Synology NAS Questions

Hi AntonD,

I own the DS213+ since few weeks. It works fine so far.

Regarding your questions:

1) I do not know anything about iTunes. If it does use a normal directory structure you can copy these 1:1 to the NAS.

2) Here it is the same: You do not manually have to create the /artist/album structure, you can copy the files anywhere into the music directory of the NAS. The media server will scan these files and offer some virtual folders e.g. "by Artist" or "by Artist / Album", etc. But I recommend to create a filesystem structure as you mentioned to be able to manage all the files in future. Also the media server offers a navigation "by folder" where you can find your files like they are stored in the file system.

btw.: Why do you use aiff for ripped CDs and flac for higher resolution? In my opinion it makes more sense to use only one format, in my case "flac", as it is free and open.

3) yes it works like this. It works gaplessly, too, if played back right from the uniti or via the n-stream app. The only drawback I have found so far is that the synology media server does not offer the "UPnP search" functionality. So if you do a query against it, only the current folder will be filtered for the search string. But you cannot do a query about all artists, albums, tracks in one go. This is a functionality that e.g. is required for the BubbleUPnP app on android to generate a random selection playlist out of all tracks on the server.

4) You can either share the folders on the NAS via SMB (the windows way), NFS (the linux way) and also a Mac file format (that I do not know anything about). You can also use the GUI of the NAS that opens in a web browser. Here you find a quite nice file manager to move, copy, delete, rename files and directories. Also you have the possibility to tag the files. I did not use the tagging yet, but I will not be so comfortable as e.g. kid3 for linux (or windows). Such externals tools can be used via the shared folders as the NAS directories were stored on the local PC. (In theory. In praxis you might step into some permission problems that have to be solved/configured first.)

5) Not that I knew. Besides the upnp media server you also can enable an itunes server. But I did not find any benefits from this as I do not live in the apple world. Maybe the music files will show up in the itunes application?

Greetings,

Gert

Oh, one addition:

You can read everywhere that the NAS is very quiet, that you cannot hear it. This is not true. The fan always runs. It is not very loud and not at a high frequency, but as I own a fanless PC that does not make *any* noise at all, I can hear the NAS clearly in the small office room where it currently is. I would not want it to be located in the living room where I am listening to music. (But I am *very* critical with this topic!)

Also I do not know how other NASs behave (QNAP TS-219P II was on my list besides the DS213+. Maybe you want to check this out, too.)

Hi gert

many thanks for the comprehensive reply. This is very useful to me.

regarding file format, I agree with You. I use aiff in the past because of iTunes ease of tagging and that it's uncompressed for my nd5 to playback. For the NAS solution i will probably rethink my file format and stick with one. I understand the DS can transcode on the fly to wav before its presented to my nd5 so I may do this.

its good to hear you are happy with the DS. 

Pall the best, Anton

In answer to question 2.  You can set up xld to create the folders for artist and album when it does the rip.  You then just need to copy these over to the NAS as created (obviously being careful if you already have folders of the same artist already on there!).  Alternatively, just point xld directly at the folder on the NAS and it will rip straight to there creating the artist folder (if it isn't already there) and the album folder.

Here is a link to a thread where the set up above is described with screenshots:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...nt/22826037025475860

Many thanks Rich

I see you are a blades fan. I'm a spireite for my sins.

good to know naim user not far away!

Anton

Sadly a Blade only since University days, so not a native to Sheffield!  Still had to put up with 25 years of pain though!

Hi gert

Well, everything is up and running with the ds213+. I must say so far I am very impressed with the unit. Quite easy to setup and its streaming my music already 

one question I have is with high res artwork. Do you get very good quality artwork via your nstream app? I have the necessary folder.jpg in the music folders and its all coming through ok but the quality is poor?

any ideas?

many thanks, Anton

I have not worked with cover art that much yet. But It seems to work this way:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...nt/18461704841757814

Hello all, I've been running a 211+ for some time and have ripped all my cd's to AIFF format (using dbpoweramp) for streaming to NDX. All was working very well until around November last year when a strange problem started to occur... The listing of 2 tracks (normally the last 2) appeared differently to the others in both in n-stream and audio station ie. the format for most track listings is "track title -  artist", but the last 2 tracks are listed as "track number - artist  - track title". Doesn't sound so bad, but the sting is that these 2 differently listed tracks locks up NDX and don't play in audio station!??

note: these files appear identical viewed via explorer in windows 7 and play ok in windows media player so I don't think it's a problem with the ripping result?

also same cd ripped to wav format works perfectly!!

any ideas where the problem lies greatly appreciated!

meanwhile I'm ripping to both AIFF AND WAV just to be sure I can play tracks

Hi John

this is really strange behaviour.

Does this happen with every cd that you have ripped to aiff?

all my rips are in aiff. I even convert all my hires to aiff so the tagging is easy via xld. All plays as expected with my nd5

just to be clear, when you view all the ripped tracks from said cd via explorer, they all have the same format regarding naming convention?

Anton

Hi Anton,

I've ripped say 250 CDs via same method - no issues at all.

Then since November (changed versions of DSM, NDX firmware, n-stream, dbpoweramp...) and get this strange behaviour.

Files list normally as .aif in explorer.

just checked again and in fact they list differently but play ok using DS Audio...

...I'm trying to figure if it's the NDX, N-stream or DS media player / upnp that's the problem.

Well, trying to be scientific. 

I can't see it being the DSM software as a change in setting would apply to all your tracks, not just specific ones.

do the previous ripped albums play ok? If yes then maybe the new ripping method is the issue but then the behaviour would apply to all tracks but I have no experience with dbpoweramp software.

if the naim unit plays the older rips ok then I wouldn't suspect the unit. Strange though that DS audio plays the tracks ok?

you mention the tracks do display differently so maybe an issue with ripping method and software.

You can also try putting the said new rips onto a USB stick. If the same behaviour exists then its either the format of The rips or the naim streamer. 

its a bit difficult to diagnose as you updated so many things at the same time.

anyway, good luck with your fault finding. Hope some of the above helps

Anton

Thanks Anton.

I'll post fix once found... 

I have 14tb of data on my nas and recently had to take all of it off to repair the nas volume,  I have a synology 1518...   The volume continually is crashing and I have been working with tech support for three weeks....   Using all recommended items....  So just a warning about synology and even though your using a raid array.... BACK IT UP....

out of my own experience, the qnaps are much louder than the ds. The ds is really silent in comparison to the 219pii

This is true for all RAIDs!

Redundancy on only one device does not help if the user or a failing application deletes or destroys files. Redundancy is only required for high availability. Usually you do not need high availability for your music files. But you need a backup. Better a redundant backup (on 2 or more other devices).

So I recommend to not use a RAID, but save the space (and costs for multiple hard discs in the NAS). For this money you should buy another big external hard disc (or two) or maybe a second NAS to backup the files. Also it is recommended to use a backup that keeps multiple versions of the backed up files (a backup history). If you find out that you accidentally have deleted a file two months ago it will not be in the up to date backup if you do run the backup each day or week.

Have fixed the problem I posted yesterday ref. Synology / NDX / N-Stream / dbpoweramp / AIFF files behaving strangely.

Glad to report no issues with NDX or Synology NAS - it was a "known bug" in dbpoweramp that I've managed to fix by installing a beta version of the next release (R14.4).

"AIFF tagging fix (could indicate file was corrupted)"

Link to beta code: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/beta/dMC-r14.4-beta.exe

Hope that this helps anyone else is using dbpoweramp to rip to AIFF.

Ps. until this glitch I've been very happy with all the above components... and would still highly recommend them all for ripping / streaming.