attaching a NAS via USB
Posted by: Hungry_Otter on 16 August 2018
The current topic seems closest to my question, namely is it possible to access music on a NAS (WDMyCLoud) via the USB on an Atom? Currently it says that nothing is attached after I have connected it with a USB cable.
Thanks for any assistance.
I think the USB Port on the MyCloud is for backup only just use the Ethernet
thanks
[@mention:43662849023559497] NP if you want to use the USB Port on ATOM just Format a USB Stick think FAT32 then copy your favourite music to stick
The MyCloud is a rather basic NAS, I would look at one of two alternatives. Either get a USB stick, or a USB drive such as a WD MyPassport, connect it to the Atom, and enable server mode. Or get a better NAS such as a Synology, QNAP or Netgear, and run a UPnP server on that. (If you do this, you should have a backup, and the MyCloud would be perfect for that.) The latter option is more expensive, but probably better suited to a large music collection.
The USB on a NAS is likely to be a USB Host not a USB Peripheral device; i.e. it's the one that controls the bus devices not the one that responds to data requests from another host.
As Xenasys says the USB ports on NAS drives are primarily intended to support backup disks or printers (to make a USB printer into a network printer).
Several types of NAS can output audio files via their USB port (eg Synology, using the native AudioStation app) in the same way you can route audio on your laptop to USB... but then you need a USB DAC, like a Naim V1 or the popular Chord Hugo. These expect the data to be “pushed” to them for conversion; the app on the computer (including an appropriate NAS) does this part.
The USB input on your Atom is not this sort of input. It is for reading from external storage devices (memory keys, external portable drives and the like). In this case, the firmware application (via the control app on your iPhone, for example) is going to “pull” the data for conversion off the storage.
The UPnP interface for music file transfer is implemented over the network rather than by a direct connection, and works in a different way (as described by ChrisSU and others above).
The file access on your NAS, as the name implies, also works over the network rather than by a direct (eg USB) connection... and that (in part; see Huge’s answer for more info) is why you can’t see a list of music files (to “pull”) when you connect a NAS, rather than an external drive, to the Atom’s USB port.
Best wishes for a different path to success.
Regards alan
Thanks everyone for your replies. Much clearer now.