Basic NDX Connection

No. It has to be connected wired/wireless to a switch or router. The only direct connection to a media is to a USB device plugged into the front USB connector.

In the short term, plug the NAS unit into the Home Hub. 

Use wireless to connect the NDX to your home network.  This will allow it to use Internet Radio and to locate the NAS unit for streaming.  This should work but can be improved by hard-wiring both to the hub (or a separate switch) when you move.

Could you not plug the NAS, wired, directly into the NDX, with a cross over cable. Leave the aerial plugged in the back, then just use the remote to change the settings on the NDX between wired and wireless when you want to swap between NAS and radio. Only a couple of clicks on the remote.

Graeme

+1 . A very simple short term solution. 

Mike, the answer is absolutely yes. Site a NAS and switch near your ND something and use Wireless access point into that switch to wirelessly connect across your house to your broadband router.

All your higher bandwidth stuff will go over the local to ND wire connection. DHCP, internet, web radio should be quite happy over the wifi link unless it is very poor. However a Wifi repeater can be used if necessary to fill in the black spot. 

I use a wifi repeater at SinS towers for 3bar plus coverage all over the house.

Simon

Obliged to all responses

Simon,  yours is the one I was looking for - thanks

When I asked the question I was hoping I something like this was do-able

Locating the NAS, switch & ND close to keep Ethernet cables as short as possible with a wifi repeater is juts the ticket

The other option is a much longer cable run - a re-calc looks like 13m if I can route it past the front door,  or 18m with the hassle of routing it thru the ceiling void;  hence my wish to find a simpler way.

2nd option is to get the phone/bb entry wall socket moved to be in the living room,  not my fav option TBH.  

Hi Simon

I'd like to thank you for the inspiration. I have had a set of network plugs for a while now but lately the connection speed has been getting slower and slower even losing connection altogether on a few occasions. Your post got me thinking and I now have a little TP-Link device which only cost me £20 or so and acts as a wireless client completely replacing the plugs (which incidentally cost quite a lot more) and gives me decent connectivity again. Wish I'd known about this earlier.

Russell 

If the trade-off is shorter ethernet cables vs. getting the nas out of the listening room, I would go for the latter!  Long ethernet connections are not a technical obstacle.  Getting as much of the non-hi fi hardware off the hi fi rack and out of the listening room is a huge bonus imho, both technically and aesthetically.  I did that trade-off and have 100 feet of ethernet cable in my walls enabling me to site the nas and switch far away, with a simple RJ-45 wall jack to which the NDS is connected.

Point accepted Bart - however, whatever I do (if I do it) with streaming will be maybe in 1 year. But the big issue I have is the hassle of the installation balanced against a house move which will most likely be inside 3 years.

What I have planned is a separate cabinet for the NAS & switch stuff that will be far away from the listening position & hopefully enough to not notice the noise.  

At the moment I am trying to get the noise levels for the various NAS units to add to the preferred options list - ever tried to do that ???.    

The published numbers e.g.  17dB(A)  is all well & good,  but 17dB at how many metres,  1m? 7m??  -  its seems beyond the scope of average sales persons brain cells or you get a line of total BS that frankly puts me off buying from that cmpy. 

I have a Synology DS214play with two WD 3tb Reds that is sitting on my computer desk (which is also in the living room). It is what I would call totally silent. If you put your head on it then you can just about hear it but even then you wouldn't complain.

Actually I have just bought another identical setup that is sitting in my other living room next to the stereo. Also totaly silent.

Thanks Banahead,  Synology is on my short list.  

Mike, if you can put the NAS in a room like an office or a cupboard next to the listening room you are sorted.

i use Netgear NAS's,with WesternDigital Red disks in my office, next to my listening room. These (NAS nor disk) are not renowned for being totally quiet, but noise is not an issue. I guess one can possibly overanalyse?

Russel, glad you got rid of those horrible HomePlugs.. and as a consequence things are now working better.. and your Naim will be too.

Simon

Not so easy Simon,  the hifi is located halfway down an outside wall,  it will mean chasing out the walls to go via the ceiling void or a messy cable run around the skirting boards & thru the door frame.  My instinct tells me its not worth the trouble as we will be downsizing in a cupla years, & I can't imagine any fan noise with the NAS inside cabinet being that much of a problem.

In a week or so I will be checking out the NAS options & that will include listening to them powered up to assess the noise.

Then we might just stick with CD until the house move.  

Hi Mike

I have a UQ2 connected to a gigabit switch behind the AV rack it sits in (I know) and a Synology DS212J NAS sitting right next to it on the same open shelf (also attached to the switch). I then have a TP-Link TL-WR702N (£18 from Amazon) set to 'client mode' which in effect connects the switch wirelessly to my wireless router. Thus communication between the NAS and UQ is by cable via a Gigabit switch and it still has access to the internet (wirelessly) and my tablet can connect via wireless as usual.

I can confirm that I cannot hear my NAS during streaming and it certainly doesn't intrude on my enjoyment of the music. Hope this helps.

Russell

Thanks Russell,  very helpful

Looks like I have my short list pretty well firmed up with very similar recommendations.   

I final question.    

Out of the blue Mrs-B has decreed that a new front door to match the soon to arrive new staircase will be required.  This will mean the phone/broadband incoming connection point will have to be moved.  

So to the question - rather than pay the BT man to move it 20cm,  he can move it 10m & into the same room as the hifi.  

Ideal location will be to locate the BT wifi router on a small cabinet that will eventually house the NAS.  

This could mean the router will become the switch - 4 Ethernet connections - & all the streaming stuff is simplified & close together.  

Downside will be the dedicated hifi double socket power point will have share with the router, phone & NAS power.   

Thinking RF noise in a set up with all the relevant parts aprx 1.5m from the streamer & amps - can anyone see a problem ????

Well I gon an dun it !!!!

Final review of NDX tomorrow !!!!  with Mrs-B along to show how easy etc but also for me to be sure one last time about the connection stuff.

Part X on the CDX2 was not as good as I hoped for,  but hey ho,  its yesterdays product.

All I need now a small piece of plastic to pay the man & then to go sort out a new NAS.

Any suggestions ???  I was thinking one or other of the Synology 214's

Who is a good place to buy from,  www prices for what looks like the same box is all over the place = "Confused.COM"

Mike,

There are a number of different Synology models.  Their model numbers are <x><yy> where x is number of drives (2, 4 or more) and yy is the model year.  So 213 is the 2013 two drive model, 413 is the 4 drive 2014 model. 

To further add to the confusion you can add "j", "slim", "se", "air" to the end of the model number which signifies different features.  You can get a comparison on these on Synology's website.

Another reason for radically different pricing is whether the unit is a bare (empty) enclosure or has hard disks pre-installed.  If pre-installed these can be 1, 2, 3 or 4TB disks.

Whether you buy a unit with pre-installed disks or source the disks yourself, make sure you get drives that are NAS ready (e.g. Western Digital RED).  Again the Synology website can help you here as they publish a list of compatible drives.  Don't be tempted to use cheaper desktop type drives as there are reports that these may fail earlier due to the different usage patterns of desktop hard disks vs. NAS.

I use two Synology 213js.  One has Western Digital NAS hard disks, the other Seagate NAS hard disks, with the latter backing up the former.

Very cool Mike!

If your NAS will be more general purpose, and located outside of your listening room, then QNAP is a very good choice. It's not the NAS so much as the regular whirring and chirping of the disk drives themselves that can be bothersome.  For music only, they have an in-room "silent" option with their HS-210 model.

The combo of QNAP and Asset has been 100% rock solid for me, and even the beta version of Asset UPnP server for QNAP is working great.  IIRC, it is still a couple of months away from production release.  Of course, Asset can be used with any NAS, but it would then have to be installed on a PC or Mac (whose production release is only a couple of weeks away).

Best of luck!

Hook

This is what I've done with great success.

I have a three floor home and have had Naim systems on each.  I purchased 3 Apple Airport Extreme routers [one for each floor]  My music server is on the first floor and connects via ethernet.  My ND5 system is on 2nd floor and connected to an Airport Express via cat7 ethernet.  My UnitiLite was on the 3rd floor and again connected to an Airport Express via Cat 7 ethernet.

The newest version of these routers has a very powerful transmitter and antenna combination.  I am able to stream 192k files flawlessly.  Maybe once every couple of months I get a couple second drop.

I'd highly recommend this solution vs running ethernet cable around your house.  The total cost is < $600.

I decided that I wanted to stay away from the 2.4 GHz band because of congestion  so I got a 5 GHz bridge from Linksys (Cisco basically) and it works flawlessly.

Hook, just a small point, these days Asset can be installed also on many Linux builds including specific builds for the QNAP NAS as well as the Rasberry Pi. i run the latter and the 'server' runs in a footprint no larger than a large kitchen box of matches powered by USB, and furthermore totally silent.. No heat or fans and no large PCs or Macs required.

Simon

Thanks kevin - good info for all the peeps on how to do it

However my situation has changed (per previous post) 

As we have decided to rebuild the hall & stairs & include a section of wall with the front door, we are moving the incoming phone/broadband connection point to the same room as the hifi.  

My only concern is the NDX, NAS & wifi router/switch will be quite close together & my OCD with RF noise has been activated.  I will for sure be using CAT-7 (screened) cables & screened power cables.  

To Hooks point on noise I have more or less settled on a Synology NAS which is a very quiet 17dB & it will be inside a cabinete .  

Hi Simon -

Compared to your little slice o' Pi, my 4-year old DIY PC is huge (8"x8"x2")!    It was based on the very first CAPS spec coming out of computeraudiophile dot com (SSD, RME 9632 card with S/PDIF output), and I used it as a source for the DAC.

Agreed that the Asset build for Linux is the way forward.  Am just waiting for Mr. Spoon to release the production QPKG, and then my old brick will be re-purposed or given away.

Hi Mike -

Agreed that your Synology model is a better choice for installing in a listening room.  My TS-419P II (4-bay) is rated at 35.6 dB in standby, and 36.7 dB in operation, so I keep it in my "data closet" where noise is not an issue.

Mrs. Hook and I share the four 2TB drives set up for Raid 5 (about 5.5TB usable), and I currently use Second Copy to backup my volumes to another, much older Buffalo LinkStation NAS.  Will almost certainly get a 2nd QNAP when the Buffalo finally dies, and take advantage of their real time replication capabilities.  I like that idea better than backing up to an external USB drive only because it would minimize the impact of any full NAS failure. 

Also, am just not ready to trust my backups to Amazon or ElephantDrive or similar.  How do you plan to do your backups?  Same question to S-i-S and any others who would like to comment!

ATB.

Hook

Hi Hook -  the plan for the moment is to back up onto my existing WD HDD

Then something different at a later date