Nass Units ,Someone explain.?

Hi All

I'm not that technical I just get by but love my gadgets and multimedia devices,my office set up at present is a 27 inch Apple IMac and a Iomega external 500 gig hardrive which I generally use for my music/films and backing up time machine.

Now in the last few weeks we purchased a Play 5 Sonos system which I think is a brilliant piece of wireless music streaming,however what I don't like is the fact I have to have the IMac powered on all the time for this Sonos to stream which is a pain in the backside everytime I want to use the Sonos app on my iPhone and ipad.

Research suggested a Nass system was the way to go and these vary from a few hundred to many thousands of pounds,synology ones tend to be some of the most popular but on the Sonos forums many suggest one of These
of which I have ordered from ebuyer.

Apparently the IMac is no longer required to be on as this plugs into my Netgear router,my question is simple,do I have to put all the iTunes stuff on this Nass drive and the Sonos program on my IMac as I'ts unclear to me how all this Nass stuff actually works.

I have the Internet to ask the question I know but I thought someone on here may be able to give quick and simple guidelines as to what I need to do once this unit arrives Wednesday.

I am hearing I will still need the old external Iomega hardrive as I have heard that in most cases the Nass will not back up time machine.

So basically I need some simple answers on how to get this Nass unit working with the Sonos system and what other benefits this Nass system can serve.

Many Thanks as I know there are many on here that have Nass units and far more knowledge than me,just remember to keep ant helpful answers extremely plain and simple as if your explaining to your dad or or some minor .

Last thing I need is some technical talk which completely throws me .....cheers

Edited by time2die (Mon 27-May-13 21:17:53)

Once you have your NAS connected to your Router and set-up according to the manufacturer's instructions you should be able to see it as shared in your Finder.

You then need to use the iTuns Preferences / Advanced to move your iTunes library onto the NAS. Add it to its own share in the NAS. It is probably worth getting instructions from the Internet for this as it is a long time ago since I did it.

Once the iTunes is moved you can point tie Sonos to the NAS directly allowing you to play the music without the need to have the iMac switched on.

According to the link that you supplied the NAS that you have bought will also work with the Apple Time Machine back-up as a back-up for your iMac.

I have all of this working on my Buffalo NAS. Hope that you get it working on yours.

I have a NAS set up for media sharing, and they all support a variety of methods to talk (protocols) to other devices. However, I'm no expert and I don't have a Sonos, but have looked at getting one multiple times, or a iMac. I'll share what I have done.

We can start with a question. How is your Sonos getting music from your iMac now, i.e. do you share a folder or are you running iTunes and sharing your music (which I think means iTunes server)?

The WD NAS you've ordered says it supports: iTunes server, UPnP Media Server, DLNA. It will also support shared folders, just like sharing a folder from your iMac or PC. Note, the second customer review on ebuyer says the iTunes server does not work, so you need to check that if it's the route you'll use.

Sonos does not support DNLA according to their website.

I suspect the easiest way to start is to connect your NAS, create a folder and share it, copy a few music files there, and check that the Sonos can play them. After this you can consider moving your entire library.

Cheers guys for the tips,the Sonos is using what I have listed on iTunes and I did not notice the person that said he could not get it to work.

I shall wait for it to arrive put it together and see what happens and get back to you both with details and I appreciate what you have suggested.

You never know it might arrive and be simple to set up and be idiot proof,if that's the case I'm laughing

So the unit arrived yesterday and today i have spent hours and hours trying to get certain aspects of it working,managed to get Time machine working no problems with that,but itunes seems to be a no go area but I'm convinced there must be some way around this.

Got Sonos working on the iPhone but it was still playing the tracks of My Imac hardrive,when turning the mac of obviously it gave issues,tried in vain to get the WD/MyBookLive 2tb to get it set up and running with itunes but as of yet i have not figured out a way to do it.

Read many posts that it worked with previous ITunes but further updates have put paid to that and i have read a few other people not been able to sort this out.

got totally confused with some of the suggested MyBook read me on how to to this and how to do that,actually took me about 2 hours how to even add some music files.

Path for that was in finder on the left hand side you see it,then its a case of Public and the shared Music and Shared photos and shared video,i copied all my music from iTunes into the Shared Music Folder and managed to get that on the Mybook live eventually.

Then had to configure the Sonos to a different path and i got the thing working,only thing is instead of putting all the music in the appropriate art work and albums they all appears as individual tracks which does not look very nice and nowhere near as neat and tidy as my original iTunes/sonos set up on my previous no removed external hard drive ,its early days yet and plenty more experimenting as I'm convinced i can get this a lot better than what it looks like at present which is a bit of a mess if you ask me and a trawl on my iphone to find the music which is Music Library/folders/MyBookLive/Public then we have all the tracks and not much artwork either.

Im not sure i got the path correct either as it seems i may have to create another one for videos and photos.

Anyone with any suggestions then I'm all ears.

Edited by time2die (Thu 30-May-13 17:18:33)

Sounds like the music file/folders you have copied are in an unordered state, which I think is iTunes default mode. Under iTunes settings, you can have it organise tracks in to folders, which may then make this better.

If you have your music stored as .m4a, then you might not get the artwork - I don't in my car, but I've not investigated why yet. For .mp3 tracks/albums i do get the artwork.

I recommend playing around with one CD worth of tracks, save in mp3 (just as a test) and see if it helps make progress.

I have a friend with a Sonos set up, but i am travellling this coming week and unlikely I'll get time to call him.

What I did with my D-link NAS was to put on all the files I wanted onto the storage via the main network drive route (windows needed the drive mapping but linux saw it out of the box as a drive).

I had music/video and pictures in the folder structure I use on my media drive on the PC so it was a matter of coping over of that file structure.

Then I turned on the universal plug and play media center part of it on and let the drive scan find out where all the media was and my PS3, Xbox and blue ray player all needed configuration over where the server lived on the network.

There has also been complaints from Apple users about my NAS that for whatever reason they cannot get features to work that work out of the box that Windows and Linux users can.

I would suggest getting to know how the NAS works as a data drive over the network and then seeing how the Unit performs in the different modes.

It may be that it may not work very well as an iTunes server (mine doesn't) but using UPNP mode may be a better bet.

On my PC I have it arranged that I just play albums into VLC player without using any other software to manage my large music collection.

I wish I could help more but each NAS comes with it's own features and OS, mine is a customised Linux setup with a lots of settings window.

It may be that you need to hunt down a firmware update and see if that helps or that if there is enough Apple users on the offical website to get it working.

It took me a couple of weeks to get to grips with it and I only use a few of the features on mine.

Thanks guys i will keep trying to sort it out as there must be someway to get the Sonos/Itunes working with this Mybook Live Nas System.