NAS Drives, lossless files, digital streaming - what does it all mean basil?

[gsrai]

Hiya

I've briefly read about NAS drives, lossless files and streaming using Sonos kit?

Can somebody tell me how this works (i.e. what is a NAS Drive, how do I hook it up?) and does lossless mean the sme as CD quality (I'm assuming that Apple lossless is one type of lossless format).

This could be a great solution for the extension so any help gratefully received as I'm confused

 

[meninblack]

gsrai wrote:

HiyaI've briefly read about NAS drives, lossless files and streaming using Sonos kit?

Can somebody tell me how this works (i.e. what is a NAS Drive, how do I hook it up?) and does lossless mean the sme as CD quality (I'm assuming that Apple lossless is one type of lossless format).

This could be a great solution for the extension so any help gratefully received as I'm confused

NAS = network attached storage, basically a big hard drive or drive array that sits on your network and is accessible from any PC on the network.

Lossless is a compression method. Whether it sounds as good as CD depends strongly on the hardware and software you are using for playback, but it has the potential.

What exactly are you trying to achieve? NAS is not normally needed for the home user...

 

[gsrai]

MIB

We are currently having an extension to the house which results in 2 new bedrooms and I have already purchased some B&W In ceiling speakers for them which will be wired into some QED speaker panes in the wall (a bit like a power socket).

What I want to do is give the rooms the ability to have music but without the wires so I saw a Sonos unit which looked quite neat and was told these things hookup to a PC.

Problem is I dont want to leave the PC on all night and day as these things tend to fry.

I think its Crusty (not sure) but he runs a similar rig to the above but I just dont understand how it works and what is needed but it sounds really neat.

 

[meninblack]

NAS won't help - it's basically a stripped-down PC anyway.

You need a music server which you can leave on all the time: a low-powered cool-running PC with lots of hard disc space is ideal. Connect it via wireless nteworking to something like the Sonos, or a squeezebox and a conventional amp.

I use a laptop with a conventional amp for this. The sonos and squeezebox devices are expensive for what they are. The Sonos has an amp built in for £360, but you need the £320 controller unit as well! The squeezebox is cheaper, but needs an amp as well.

 

[purplepleaser]

Just say i wanted to rip 2000 albums to a hard drive, how big would it need to be for the best sound.

I am turning into a vinyl :nerd:

 

[meninblack]

purplepleaser wrote:

Just say i wanted to rip 2000 albums to a hard drive, how big would it need to be for the best sound.I am turning into a vinyl :nerd:

Uncompressed, each album could be up to 700 Mb. You would be looking at over 1Tb, which would be best implemented as an array of4 x 300 Mb hard drives.

If you used a lossless compression regime such as FLAC, you would get away with 2 x 300 Mb drives.

(I've chosen 300 Mb drives because they are the biggest ones which are readily and cheaply available.)

 

[purplepleaser]

and the rest of 2007 ripping them. I may give it a miss:lmao:

 

[Arfa]

meninblack wrote:

Uncompressed, each album could be up to 700 Mb. You would be looking at over 1Tb, which would be best implemented as an array of4 x 300 Mb hard drives.

If you used a lossless compression regime such as FLAC, you would get away with 2 x 300 Mb drives.

(I've chosen 300 Mb drives because they are the biggest ones which are readily and cheaply available.)

Just grab one of these:- Big Lacie NAS

Big box contains lots of drives, plug in your network cable at the back, and you should be able to fir 4000 uncompressed albums on there, more if you flac them. Plus being a RAID (Redundant Array of Independant Discs), your music will be written on at least two drives, so in theory if a single drive dies, you can just slot a new one in and carry on regardless - not even have to turn it off first!

Although it does have a little PC in the box too, it won't be configured to stream the music to another device be it Slim or Sonos etc. Maybe hackable to run the minimal streaming soft you need though, since its just a linux setup under the bonnet.

£900 though and they're quite noisy - still network cable can be run in very long lengths, so just stick it in the attic and fill it up from your laptop downstairs.

 

[TIU]

Just say i wanted to rip

2000 albums to a hard drive, how big would it need to be for the best sound.

Uncompressed

, each album could be up to 700 Mb.  You would be looking at over 1Tb, which would be best implemented as an array of 4 x 300 Mb hard drives.

If you used a lossless compression

:shock:regime such as FLAC, you would get away with 2 x 300 Mb drives.

Stop it!!!! This is 2-channel and we are decent people.

 

[purplepleaser]

TIU wrote:

Just say i wanted to rip

2000 albums to a hard drive, how big would it need to be for the best sound.

Uncompressed

, each album could be up to 700 Mb. You would be looking at over 1Tb, which would be best implemented as an array of4 x 300 Mb hard drives.

If you used a lossless compression

:shock:regime such as FLAC, you would get away with 2 x 300 Mb drives.

Stop it!!!! This is 2-channel and we are decent people.

This is the reason for the question

 

[DDL]

meninblack wrote:

NAS won't help - it's basically a stripped-down PC anyway.You need a music server which you can leave on all the time: a low-powered cool-running PC with lots of hard disc space is ideal. Connect it via wireless nteworking to something like the Sonos, or a squeezebox and a conventional amp.

The SONOS that gsrai mentioned is designed to work with NAS drives, in which case the driveand sonos together become the music server- you don't need to use a seperate music server with the sonos. Store youritunes, windows media player etcon a NAS drive.Plug the drive into the sonos zone player with an ethernet cable and it will recognise and play your itune, media player etc playlists without the need of the pc - all displayed on the wireless remote:

 

[Arfa]

I bet that's not as good as this arm...

 

[purplepleaser]

Is that a hard drive:dunno:

 

[Arfa]

Yep. After someone ripped it open and ruined it by letting dust and atmosphere near it.

Interesting the Sonos can play straight from a NAS mind. I'm only familiar with the early SlimDevices that required some software running on a PC somewhere to stream stuff to it.

 

[technobear]

Is it possible to buy a NAS with SlimServer installed.

 

[garyi]

WARNING.

I have been there done that and bought the t-shirt.

Unless you intend spending big money, 1000+ NAS will not work in your house.

It is slow. Over network my music folder was going to take 14 hours to copy (80gigs) it is dog slow. Copying to it and from it is so slow you will want to kill someone.

It farks up other programmes. Because a lot of programme will want to use the NAS or even just keep track of it (your OS for instance) these slow up as well. Some applications are simply not compatible with NASes, this can cause some serious weirdness.

iTunes is my preferred streamer. It works OK if the NAS is working, but its sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo slooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

If it crashes (which it did frequently) permissions get knackered and you can't get in without lots more love and tenderness.

Its tiring to maintain and use, when it works and you can deal with the speed its fine, but it was constantly doing its own thing which would result in hair pulling.

In the end I got a cheap mac and stuck it in the loft with a couple of drives in it and connected to the router. This solution cost the same amount and has been faultless.

As has been mentioned, there is no need for NAS in the home setting, there are far cheaper and more reliable methods that do not require a full time systems admin to run it.

 

[garyi]

Also please note that NASes do not like certain characters and long file names.

 

[meninblack]

I'm with garyi - a cheap, low-powered PC running something dead reliable like Windows 2000 (or a Mac) will serve a Sonos better and cost less. Just stuff it with cheap hard drives....

 

[davidcotton]

technobear wrote:

Is it possible to buy a NAS with SlimServer installed.

Yup. Qnap ts101 for a start, so long as you buy it from places like advancedmp3players.com as for the moment it only comes preinstalled from certain sites. There are plans afoot to make a self install version of slimserver on any qnap though. There are other makes as well though. Best bet is to head over to www.slimdevices.com and check out the third party thread.

I have a 500 gig qnap connected to the sb3 direct (wired only version). Pm me if you want thoughts on this as don't want to derail the thread.