NAS drive

twohooter_2

I have just invested in a Sonos Play 3 which I love. However, at present I am reliant on having my laptop turned on to play my music as this is where my music library is stored. I would like others at home to be able to access my music library from their ipods, ipads etc even when I am not at home and my laptop is not on. I understand this can be achieved by putting all my music on a NAS drive and plugging the NAS drive into the back of my router. Is this correct and how simple is it to 'set up' a NAS drive? I have done a bit of research on the internet but it seems that not all NAS drives are for novices like me. I was hoping it would operate similarly to a standard external hard drive like the one I use for backups?


Can any one recommend a simple solution please that won't cost more than about £100.

pappa_golf

NAS drives are boxes that hold one or more drives and indeed plug into your router


I say the above to keep the explanation short


they come with or without disks installed ,


dlink dnl320 l without drives


http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008HNRD4I?keywords=nas%20drive&qid=1453971392&ref_=sr_1_9&s=computers&sr=1-9


£44 , you can then work out the size of storage required , ie: 500g 1t or more and buy a single disk to drop in or 2 disks to double the size OR by following simple setup instructions , set it that it copies to both drives , so that if one fails the data will be on the other




choose your hard drive(s) and be up and running within minutes


I bought the same box some 2 yrs ago , set it up originally with an old spare 250g drive , and later swopped to a 2 terabyte drive , and finally 2 x 2t drives as well as holding your music , I keep lots of other files on it

Fightsback

I wouldn't buy anything other than a dual bay Synology NAS personally however they are expensive so you are looking at a single drive solution such as WD cloud or Buffalo Linkstation to stay on a budget of £100 or less including HDD.

eg:

http://www.ebuyer.com/620414-buffalo-linkstation-210-2tb-1-bay-1-x-2tb-nas-drive-ls210d0201-eu

or

http://www.amazon.co.uk/WD-Cloud-Personal-Storage-NAS/dp/B00FOKN7FG

NB single HDD do not mitigate against drive failure and loss of data (see RAID) so make sure you have a backup of data that is on the NAS.

pappa_golf

both the ones you have shown ARE single drive models (I think) ,


the option/suggestion I made based on there initial spending power allows them to upgrade at a later date.


the question "which NAS is best" will go on forever , however if the OP just want to play a few music files then cost comes into it




we could just tell the OP tho buy a £30 USB hard drive and plug it into there router couldn't we?

Fightsback

pappa_golf wrote: »

both the ones you have shown ARE single drive models (I think) ,

Congratulations Sherlock , hence RAID discussion.

NB budget £100 and the primary reason the op wants one seems to be to act as a music server without having to use the laptop. These also give the OP the least to configure.

HDD USB router plugging in, are you having a giraffe ? Dreadful.

pappa_golf

ok lets chuck a 1t drive in with that Dlink , http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0088PUEPK?keywords=1t%20hard%20drives&qid=1453975167&ref_=sr_1_11&s=computers&sr=1-11


so what we got now £44 + £38 = £82 and its upgradable to raid if needed




Sherlock has left the house

Fightsback

pappa_golf wrote: »

ok lets chuck a 1t drive in with that Dlink , http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0088PUEPK?keywords=1t%20hard%20drives&qid=1453975167&ref_=sr_1_11&s=computers&sr=1-11

Cheap for a reason:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=D-Link+Corporation&hl=en_GB

Vs

https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Synology+Inc.&hl=en_GB

fenlander_uk

You get what you pay for. Plugging a hard drive into your router (assuming it has a USB port for that purpose) does work but it's slow and offers none of the security of a true NAS.

HOWEVER, if all you want to do is share your music, you could copy same to a portable drive (connected directly to your PC for speed), then connect it to your router. Enable it in the router's admin page and job's done. A drive connected in this way will be sufficiently fast to stream music or video files and as everything on the drive will be a copy of something you've got elsewhere there won't be any data security issues. It's not really a NAS, but it's cheap as chips and might do all you say you want it to do.

Second cheapest solution is to make one using a Raspberry Pi, but that's another story.

Mr_Toad

I have three NAS devices, an multi drive one I've had for years for file storage and access from all my devices and backups for my Linux boxes.

A separate Apple Time Capsule for backups of my iMac and Macbook.

And a recently bought a 2TB WD My Cloud, they are under £100, just for my music. I wanted to get my music off the NAS where the more important stuff is.

I was prepared to set it all up myself, as you had to years ago, but there was no need. It comes with a preconfigured directory system for Music, Photos, Video etc. and a very easy to use set-up wizard.

Basically all your music goes in the music directory, photos in the photos directory etc. then a few selections in the media server section and you're up and running.

It works perfectly with iTunes on the Macs and with both my internet connected radios, a Pure and a Roberts. It works with my TV, I'd put my video camera footage on there as well in the Video folder and the TV can play it.

It also works with Sonos, my girlfriend has Sonos and when she came to stay over Xmas she brought her Play 3 with her. She doesn't like my choice of music and wanted to be able to access her Napster account when we had friends round.

All I did was plug it in and connect it to my Network and as well as Napster it picked up all my music on the WD My Cloud and just worked.

I bought it as it was at the cheap and cheerful end of the NAS spectrum, to me it was bought as a simple external drive that was network enabled. However, as a music and media server it does a fantastic job and has far exceeded my expectations and was dead easy to set up.

Mr_Toad

Just seen the posts that appeared while I was typing the above.

Fightsback is spot on and covered in two lines what I waffled on about for half a page.

Under £100 plug it in put the music on it turn on the media server and your done.

twohooter_2

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to reply - I am grateful for all the advice. The WD my cloud sounds like it would be ideal for me and simple enough for me to set up. I do have an external hard drive that I use for regular backups and so the NAS drive would be purely for music (and possibly photos having read Mr Toad's post).