Mac mini or ripNAS?

Posted by: ccr on 14 November 2009

I am thinking of dipping my toe into the hard disc world. There appears to be a lot of support for the mac mini>dac route on the forum, but I have also come across ripnas solutions to the music server elsewhere. Does anyone have any experience of both? I assume the mac is more flexible but are there other reasons for this being the way to go?
Thanks.

Posted on: 15 November 2009 by AS332

I have no experience of the RipNAS but I can tell you that I bought a Mac Mini a few months ago to replace my Sonos because it allowed me not only to stream my music collection but also access Spotify for choosing new music which is a great little service .
I'm also a big user of the BBC iPlayer and tend to listen to programs that I have missed during the week . I have direct links on the desktop to the live feeds of all the BBC stations plus others as well.
Finally , if my family steal my laptop ( as is usual ) then I can simply access the Mini through a free VNC app on my iPhone or the remote app if I am listening to iTunes .

Hope this helps ,

Ed

Posted on: 15 November 2009 by gmischol

Ripnas is definitely a good solution. I had a Netgear Ready NAS duo but for noise reasons and other I purchased a Ripnas (2x320GB HD). It's working like a charm, ripping has become a real pleasure (while ripping the CD's on my MacPro and then copying over to the Netgear was a pain) and I also found a better sound in the Ripnas (I think due to the ripping software, dbPoweramp on Ripnas and Rip on Mac).