Best NAS solution for Sqeezebox + File Format

angi73

angi73

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Hi, I've been dabbleing with my squeezebox duet for a while now and want to move the game on a little.

Can anyone recommend a resonably priced, quiet and stable hardisc solution for it?

So far QNAP products look pretty good, I might get a twin bay one and add a couple of 1TB Hardrives.

I then want to try listening more to lossesless, what do people reckon is the best format for this? Flac?

I only have MP3 files at the moment and have a lot of CD's to rip!

Thanks
 
I can only tell you what I did , Lacie 2TB which seems fine and has been stable enough,very neat and are available at good prices if you look about. I used different types of files and even although I did not particularly like itunes library /storage I ended up using apple lossless and itunes.Once I got used to it its simple and I cant say I could hear much difference between the file types.
 
You can get routers that accept a USB hard drive and serve it up on the network. This gives the option of connecting other drives in the future, or USB pens that you want to access etc, from the network.

I'm not sure they are quite as fast as a proper NAS drive though, mine seemed a tad slow like it was using USB 1 or something. Rob's Apple router seemed to do the job well for him though.
 
Airport Extreme.

Takes a USB drive and servers it up.

You can also get the Time Capsule version which contains a hard drive. Intended for back up but I guess you can use it in the normal way.

For file formats, Id say Apple Lossless if you intend using Apple products and specifically iTunes, or FLAC if not.
 
Does FLAC have ID tags and stuff? I seem to remember maybe not. So I like Apple Lossless as it helps software find all the cover art, track names and track order etc..
 
Tenson said:
Does FLAC have ID tags and stuff? I seem to remember maybe not. So I like Apple Lossless as it helps software find all the cover art, track names and track order etc..
Click to expand...

Been a long time since I posted here
But I have been lurking quite a bit :)

Try http://www.synology.com/us/products/DS211j/index.php for a NAS

I have the 4 bay version of this one and have a squeezebox server installed on it so no need for a computer to be on just the NAS

I use Apple lossless as well
I can't really hear a big difference between Apple lossless and Flac

Cheers

Bob
 
In order of Reactivity

WAV
Flac
Ogg
MP3 (and it's myriad variations)









Somewhere in the swampy gutter!




Scuba gear needed.......




Bottom of barrel


Anything apple :p


All IMHO of course.
 
Not sure what reactivity is but I found WAV ok but did get errors frequently with titles etc and eventually real problems with corrupted wav files. Flac and lossless apple were ok but ultimately much as I wasnt a great fan of Apple I have found that once understood its pretty bomb proof /idiot proof.
 
I have pretty much exactly what you have described in your opening post.

I've been using a QNAP 209 II with 2 ×1 TB drives

Apart from the slightly laggy nature of the response you get every so often (not all the time by any means) it does the job very well. The lag I experience is due to squeezebox server not running very fast on relatively low powered QNAP, I usually only get this after leaving the machine playing for a very long time and then trying to change tracks and expecting it to wake up and do it immediately (which of course it doesn't).

The only difficulty is getting squeezebox server to work if you are not reasonably technically savvy (I'm okay with IT but it still took me most of an evening to actually get it working the first time), although once you do it's fine.

Flac is what I'm using and it's perfect, there is no audible difference to any of the other lossless formats really so it's up to you, all the tags are present and it all works pretty faultlessly.

One thing I would say though, I used DBpoweramp to rip as it seems to be better than EAC for me although that may just be personal preference? I like it because I can rip to MP3 and flac at the same time (I use one for the iPod and one for the squeezebox)

The only thing you may need to watch is the noise of the QNAP if you're intending on keeping in the same room as your hi-fi, although the fan can be set to auto and doesn't need to run all the time and the discs can spin down after a certain period (user-defined) it can be a little noisy when running although with all these small form factors you're going to get something like that.
 

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