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[avpman]

I know this has been discussed before and there's kind of a kludge for a workaround. Basically, to load the media files on the NAS and duplicate the library on each PC.

Are you guys looking into a way to cleanly share the library if it's loaded on the NAS? I'm about to invest in a Buffalo Terastation. Not sure I want to go ahead without knowing if JR is going to consider this.

Thanks.

[park]

Couldnt you use the terastation as the server and set up each pc as a client accessing the same library?

[NickM]

Although not recommended, it IS possible to keep both the music files and the library on a network drive.  I have done so for a year with no problems.  That having been said, I use a 1000GB switched hub, no wireless, full duplex so this resolves most of the delay in access problems.

Note, the TeraStation is not a Windows server – it uses Linux, so you cannot run the MC server there.  There are plenty of hacks for opening the TeraStation for root access and you can then add a server based music distribution program like SlimServer.  I have never seen such comprehensive notes for doing this as here (!)  http://fieldnetworks.com/slim/linkstation.html

nick

[glynor]

Just a warning... Even with a high-performance, switched Gigabit network, I have performance problems with the library files on a network drive.  Music plays fine, but video (including G-Force visualizations) periodically "hiccups" while MC is "Saving Database".

Raw network speed isn't really the problem, it's latency (the time it takes from when the request is made for the data and the moment when the data actually begins to flow).  Network latency will always be an order of magnitude greater than that on a local drive, and will remain a problem for MC's database until a number of "backend" changes are made to it.

I'm sure you've seen it from your original posting, but until (hopefully) MC12 fixes this problem for good, my workaround (while kludgy) does work perfectly.

[Alex B]

For local LANs an easy to use solution would be a library translator that would just provide the clients a copy of the library with translated file paths.

The clients would play the actual media files directly from shared network addresses. No "streaming" would be needed and the server MC would not be involved in the actual playback process after providing the translated library.

The system could have preconfigurable "local paths" to "network paths" settings.