NAS or MAC

[peter312]

I currently have my music files (FLAC) saved on an older Synology NAS. When I play my music files,  I use the Heos app on my iPad and play the files through my Marantz PM7000N amp. Unless I am playing records, most music I stream plays from Amazon Music But I do have a number of FLAC files not available on  Amazon.

I also have a MAC desktop computer in my office which doesn’t get used a lot. I was wondering whether to put the music files on the MAC and use it as a DNLA server instead of the Synology. Presumably I could set it so that the screen switches off after a few minutes and the computer wakes on LAN or switches to a sleep mode after a people of not streaming.

Are there any benefits in changing to the MAC instead of the Synology and also what software should I put on the MAC? I’ve seen JRiver and Twonky mentioned.

Any help greatly appreciated 

 

[Cable Monkey]

You already use the best configuration. Music on NAS, control on your tablet, playback on a streamer. You could try what you are doing with a third party control app and see if is better than the one provided for your streamer.

 

[Bolosun]

I have a similar setup using a Synology. I use Synology's DS Audio app to play from the NAS, plus mcontrol if I want to play gapless.

 

[peter312]

Thank you, both. 

 

[Roland_O]

I currently have my music files (FLAC) saved on an older Synology NAS.

Are there any benefits in changing to the MAC instead of the Synology and also what software should I put on the MAC? I’ve seen JRiver and Twonky mentioned.

In IT world there are often ways to bodge things, use something for some purpose other than it was designed for. Yes you can use an old MAC as a file server but why not use a NAS, a thing that was designed specifically for that very purpose?

One advantage a NAS would have over an old MAC is that you probably have some sort of option to have a RAID set up, making it a bit less likely that you will loose your music. 

 

[rdale]

In IT world there are often ways to bodge things, use something for some purpose other than it was designed for. Yes you can use an old MAC as a file server but why not use a NAS, a thing that was designed specifically for that very purpose?

One advantage a NAS would have over an old MAC is that you probably have some sort of option to have a RAID set up, making it a bit less likely that you will loose your music. 

It’s simpler to back up onto another disk drive rather than use RAID as the drive isn’t likely to be continuously updated, only when you add new music tracks. If you backup after adding new music that is sufficient, and ideally keep a backup offsite.

 

[Roland_O]

It’s simpler to back up onto another disk drive rather than use RAID as the drive isn’t likely to be continuously updated, only when you add new music tracks. If you backup after adding new music that is sufficient, and ideally keep a backup offsite.

Yes, that will work. 

My setup is to have 4 discs in the Synology NAS (so I will survive one hard drive failing). It stores my music files and Roon database backups. It is set to back itself up to the cloud, so I have "off site storage" to survive the house burning down. The NAS is manages all this, which is better than me relying on my sketchy head to remember to do the backups.

 

[rdale]

Yes, that will work. 

My setup is to have 4 discs in the Synology NAS (so I will survive one hard drive failing). It stores my music files and Roon database backups. It is set to back itself up to the cloud, so I have "off site storage" to survive the house burning down. The NAS is manages all this, which is better than me relying on my sketchy head to remember to do the backups.

That sounds a good solution, better than Time Machine for a Mac.