Complete novice!

avjon

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Hi all. I have been reading as much as I can about streaming/NAS/media centres and have a couple of questions.

At the moment I have a Pioneer NC50DAB which I use with Spotify/Amazon Prime, etc and also itunes streamed from my PC using itunes remote.
My CDs have all been ripped as ALAC to my PC and they work fine over the network in the house (Sky Q wifi).
This means however. that I have to keep the PC on 24/7 if I wish to access my itunes library.
I was looking at getting a NAS so that I am able to use that to store my music and so not have to worry about the PC being kept on and any potential issues when I come to change/upgrade it.

I am confused though by a couple of things:
1) Can you move the itunes library to a NAS and use it as a standalone music collection for streaming to a receiver?
2)Does the NAS have to be physically attached to the router or is it used solely over wifi?
3) If I rip any new CDs (I know, very noughties!) how do I get the new rip to the NAS?

Any help/advice on suitable NAS would be most welcome as I am getting myself completely confued with the sheer amount of info available online about this.
Thanks in advance.
 
if its iTunes managed, it can be a pain, ive done this on a Mac before now, where you move the music directory to the NAS, then tell iTunes where the new music directory is.

The NAS should be attached to the router, ive not seen a WiFI NAS (having said that ive never looked) - the throughput will be much better having the NAS on a wired connection.

If you rip the CD's on the PC that your iTunes library is on, the PC in the above step will know that your iTunes library is remote to the PC, and the rips will end up on the NAS.

the biggest pain is if the drive mapping breaks, or doesn't establish when you reboot your PC or the NAS, or if you loose network connectivity.

The files will still be on the NAS, but when you start up iTunes on the PC, if the NAS is not already mapped, the PC will moan about not seeing the iTunes library, and may start up with no music in it.

If you remember this before opening iTunes on the PC, you can get around that.

I have a NAS too, and i ended up leaving my iTunes library on my Mac - and i point Sonos at it.

I think if the music wasn't managed by iTunes, then it would be less of an issue - it then becomes a folder full of audio files, its the iTunes integration to a network share which is a bit hit and miss.
 
1) Don't know.

2) NAS needs to be "on the network" somewhere, somehow - it doesn't need to be "directly connected" to your router, though there's no reason not to. Wi-Fi is fundamentally an "only one thing at a time can transmit" technology. The more Wi-Fi things there are, the more data they wish to transmit, the more competition there is for some radio "air time." Thusly, the more things you can use cabled, the more you free up air time contention for all the remaining Wi-Fi devices. Things like NAS, desktop PC's, printers (things that never physically move) are ideal candidates for being cabled. (It's also usually faster too, as cabled ethernet is often quicker than Wi-Fi.)

3) Without iTunes, you would just have to copy/paste, the files to the applicable network share on the NAS. iTunes may add some complications, so wait to hear from an iTunes expert.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I have my LG B7 and the Sky Q Silver box connected to my Sky router at the moment so both ethernet ports are taken up which is why I was wondering about wifi NAS.
I will see if there are any ways that the library could be moved from itunes but it could be that \I have to re rip them as FLAC on the PC before transferring them to a NAS.
Any recommendations for a simple, novice friendly NAS?
 
Is the audio ripped as flac at the moment into itunes?

The iTunes library, when you drill down to it, it a neatly organised folder structure by album/artist, iTunes just does the folder organisation, the files are still the same, and you can move them manually if you want, it’s just that iTunes will loose track of them.

I do like iTunes for media management, it’s what I’m used to, but moving data away from the machine it was created / stored on can be a pain
 
A synology nas has an itunes server app, I don't use it, but I imagine it would be easy to setup.
 
another vote synology.... very intuitive to use and set up, access to files and music from anyway; i log into mine from work and i can view my photos and listen to my music, theres apps also and its over the wifi so mine literally sits in the dining room bookshelf whilst the router is in the lounge

youtube videos if you get stuck or unsure etc... great
 
I have seen some good synology units on ebay so I might have a punt and see how I get on.
It would be useful not having to mess around with the iTunes files but if I have to then I have to!.
Thanks for the help.
 
Also when I got mine it was cheaper to buy the NAS empty and the discs separately.
 
Thank for the heads up. I think buying one without drives and then adding them would be cheaper as well.
Sometimes it is hard to tell whether the units are with or without the drives.
 

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