Nas advice

[davidcotton]

Hi

So I've (literally) just bit the bullet and bought a synology 213j and a pair of 2tb western digitals of amazon. My long (v long) term goal is to have all my media (music, audiobooks) etc all tagged nicely with artwork. I also have two squeezeboxes (one sb3, one sbt).

So the main problem is that atm I am running a couple of separate systems. One is in my room with a mac mini and a 1tb drive, the other is another mac with another 1tb in the backroom/office. As time has gone by the librarys have become fragmented, with stuff on one not on the other. The whole point of me doing this is to get the library consolidated and then copied over to the nas, and then backed up on to the 2nd drive. If any of the stuff goes atm that's it which is the reason I've decided to do it now.

So what I think I need to do is :-

Copy stuff from both 1tb drives on to a separate 1tb and consolidate the library into one folder.

Copy that folder from the 1tb onto the nas.

Backup that folder on to the 2nd 2tb drive

Configure the squeezeboxes/macs/etc to point at the folder on the nas

Sort out the itunes library on the nas itself to avoid dead links (or is there a better way of doing it?)

Does that sound about right? I realise the size of the task (though it's under 1tb by the time you sift the crap out the way) and it's not going to be a quick job but just want to get the steps sorted out before I begin.

One other question regarding itunes (yes I know)can I use the folder on the library to rip albums via itunes directly to it? Also I assume it's still fine to copy stuff back off the nas onto the classic I have (this doesn't happen very often so not a deal breaker).

Cheers

 

[dr.sah]

Make raid 1 on nas.

 

[huwge]

Carbon Copy Cloner is a useful tool for shifting stuff from drive to drives etc

I use it to back up my music library (on 2tb western digital red) to my 411 on a weekly programme

I use iTunes from in main room and ds audio for elsewhere round home network - not tried it in remote location yet

 

[mentaldental]

Western digital NAS drives can be set with safe points, so that the main drive automatically backs up changes to chosen folders to a second drive. Mine does it at about 1am every Sunday morning.

 

[aswillman]

Another useful Mac application in addition to Carbon Copy Cloner is FolderSync. I use CCC but it can only work with HFS formatted drives. I would imagine the NAS will use a different structure.

If you consolidate your library as a single file on one of the Macs, mount the NAS destination media folder on the desktop, you can sync them both.

It's what I use to sync my iTunes media folder with the media folder on my WHS2011 server. The latter then streams it using Asset PnP. I think you can trial it as well.

 

[aswillman]

Link to Folder Synchronizer 4: www.softobe.com

 

[davidcotton]

Thanks!

Got it set up and running now. Had a frustrating 20 minutes or so trying to close the case up but then had one of those eureka moments when I realised I was using the wrong screws, doh! Got the bulk of the stuff on now, with just checking to make sure I'm not missing stuff from the other drive (almost sure of it).

So now I have my sbt in my room, homeplugged (tried wireless streaming but too many dropouts)into my router in the back room along with my ye olde sb3 wired as well. Just need to get a small amp and speakers for that and should be set (though part of me thinks it would be easier to get a logitech ue radio and go that route, keeping the sb3 as a spare).

Cheers

- - - Updated - - -

One other quick question. Is there any easy way to sort out the album art work that's missing, or is it a case of going through one by one? Also is it just a case of dropping a jpeg of the cover into the appropriate folder?

Thanks

 

[aswillman]

If you are using iTunes, visit Dougs Applescripts. Theres a script file which will put a JPG or PNG of the album into the folder file. Select all the music & run the script.

If you sync it to your NAS, it should display okay. It's how I got mine displaying.

 

[rdale]

One other quick question. Is there any easy way to sort out the album art work that's missing, or is it a case of going through one by one? Also is it just a case of dropping a jpeg of the cover into the appropriate folder?

I'm not 100% sure exactly what you want to do, but I use one of Doug's scripts to create a folder.jpg file in each iTunes album folder so that my MPD music server setup can find it via a web server:

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=savealbumartjpeg

 

[davidcotton]

Basically most of the album artwork is missing. Having got the majority of what I want on the nas, I now want to sort out the missing artwork. I'm not using itunes on the nas, but logitech media server for the two squeezeboxes.

Thanks

 

[Adam D]

I used a program called Bliss to obtain the artwork for my FLACs after ripping them with EAC.

It works out at 1p per piece of artwork, which I thought wasn't too bad.

 

[Guest]

Personally I'd be using MediaMonkey pointed at the NAS to keep things organised, including artwork. Although this could be painful for 1000s of albums. Tell it where the top of your library is e.g. \\mynas\music, define some rules for how to organise files, and let it rip.

 

[davidcotton]

On a mac mainly, though I do have access to a windows 7 laptop if that's any use. Could I use media monkey to tidy things up then copy the folder back over?

Thanks

 

[dudywoxer]

Use media monkey on the win 7 machine, and point it at the music folder on the NAS, not the local folder. You should not need to move the folder the.

 

[karlinamillion]

I used a program called Bliss to obtain the artwork for my FLACs after ripping them with EAC.It works out at 1p per piece of artwork, which I thought wasn't too bad.

I use Bliss, but find it slow. Apparently its poss to put bliss on the NAS box, which would help no end, but I havn't tried it yet.

For mass tagging Media Monkey is the way to go, including, for instance, changing all thos track numbers '1' to '01' etc. Much more OCD friendly.

 

[Tactman]

and mp3tag is even better....media monkey is unreliable...i was doing some tagging in it, but covers arent showing in some other players or remote apps, and sometimes it is even not showing in media monkey itself...good player but not my first choice for tagging...