to recall someone on the Linn forum posted a lot of useful information about Twonky tree structure etc

I use dBpoweramp to rip CDs in WAV and FLAC formats, then tidy up metadata with Media Monkey.

Like Jack I had trouble with WAV metadata too (e.g. no artwork, incomplete metadata), but later I found out that this could be resolved easily by re-saving WAV files with Media Monkey. Once that is done my Twonky/NDX/NDS can handle all WAV files without any problem. FLAC files can be read without having to go through Media Monkey.

Hi Iver

May I ask why you'd like to transcode to WAV, and from which file format? 

Dear Peter,

thanks for yor message. My music is stored in Flac after being ripped with dbPoweramp. I transcode the Flac to Wav using Assett, because the SoundQuality very slightly improves. There have been threads around transcoding here, and the general thhought is that the Naim gear (in my case ND5xs) has less "work" to do when offered a Wav file instead of a Flac. This could cause the better sq. 

My UpnP software is thus Assett thought the Nas also hasTwonky. I was interested in the transcoding possibilities of Twonky sinceI cant find that option in My Twonky which is the latest version available via QPG.

cheers,

Iver