NAS drive

twohooter_2

Just one more question if I may, before I commit to purchasing the WD My cloud.


My music library on my laptop is stored in media player as this is my preferred option. In order for ipods and ipads to access the music on the NAS drive as well as my laptop how should the music be stored. Do I need to convert my library to I tunes before saving to the NAS or could I leave it in media player/MP3 format? I am not very familiar with apple products.

S0litaire

I've got the DNS-320L.

It's OK (Cheep and chereful!!) if you just need to store and stream files.

I stuck in 2 X 3Tb drives in Raid1, not to bothered if I lose a drive, as important stuff is backed of elsewhere.

I tried using 3rd party apps but it was more hassle than it was worth trying to get to work, now its just a file server.

S0litaire

twohooter wrote: »

Just one more question if I may, before I commit to purchasing the WD My cloud.


My music library on my laptop is stored in media player as this is my preferred option. In order for ipods and ipads to access the music on the NAS drive as well as my laptop how should the music be stored. Do I need to convert my library to I tunes before saving to the NAS or could I leave it in media player/MP3 format? I am not very familiar with apple products.

Most NAS should have the option of acting like an iTunes server so (I think! never used it for iTunes!!) you don't need to worry about manually converting. It should do it automatically if and when needed.

Mr_Toad

twohooter wrote: »

Just one more question if I may, before I commit to purchasing the WD My cloud.


My music library on my laptop is stored in media player as this is my preferred option. In order for ipods and ipads to access the music on the NAS drive as well as my laptop how should the music be stored. Do I need to convert my library to I tunes before saving to the NAS or could I leave it in media player/MP3 format? I am not very familiar with apple products.

From my experience with the WD My Cloud it doesn't seem to matter.

Either copy all the individual music files, I have a mixture of mp3 - music, m4a - iTunes AAC music, m4b - iTunes audiobook, whatever you have into the Music folder.

Or, mine are arranged in sub folders inside the music folder, one for the artist then one for each album under that artist.

It doesn't matter, as long as the files are in the music folder it works.

You don't need to convert any of your files. Just copy whatever structure you have now into the Music folder and see what happens.

iTunes works fine with mp3 as well as the Apple m4a format. All you have to do is tell the media server that you'll be accessing the music via iTunes.

Once the library is set up and you've pointed iTunes in your various devices at it you'll be able to see how they appear in iTunes. You can then decided if you need to reorganise, You can do this by building playlists manually or let iTunes reorganise them for you.

I think that the mp3 metadata is more important than the file structure but you can sort this out or edit it if necessary after you've got it set up.

When I get time I'll fire up my Windows 10 virtual machine on the Mac and point Media Player or whatever it's called these days at the library and see how it looks then get back to you.

twohooter_2

Thank you very much - I have a lot to learn but am slowly getting there ...

forgotmyname

I have just bought the Dlink 340. So far its been ideal. Just looking for a reliable way to transfer photo's from my camera to the NAS whilst i am on the move.

Currently i take a photo and it uploads to Dropbox automatically and every hour my NAS syncs and downloads the new files.

I want a solution to send the picture directly to the NAS even on a data connection, the reliable ones seem to be WIFI only.

Mr_Toad

Right I fired up Windows 10 and it doesn't seem to use Media Player like Win 7. It uses something called Groove Music but hey ho.

Fired that up and it asked if I wanted to import my music from iTunes on the Mac so I said no and pointed it at the WD My Cloud on the network and as I type it's cataloging the music so it seems perfectly happy.

I'm still impressed with the My Cloud, it just works.

pappa_golf

grove music , just like Microsoft edge (browser) are the default proggys , 20 secs in settings will return them to a normal mode

RumRat

Mr_Toad wrote: »

Right I fired up Windows 10 and it doesn't seem to use Media Player like Win 7. It uses something called Groove Music but hey ho.

Fired that up and it asked if I wanted to import my music from iTunes on the Mac so I said no and pointed it at the WD My Cloud on the network and as I type it's cataloging the music so it seems perfectly happy.

I'm still impressed with the My Cloud, it just works.

I've had a MyCloud NAS since they came out and it's worked flawlessly for everything I want it to.
Great for grabbing stuff on the move as well, I find the mobile app handy on occasions.

Robisere

I have had the earlier version of this for 3 years now, first link tells you how to set up, go through the tabs from "Hot Features" left to right.
http://www.zyxel.com/uk/en/products_services/nas326.shtml?t=p

Second is the Amazon page for the NAS, ignore the different pictures in Amazon to Zyxel.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/NSA325-Desktop-Network-Storage-Enclosure/dp/B00FJ2CE4O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1454083891&sr=8-2&keywords=zyxel

I have all my videos, photos, documents and backups on my NAS. On the Amazon page, scroll down to the Hard drives below and check the various sizes (1TB, 2TB, 3TB, etc.) Depends on how much space you might need, but be advised that the WD Red are made for a NAS, they are hard wearing and will last longest. Also note that you always need more than you think, I advise (2x) 2TB WD Red hard drives. That way, you can "mirror" or back up each Hard drive to the other. The driver disc always has a manual with it that explains everything and Zyxel have a very good Support site.