What NAS drive brands DON'T use twonky

Posted by: minnow on 10 July 2013

Hello I am keen to get a NAS that does not use twonky as it does not work well with itunes by my own experience and many others.

A list of brands that don't use twonky but can stream lossless files would be appreciated.

Posted on: 10 July 2013 by Jasonf

Thats a very good question Minnow.

I have not used it myself but judging from the many, many calls for aid regarding its use (in conjunction with Naim streamers and servers), perhaps there should be some kind of health warning for Wonky Twonky.

Although there are Forum members who do not experience problems with it, but they seem to be the minority.

Jason.

Posted on: 10 July 2013 by Dungassin

From Illustrate website : RipNAS comes with Asset

Posted on: 10 July 2013 by The Meerkat

Get Asset. I had 'Wonky Twonky' on my Qnap. It's crap! (See my recent posts re Twonky UPnP server). I now only use the server on my UnitiServe SSD. it's faultless!

Posted on: 10 July 2013 by GeeJay

Been using my Synology 212 NAS (with Synology's own all-in-one software) with no issues since 2011, though like Meerkat, I now use the server on my UnitiServe SSD to serve music to my Naim system (with no issues)

I also use my Synology to serve DVD, BluRay and photos to other devices around the house (e.g. Panasonic Vierra TV, Pioneer SCLX85 receiver, iPad, etc.), and don't experience any issues.

George.

Posted on: 12 July 2013 by Peter W

I have used QNAP 219P II with Twonky for 20 months. I find Twonky to be very stable. In fact IMO its built-in music tree options are better than LMS that I tried briefly. I found only 2 problems with Twonky:

1. Initially it displayed tracks alphabetically which was annoying. To overcome this you only need to add track number prefixes which can be automatically done during ripping with dBpoweramp. The latest build seems to have fixed this problem so even without track number prefixes it will display tracks in the correct order.

2. Twonky does not like WAV files (WAV tagging is not great anyway). But if you add cover artwork to files with MediaMonkey a thm file will be added to the folder. Twonky can read this thm file, allowing it to serve WAV files just like FLAC, AIFF, etc.

Twonky is not as flakey as some people said.

Posted on: 12 July 2013 by PhilP

ReadyNAS. ReadyDLNA is a bit basic - I would suggest that you use MinimServer instead.

Posted on: 13 July 2013 by Gavin B

Has to be ReadyNAS v2 - v1 can't run Minim.

Posted on: 14 July 2013 by KenDillon

I'm using a Synology 212 NAS with no problems streaming to my ND5 XS. Only issue using the music server that comes with it is tagging on WAV files, but a reasonable folder structure gives you most of what you need. On FLAC it is fine. You can create multiple music folders which is good for me as I keep my iTunes and HD Files separate.

Posted on: 14 July 2013 by PinkHamster

Most issues perceived as server related are in actual fact tagging issues. Some servers are better in compensating the shortcomings of their users by means of default work arounds than others. But it remains to be a matter of 'shxx in shxx out'.

Posted on: 14 July 2013 by KenDillon

I've followed up here and on the synology site re: WAV file tagging and have not found any tagging format that yields artist album recognition on this NAS. I'm using XLD on the mac to rip. using folders enables a readonable compromise. I don't want to hijack this thread but if you are aware of how to do it that would very useful.

Posted on: 14 July 2013 by Skip

Forgive my ignorance. What is twonky again, please?

Posted on: 14 July 2013 by Peter W

Originally Posted by KenDillon:

I am not a synology user, but my QNAP did not show WAV info properly either until I started using MediaMonkey. It's free, give it a go and see if it works for you.

Posted on: 15 July 2013 by Dungassin

Originally Posted by Skip:

Forgive my ignorance. What is twonky again, please?

Never having owned or used Unitiserve or HDX, I can only say what I know as an NDS/QNAP NAS owner, but ...

Pinched from Wikipedia :

TwonkyMedia server (TMS) is DLNA-compliant UPnP AV server software from PacketVideo. It runs on Mac OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Home Server, Windows 7 and Linux. TwonkyMedia server is also available for Android and other mobile platforms. TwonkyMedia server can be used to share and stream media to most UPnP AV or DLNA-compliant clients, in addition to non-UPnP devices through the HTML, RSS, and JSON supported front-ends. After the acquisition of TwonkyVision by PacketVideo, TwonkyMedia was renamed PVConnect, but the name was later changed back to TwonkyMedia server.

It's just what you use to access the music on your NAS drive. Twonky, IIRC, runs under Linux, and most NAS drives use Linux, and have Twonky supplied with them as their DLNA server. It streams all multimedia. Asset, on the other hand is a music DLNA server only, and ATM runs only on Windows, based drives/computers, although I believe there is a beta version available for Mac.

(waits to be shot down in flames for incomplete/ possibly not fully correct answer ...)

John

Posted on: 09 September 2013 by minnow

thanks to everyone who responded with their thoughts.

at the end of the day I have decided I will move to a mac mini, for music, streaming movies, accessing the net via tv, etc, etc.

Originally Posted by minnow:

Hello I am keen to get a NAS that does not use twonky as it does not work well with itunes by my own experience and many others.

A list of brands that don't use twonky but can stream lossless files would be appreciated.

Posted on: 10 September 2013 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Well my advice if you are serious about streaming use either specialist device like a Unitiserve , RIpNAS or use a seperate upnp server from your NAS. Quality upnp server software such as Asset and Mediamonkey need more powerful processors to run on than often provided on a mini consumer NAS device.

I run Asset on its own mcro headless server and it draws upon multiple NAS devices.

A quality upnp server such as Asset allows configurable menus structures, auto playlists, highly configurable indexing options and versatile renderer specific transcoding options. Ideal for when you stream to portable wifi devices using mp3 and WAV for your full fat Naim.

Simon

Posted on: 10 September 2013 by minnow

Hello again to you all - many of you have recommended Asset or media monkey - I assume they are compatible with mac/itunes ripping?

But more importantly - how does one get, say, Asset on one's WD My Book Live?

thanks

Posted on: 10 September 2013 by Bart

Originally Posted by minnow:

Hello again to you all - many of you have recommended Asset or media monkey - I assume they are compatible with mac/itunes ripping?

But more importantly - how does one get, say, Asset on one's WD My Book Live?

thanks

If you want to use your Mac Mini as a server, why do you want Asset on the My Book Live? I think that something's confused. There *is* a version of Asset for OS X, which is what you want isn't it?

Posted on: 10 September 2013 by minnow

apologies for the confusion - I thought I could explore putting something other than twonky on my WD in the mean time.

Originally Posted by Bart:

Originally Posted by minnow:

Hello again to you all - many of you have recommended Asset or media monkey - I assume they are compatible with mac/itunes ripping?

But more importantly - how does one get, say, Asset on one's WD My Book Live?

thanks

If you want to use your Mac Mini as a server, why do you want Asset on the My Book Live? I think that something's confused. There *is* a version of Asset for OS X, which is what you want isn't it?

Posted on: 11 September 2013 by Madrid

I also recommend Asset. IMO, it is far better than Synology´s software, which suddenly failed me. Synology´s tech support was never able to solve the problem.