Sonos Play 5 and Bridge and iTunes..

I have posted this in the Music forums but thats even more dead than here so i thought i would post if for the guys on here to see what they have to say.......Im sure Spook would be well up on this sort of stuff.
Hi all.

Just bought a couple of Sonos Play 5 units and a bridge and im well impressed at how easy it was to set up and control through iphone and ipad or Android device.

My question may sound a little stupid but do i have to have this Mac permanently on to stream music to the device,obviously the answer i have my itunes library as the default folder and was wandering if i moved this to a external hardrive would that mean that my Mac no longer is needed to be powered on or is this not the case.

I have read through some topics regarding this and it seems that the PC/Mac has to be on for Sonos to work,thought i would ask the question as you never know.

Its not a major problem im guessing but it would be nice to just play some tracks without leaving the Mac on for hours.

Cheers anyway.

And the sounds awesome buy the way even better than the Bose Box we have.

Wow, just look at how polite you are out of the gaming forum. Please and thank you, sir!

Well, I'm gonna be my usual helpful self and say I ain't gotta clue mate. Suffice to say, your external hard drive might need to be externally powered. A USB memory stick might work though. Why don't you have a look at the manual?

I'm still using a gramophone meself.

Had a quick butchers and it seems this NAS is the way to go as I don't have to have the mac on when streaming music.

Stands for Network Storage Solution......

I have a external hardrive so I was wandering why that would not work.this is where all my time machine backups are kept and a lot of music but not iTunes .

Edited by time2die (Fri 10-May-13 21:18:13)

In reply to a post by SPOOKish:

Wow, just look at how polite you are out of the gaming forum. Please and thank you, sir!

Well, I'm gonna be my usual helpful self and say I ain't gotta clue mate. Suffice to say, your external hard drive might need to be externally powered. A USB memory stick might work though. Why don't you have a look at the manual?

I'm still using a gramophone meself.

Jeez I never realised you were so thick

Well, now you know. "Stupid is as stupid does."


NAS = network attached storage by the way. (just to be pedantic old boy) You never said you had a NAS, you flash barsteward! I'm still using CDs...

I dont think it is a NAS Spook just a external hard drive,i think a NAS goes into the router opposed to the usb into the back of this Mac.

Anyway i have been reading some forum posts around the web tonight and by all accounts this is what i need to obtain to stream music without the need to turn this Mac on every time i want to play music on the Sonos system.

Misread you, thought you already had a NAS. You can get all kinds of NAS and you can check out some reviews on bitTech and Trusted Reviews. Some are single drive options with wireless and Ethernet, whilst others can have two or more hard drives that you can configure in RAID so you automatically have a back up. They're a good idea but the nice ones, when you've loaded them up with hard drives (often sold separately), aren't exactly cheap but I'm sure a flash fella such as yourself can afford a good 'un. Maybe even look for one with a thunder bolt connection if your Mac has that as they are really fast. Maybe even check out the apple store in that case else Scan and Ebuyer are two good places to get "em cheap.

This is where I'm getting confused as when I look at these NAS systems they say storage nil but capacity 8tb or whatever,do I also need a external hard drive as well like I have at the moment which is some Iomega 500 gig thing,if so what's the point of having a NAS system.

With the drive less NAS systems, they're saying that's the maximum capacity it *could *take but you need to buy the right 3.5 inch (normal PC desktop size) internal hard drives. Bung them in and configure, format etc. You'll want to take a quick look at reviews so you can judge their ease of use as that's always been a big issue for the likes of us some folk without PhDs in computing.

You might be better off going for a WD single drive system that should be easier to set up. Some are way too complicated but wireless built in would be very useful to you.

I'm on a train going up to Nottingham to see me mate Robin Hood btw. Using my android phone to type. There's dedication for ya, eh? Gonna be going out for a few beers and seeing some live music. [censored] train costs a fortune so I'm helping myself to some of their electricity and charging my phone!

Oops, just belched a bit too loudly there. Hope nobody noticed!

Cheers Spooky I'm even more confused,I only wanted this for streaming sonos so I don't have to keep switching mac on,so are you saying once I buy one of these Nass units I need some drives to slot into them [hard drives].

I'm not that technical when it comes to PC stuff as you can tell,getting bored with it all already and I may change my mind about this.

Also that external drive I have at present ? Will that still be ok to use for storage or does the Nass unit require other stuff to operate fully.

A NAS is essentially a low power computer 'appliance' designed specifically for serving files on a network.

Usually when you buy a NAS all your buying is the appliance. You need to supply/fit the HDD(s).

You don't need a NAS necessarily for streaming without your PC being on, as Sonos can access any network share/mounted drive.

For example,

many routers have USB ports, that you can attach a HDD to and use as file server/network share, or you can even buy NAS adapters that allow you to connect any USB HDD to your network and use it as a NAS

cheers mate for tho information,my netgear router has a usb port on it and i have a external iomega hard drive 500g but that is connected to the iMac.

If i disconnect that then i am not going to see my music/film files on the mac am i .

Suppose i could move the itunes library to the external hard drive and work Sonos that way i guess.

Davey_H's explanation is very good. I'd forgotten that my own Netgear router (DGND3300v2) accepts USB hard drives etc and shares the files wirelessly. Might play about with that later actually, see if I can get it to work with my Android tablet or something (doubt it though). What model you got then?

Maybe you could just buy a separate drive or something for your Sonos? See what they recommend. It wouldn't hurt to have more than one back up copy of your data, well, the stuff you couldn't stand to lose (like all my posts/pms and stuff). I know how much you love me!

Edited by deleted (Mon 13-May-13 14:05:09)

In reply to a post by SPOOKish:

Well, now you know. "Stupid is as stupid does."


NAS = network attached storage by the way. (just to be pedantic old boy) You never said you had a NAS, you flash barsteward! I'm still using CDs...

CD's??? You flash git

In reply to a post by Lt_Swan:

In reply to a post by SPOOKish:

Well, now you know. "Stupid is as stupid does."


NAS = network attached storage by the way. (just to be pedantic old boy) You never said you had a NAS, you flash barsteward! I'm still using CDs...

CD's??? You flash git

Ya! CDs mon. They're the future, you know.

I've heard that Mini-Discs are the way to go