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[JimH]

Don't do it.  Consider a JRiver Id instead.  You'll avoid problems trying to get a QNAP or Synology or similar NAS to work with MC.  The Id has perfect support for MC.

www.jriver.com/Id

Then add a USB 3.0 drive. 

This is a very low power way to keep your media online and you can connect the Id to a DAC or receiver and control it with Gizmo or JRemote.

If you're only using ordinary FLAC or another lossless format, then an IdPi would do.

The NUC version of the JRiver Id plus a can act as a NAS.

Drive Prices at Amazon:
2TB for $72
4TB for $110

Id prices for the NUC version start at $265. 

The IdPi is about $90 but is not suitable if you are using a network connection to a NAS (DLNA, for example).  In that case, the NUC version is preferred.

[rec head]

Can you sum up the problems of using a NAS? I am thinking about getting one. I would use it as my "junk" drive where downloads and such would go. It would have all media and PC/mac backup files. I'm looking for simplicity and redundancy. I figured MC would just see it as a drive.

Eventually I would like to have a NUC Id as my MC server and playback device replacing the full size tower full of drives I have in my TV room.

[JimH]

MC can see a NAS as a network drive and import from it.  That works fine. 

Some people want to turn off their computer and use the NAS only, even though it's also a computer.  You can do that, but not with MC.

It would be simpler to set up the Id with a USB 3.0 drive than with a NAS.  Less expensive and lower power, too.

[tyler69]

My NAS has different purposes, serving audio and video files to MC is one of them. I don't see a NUC with MC preinstalled (JRiver id) replacing it, as then I'd need to attach several external hard drives in order to fit all my data. I'm not sure a NAS needs more power than an intel NUC with comparable storage. Also the NAS has RAID support, hot swap support and safety measures (and other features) that would probably not be possible or cause problems setting up with a NUC.

What I'm saying is: I understand that a NUC can be used as a file server for MC but that does not make a MC package for NAS's irrelevant. But I suppose that I also understand now why you won't support QNAP / Synology.

[rec head]

MC can see a NAS as a network drive and import from it.  That works fine. 

Thanks. That is what I wanted to know.

[JimH]

My NAS has different purposes, serving audio and video files to MC is one of them. I don't see a NUC with MC preinstalled (JRiver id) replacing it, as then I'd need to attach several external hard drives in order to fit all my data. I'm not sure a NAS needs more power than an intel NUC with comparable storage. Also the NAS has RAID support, hot swap support and safety measures (and other features) that would probably not be possible or cause problems setting up with a NUC.

What I'm saying is: I understand that a NUC can be used as a file server for MC but that does not make a MC package for NAS's irrelevant. But I suppose that I also understand now why you won't support QNAP / Synology.

I understand and respect that a NAS does more than the Id, but the Id is an MC centric file server that eliminates the need for a NAS for most people.  It's also available for ARM on the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.

The Id is also more than a "NUC with MC pre-installed".  It has additional layers for management and updating that enables it to continue to evolve.  It also has a web app that allows most functions to be done from a phone, tablet, or PC.

[Bill Kearney]

Is the build used for the Id available for purchase?  Best of both worlds would be spinning it up in a VM on a NAS.  I've a Qnap TVS-671 that'd be convenient for this.

[mojave]

Is the build used for the Id available for purchase?  Best of both worlds would be spinning it up in a VM on a NAS.  I've a Qnap TVS-671 that'd be convenient for this.

Yes, you can buy the Id software package as a download or USB flash drive.
http://jriver.com/Id/

[Bill Kearney]

That's good, I'd wonder has anyone run that on a VM?  There's always potential hassles with drivers and such.  My goal isn't necessarily one of saving money but reducing the number of machines.  One set of drives in a well-monitored NAS is less headache than a bunch of separate devices, each with their own backup regime.  There's certainly plenty of supporting arguments either way.

But if I've learned anything in the many decades I've used computers, straying from 'known configurations' is sometimes a lot more trouble that "it ought to be". 

So, any pro/con stories for running Id in a VM on a x86-based NAS?

[Bccc1]

I'm also interested in that as I'm planning to build my new NAS and if I can run MC in a VM I would put the saved money into better CPU or more RAM.

And on topic: No, a NUC with external drives can not be seen as proper replacement for a ZFS storage solution.

[blgentry]

I continue to say that MC does not belong on a VM or on a NAS device.  I'm sure others will disagree.  I think it's a terrible idea to have resource contention on your music playback device.

Brian.

[apgood]

I continue to say that MC does not belong on a VM or on a NAS device.  I'm sure others will disagree.  I think it's a terrible idea to have resource contention on your music playback device.

Brian.

I have a VM with MC running on my unraid server and never have any resource contention issues even using MadVR or SACD rips, but I imagine would be different story if an appliance NAS with lower end hardware in them.

[kolia]

My NAS has different purposes, serving audio and video files to MC is one of them. I don't see a NUC with MC preinstalled (JRiver id) replacing it, as then I'd need to attach several external hard drives in order to fit all my data. I'm not sure a NAS needs more power than an intel NUC with comparable storage. Also the NAS has RAID support, hot swap support and safety measures (and other features) that would probably not be possible or cause problems setting up with a NUC.

What I'm saying is: I understand that a NUC can be used as a file server for MC but that does not make a MC package for NAS's irrelevant. But I suppose that I also understand now why you won't support QNAP / Synology.

I fully agree with that. I have more that 13TB of video and audio file in RAID 5, how can you compete with that? I would understand such a recommandation for fellows having audio only. Never had any issue with my Synology. Pretty strange recommandation from JimH.
Where has it been stated that NAS are not supported?

[Manfred]

From my point of view there are several criteria which drive the MC architecture (my personal decision criteria):

For me the criteria 2.), 4.) and 5.) (I wanted the spinning disks in a different room without the possibility to have a long HDMI connection to my living room) lead my decision to a NAS.

1. Audio only: < 2 TB on music data, a NUC with internal SSD is from my experience a very good architecture pattern for MC. (If you have a 4k monitor and want to use your NUC also for upscaling video to 4k I have seen very rare reviews how a NUC performs supporting this - so be careful on that)

2. Noise: If noise for spinnig disk is no issue for you in your living room then you could replace the SSD under 1.) with an external USB drive. In my living room I had in the beginning of my MC journey 1 x 3 TB WD Red in my HTPC. It was by far the noisiest component, even my new GTX 960 is more quite running madVR.

3. Reliability: My NAS (12 TB) is only used as a file server, nothing else! I have MC installed on a separate Win 10 HTPC. On my NAS I do a quarterly firmware update, I have changed nothing else since 6 years. It is very reliable. My MC installation on  Win 10 has many more changes and is far away from the reliability of my NAS. With the Win 10 Upgrate I had to reinstall everything.

4. Volume: > 10 TB media data - A NAS might be better suited for that, but you could have today 2 x 10 TB as USB disk.

5. Location: If you have under plaster ethernet in your home but no HDMI and you want to separate your data from the media server a NAS is from my point of view the better solution. I don‘t want to have 2 spinning disks in my living room.

6. Cost: If cost is no issue one could have the nuc in the living room an a thunderbold array of disks in a different location, but it is very expensive and you need a motherboard supporting thunderbold.

7. Raid: Raid requires also a regular backup and is not a must have. Just a bunch of disk works also. There are different opinions about this in the Forum.

8. MC running directly on a QNAP NAS: With that I have no experience. It depends on how QNAP supports this?

9. Other Criteria: … feel free

[kolia]

I should have added that JRiver is installed on a hi-end HTPC. NAS is dedicated to file server.

[Bill Kearney]

I have a VM with MC running on my unraid server and never have any resource contention issues even using MadVR or SACD rips, but I imagine would be different story if an appliance NAS with lower end hardware in them.

Sure, if you're going to use MC for it's full range of features, like higher-end encodings or resolutions then you'd absolutely want to consider making certain it has plenty of resources at it's disposal.  Running inside a VM definitely presents the potential for interruptions that you might not get on dedicated hardware, that's absolutely correct.

To that end I've got an i7-equipped NAS with 32gb of RAM in it.  It's definitely not under-powered and having it run an MC install for the arguably limited number of functions I want out of it is pretty likely to avoid any VM-based problems.

I don't want to take a side for/against using a NAS.  My thought is if you're really pushing the full range of MC features then you'd be a fool to avoid using a dedicated piece of hardware for it.  I'm not, so I'm willing to entertain the idea.  But not if it's known to be a clusterf*ck of incompatibilities.  Been there, done that, don't want to waste that time again.

Likewise, lashing up a combination of media stored on the NAS and MC installed on a dedicated box is probably not beyond the realm of considering.  It just adds yet another lump of hardware and the 'glue' to stitch it together.  Fortunately it's a pretty cheap piece of hardware, so cost alone is not really much of a factor.

QNAP and things running directly, sigh, their support for this is somewhat erratic.  Yeah, it 'ought to be possible' but I'd rather suffer the slight performance bump of running inside a VM instead, given I'm really only using it for music management and not all the other fantastic features.

[pschelbert]

Don't do it.  Consider a JRiver Id instead.  You'll avoid problems trying to get a QNAP or Synology or similar NAS to work with MC.  The Id has perfect support for MC.

www.jriver.com/Id

Then add a USB 3.0 drive. 

Hi

1) what are the benchmark figures of that compiuter (JRiver Benchmark)
2) Is it fanless?, noiseless? (no HD)

Peter

[Grundgütigster]

For us Mac users, a (older) Mac Mini with MC would be the equivalent of Intel's Nuc. 

Easy to set up and to access via built in Finder tools once you have installed MC; and you can use Apple's remote control to remote control MC. I use it for quite some time with JRemote from my iPad.

[astromo]

Hi

1) what are the benchmark figures of that compiuter (JRiver Benchmark)
2) Is it fanless?, noiseless? (no HD)

Peter

Regarding point 2, if you navigate to the link provided you'll find that the Id hardware uses an Intel NUC 5CPYH. Search the web more widely and you should find the answer to your questions.

[pschelbert]

Hi regarding point 2), I could not find it in the Intel specs, I know vendors tend to hide the disadvantiges..

Peroancenc wise I doubt it has power (computing power), the figures therefore important

Peter

[Bill Kearney]

giyf: 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc/kits/nuc5cpyh.html
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+N3050+%40+1.60GHz

Intel's not hiding anything, searching is your friend.

For what it is, and it's price-point, it's a bargain.  If it's not sufficient it appears they're selling Id on thumb drive.  Use that on something with more appealing specs perhaps?

[pschelbert]

about cooling: passive ventilator, heat-pipe etc. I do not find it on the linked Intel site.

Power: I wonder, JRiver benchmark, to compre what  I have now with JRiver.

Okay, that one scorea low on CPU-Benchmark. My old machine has CPU Benchmark 5057 (I7 860)

Peter

[LawshrinkMD]

NAS comes in handy for other things, like streaming all your music wirelessly to an iDevice running NePLAYER and using a Dragonfly!  Also, if you have other computers in the house who need to access the collection, and if you don't always have your main HTPC/server on.

[JimH]

An Id could stream to a dragonfly or serve files to clients.

[stewart_pk]

I don't have a NAS, I just use my HTPC with USB 3.0 drives.
But the Id looks like it only has on-board graphics which are typically weak for running some of the more advanced options of MadVR.

[Aimhere]

I also have a NAS (Synology) used almost exclusively for media storage. 16TB internal capacity (well, 12TB with RAID parity), plus 32TB (!) in USB storage via hubs. No way a little Id could compete with that.

I bought a little compact-tower Core i3 PC that tucks away neatly behind my home theater TV monitor, and runs MC as both a server and a playback client.

IMO an Id would be enough to cover the basics for many users, but given that a lot of MC users are more along the lines of "power user" when it comes to their HTPC setups, a NAS and a dedicated server make more sense for the latter.

[JimH]

I don't think that most of our customers would consider themselves power users.  For most, 2TB would be plenty of storage.

[DarkPenguin]

I bought an ASUS DeskMini 110. Put a pentium 4600 (I think) in it. Tiny machine but still takes a full sized HSF. That would be the main problem with it. It makes a nice linux server/nas/hypervisor but is mighty loud for a media player.

[Bccc1]

I don't think that most of our customers would consider themselves power users.  For most, 2TB would be plenty of storage.

If you are no power user, why would you choose jrmc? I'm seriosly interested, because I thought "normal" users would prefer kodi & plex and thus recommend that to my circle of friends and acquaintances.

The 2TB are good if they are focused on audio. If they hoard series or movies thats much to little.

[JimH]

If you are no power user, why would you choose jrmc?

Here's what people say:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,96468.0.html

But many more typical users never post.  They do read though.

[bhampster]

I have 4 NAS units 4x4GB almost full and another that I will soon buy drives for.

I must be a power user.. That's nice. I like that. Maybe I've always wanted to be a power user.

I wouldn't recommend anything other than JRiver. I love Kodi and wish them luck but as similar as the two programs are they have far less in common. They are really 2 different paths.

Anyways. I updated to 23 today and I am loving it. Will hopefully be hosting a movie night tonight with friends.