NASs.... Which one?

Posted by: -goat- on 26 March 2014

I'm on the hunt for a new NAS drive to replace the ReadyNas Duo I'm using. I'm looking for something that fits the following criteria and would appreciate any help:

 

1. Will transcode FLAC to WAV on the fly. Currently all my FLACs are fully uncompressed, but if I could transcode on the fly, I could compress the collection considerably which would be very useful as I am looking at buying a portable player, and this would allow me to fit the entire collection on 2 x 128gb Micro SDs.

 

2. Good UPNP server and ideally the ability to change the server if I have any issues. Full resolution art work. Not like the scaled down pixelated version the Duo serves up. The ability to browse by date of release would also be very useful.

 

3. User friendly interface. The Netgear products are abysmal in this regard. Some of the worst products I have ever used.

 

4. Not a necessity, but TimeMachine compatibility would be good.  

 

One last question... when decoding to WAV from the FLAC on the fly... am I correct in assuming all tagging etc functions just as it would serving up the FLACs themselves? The Synology NASs seem to be popular here. Perhaps someone who owns one can advise...

Posted on: 26 March 2014 by dayjay
Originally Posted by -goat-:

I'm on the hunt for a new NAS drive to replace the ReadyNas Duo I'm using. I'm looking for something that fits the following criteria and would appreciate any help:

 

1. Will transcode FLAC to WAV on the fly. Currently all my FLACs are fully uncompressed, but if I could transcode on the fly, I could compress the collection considerably which would be very useful as I am looking at buying a portable player, and this would allow me to fit the entire collection on 2 x 128gb Micro SDs.

 

2. Good UPNP server and ideally the ability to change the server if I have any issues. Full resolution art work. Not like the scaled down pixelated version the Duo serves up. The ability to browse by date of release would also be very useful.

 

3. User friendly interface. The Netgear products are abysmal in this regard. Some of the worst products I have ever used.

 

4. Not a necessity, but TimeMachine compatibility would be good.  

 

One last question... when decoding to WAV from the FLAC on the fly... am I correct in assuming all tagging etc functions just as it would serving up the FLACs themselves? The Synology NASs seem to be popular here. Perhaps someone who owns one can advise...

I brought in an Assetnas a week or two ago which came with asset upnp pre installed and which does everything you're asking for. Easy to set up and  run although it helps if you have a little pc knowledge

Posted on: 26 March 2014 by Jota

My Synology DS213+ is simple to use, great UI. I transcode FLAC to WAV24 and it uses less than 1% CPU in the process.  I use the excellent Minimserver for the music. 

 

The NAS is also extendible should I need more hard drive space in the future.  You just add one of Synology's extension's and the NAS does all the hard work setting it up.  Simples.

Posted on: 26 March 2014 by Bananahead

Another vote from Synology from me. I have nothing bad to say about either of my two 214play devices. I would not even look at another brand if I needed another.

 

Which portable player are you thinking of?  I have an iBasso DX50 that plays FLAC and has a microSD slot. A big step up from the nasty Apple thing I had before. 

Posted on: 26 March 2014 by analogmusic

Synology

 

what you are buying is not really the Hardware alone, but hardware and operating system

 

Synology DSM is pretty good

Posted on: 26 March 2014 by Foxman50

Synology NAS running Minimserver works a treat for me. To be fair reading the tutorials on how to install Minimserver makes it sound way more complicated than it really is.

 

just updated my drives to 2Gb versions and as Jota says the NAS does it all for you.

 

Posted on: 26 March 2014 by nickpeacock
+1 for Synology.

I had a ReadyNAS Duo. It was a complete pain to set up. The interface is awful.

I moved to a Synology 212+ and have never looked back. I use synology's own Media Server, which works pretty well for me, especially now that I've customised the directory tree.
Posted on: 26 March 2014 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Goat, the Duo v2  is a very reliable NAS with its latest software . I have had mine for about 4-5 years without a peep. I use mine for backup duties where it automatically powers on weekly to backup my other NASes.. Is there a particular problem you have other than the GUI is dated.

I use  other Netgear NASes elsewhere, and separate my UPnP/DLNA server from the NASes for optimum performance. So I recommend keeping it to backup your new NASes. The Duo v2 backup scripting is very effective.

Simon

Posted on: 27 March 2014 by Teme
Originally Posted by nickpeacock:
 I've customised the directory tree.

Could you elaborate a bit more on what exactly you've done, please?

Posted on: 27 March 2014 by -goat-

Thanks everyone. It seems Synology is very popular! The 213J is probably the sort of thing I'm after. So it looks like a definite tick for criteria no. 3. Can I assume correctly it is also affirmative to 1. (24/96 etc too?) 2. and 4.?

 

Simon, it's the V1 Duo I have unfortunately. I bought it second hand. It looked a very simple, no frills product and that appealed to me at the time. To answer your query... I find the web browser interface unreliable and temperamental, the artwork doesn't load for albums added after the most recent media scan. The artwork is scaled down an pixelated. It doesn't support album art above 900 x 900 pixels. I tried to install two other UPNP servers on the Duo, neither of which I managed to get working properly. The TimeMachine feature worked well very briefly, but soon that became a headache too. Too many problems. The Netgear N600 router I had gave me nearly as much grief as the Duo. Netgear products are on my blacklist now!

 

Bananahead... I'm looking at the Fiio X5. Looks a great wee player. It has slots for two micro SDs and I believe supports the new 128gb cards! I think I can get the FLAC library down to under 200gb with some compression, so I could presumably have the whole collection with me on the go (with space to spare) as I do in MP3 with the iPod classic I currently use with a pair of Grado SR80is. To be honest, I don't even think the iPod sounds too bad using 320 MP3s. If I hear a worthwhile improvement switching to the Fiio, I'll be happy. A big part of the motivation for the change is that it will allow me to ditch MP3s entirely which will mean I will only have to maintain one library not two! Organising a digital music collection is time consuming enough without having to duplicate everything. The Fiio has a digital out and can be used as a USB Dac too. To have my whole library on board with a player like that could be very useful. So I'm actually trying to sort out a bunch of issues here, more or less all at once.

Posted on: 27 March 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by -goat-:

Thanks everyone. It seems Synology is very popular! The 213J is probably the sort of thing I'm after. So it looks like a definite tick for criteria no. 3. Can I assume correctly it is also affirmative to 1. (24/96 etc too?) 2. and 4.?

 

Hi Goat

 

Unfortunately the Synology in built "Media Server" has a bug which although transcodes flac to wav it will revert any hi res to standard CD res. This is why i and others are using Minimserver, as this transcodes correctly and sends decent images to n-stream.

 

Graeme

Posted on: 27 March 2014 by Chag...

You all seem to prefer Synology on this thread. What about QNAP that Salisbury still looked to favor a few months ago? How would you compare the 2 brands and their products?

 

Chag -

Posted on: 28 March 2014 by sjbabbey
Originally Posted by Chag...:

You all seem to prefer Synology on this thread. What about QNAP that Salisbury still looked to favor a few months ago? How would you compare the 2 brands and their products?

 

Chag -

+1

 

I've beem looking at the TS421 especially if it will soon run the promised Asset upnp. Anyone else have experience with this model?

Posted on: 28 March 2014 by -goat-

From what I can see Minimserver looks a legitimate option for a UPNP music server. I also use my NAS to stream video however and it appears Minimserver is a music only server. If so, is it possible to use the standard Synology media server concurrently to serve video? 

Posted on: 28 March 2014 by scillyisles

I have both Qnap  TS419+Turbo with 8 x Enterprise class 2Tb drives plus Synolgy DS411Slim with 4 x1TB drives. Both are pretty good. I run the Asset Beta on QNAP as well as the latest version of Twonky.

The Synology acts as a backup for the  Qnap where ITunes library is plus backup of my HDX.

Prior to that used Buffalo NAS which were unreliable.

Power supplies tend to be an issue with NAS - both the QNAP and Synology have external power supplies. A spare is a good idea. Enterprise class drives also increase reliability as the MTBF is appreciably higher than consumer drives.

Posted on: 28 March 2014 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Aggree to best use external powersupplies.. (such as with the ReadyNAS) and most importantly in my opinion a UPS. A power outage, even an accidental one, can corrupt a mirrored or other file system, so cause a loss or data or even require a total lengthy restore from backup.

Goat.. Ok, yes I never run my UPnP server on my NASes for performances reasons, and if I am honest I only use Apple products for TimeMachine. It's a closed definition, you are taking a risk if using a non Apple product for TimeMachine.

Simon 

Posted on: 28 March 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by -goat-:

From what I can see Minimserver looks a legitimate option for a UPNP music server. I also use my NAS to stream video however and it appears Minimserver is a music only server. If so, is it possible to use the standard Synology media server concurrently to serve video? 

Hi Goat

 

yes you can have minimserver and media server running together. I had it like this while i tested minimserver and it ran without issue.

 

Graeme

Posted on: 28 March 2014 by Gajdzin

I'm very happy with my Synology. It's DS214play with 2 x 4TB Western Digital Red. Using only one application on it: the Synology's own Multimedia Server. My ND5XS recognizes it without any problems and there is an option in Multimedia Server to transcode FLAC to WAV on the fly (you have to find it in the 3rd tab of the options window).

 

After you copy your ripped CDs to the NAS remember to go to the Control Panel, find the Multimedia Indexing Service and re-index the files. Then, in nStream, clear the cache and the images cache.