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[soongsc]

Hi,
I'm thinking about setting up an audio server, but would like to do so without the need to keep a pc running all the time.  So the idea is to setup an audio server on a NAS.

The particular NAS that I use is Synology D211j.  It has capabilities to act as an audio server, and is DLNA certified.  So I am wondering, can I setup MC Media and Library server on a NAS like this?  Can I use the audio server capabilities on this NAS while using MC as a client/user interface?

[csimon]

I too have a Synology NAS and I, like many others, wish I could put J River Server onto it, as Synology's built-in server is better than most but still fairly useless for a large and comprehensive media collection.  But it is far too much work for the team to do a Linux port for the little money they would receive for it.

If you can live with the limitations of Synology's server, you can put all your media files on the NAS in the right folders and let it index them, but use J River on a Windows PC to manage the files.

[olinbg]

csimon, considering I'm looking at various NAS models and the diskstations are one group, can you elaborate a little bit more on your setup and limitations of that server?

[csimon]

I have a DS209 with 2x1TB drives in it, in RAID 1, and is intended to be my backup server.  I simply backup my two Windows PCs to it every so often together with my media files that are currently on the PC that runs MC.  I use MC as a DLNA media server to send media to DLNA devices around the house, via an iPad controller app. 

My intention is to get an additional DS411slim with a single 256GB SSD in it to start with, that will be used exclusively as media file storage, so moving the data from the MC PC.

I have been experimenting with the media server that is built into the DS209 to see if I can replace MC with it in order not to have a complete PC on all the time and could move entirely to the DS411slim.  However it has limitations that I'm not prepared to live with!

Firstly, although it is better than most media servers in that you can customise your browse trees/menus, it doesn't actually offer a lot in terms of the tags that you can use.  It has bog- standard Title, Artist, Genre and Album that all UPnP servers offer, and you can define your own menus containing any of these in any order and to any nesting level, but above these the only other tags available are Date, Folder and Composer, with no metadata available for Photos or Video at all (apart from date and folder).  This is far too limiting for my media collection and how I want to catalogue it.  In fact, it was only recently (in the last few weeks) that they actually added Album Artist to the list of music tags after months of lobbying and capaigning on their forums!

MC is infinitely flexible and configurable with regard to tagging and creating browse trees, with possibly the most comprehensive system of any media server anywhere.

Other features, of MC that I've found useful (which are not present in the Synology server) are the Analyse Audio and Replay Gain facilities, the "intelligence" that is now just starting to creep in when it comes to displaying artwork on container-level items, the discovery of artwork from net resources, and automatic thumbnail generation for videos.  You might also find Zones useful in MC.

[olinbg]

Thanks, very helpful and complete response.  Currently I do have a machine running an MC Server instance as well, so it seems like without larger tag support, I'll need that PC in some form to serve content.

[soongsc]

I too have a Synology NAS and I, like many others, wish I could put J River Server onto it, as Synology's built-in server is better than most but still fairly useless for a large and comprehensive media collection.  But it is far too much work for the team to do a Linux port for the little money they would receive for it.

If you can live with the limitations of Synology's server, you can put all your media files on the NAS in the right folders and let it index them, but use J River on a Windows PC to manage the files.

Currently I have the media files on the NAS, but not in it's designated directories and use MC to access and play them which works fine so far.  My next step is to be able to access and play them over tablet pc or mobile phone over the net, and also allow MC to play them to a DLNA device (I guess this is using MC as a controller?)
Hmm, seems it would be interesting if I moved all the media files to the designated folder of the Synology device, might be I could still have MC access them and also allowing the Synology device to do it's work without both interfering with each other.

[csimon]

You have several options really. The question is whether the Synology server is good enough for indexing and cataloguing your collection (see my above explanation on its limitations).  If this is OK for you, then (dare I say it) you don't even need the set up the MC server.  You can use Synology tools like the web-based Audio Station (a nicer interface than MC's web solution) which you can use to send media to DLNA devices, or the native iOS & Android DS Audio app which does the same thing.  If you then want to use the MC interface to play media while at a PC then you can point the MC client to the Synology DLNA server, yes, using MC as a controller rather than a server.

However, MC is a much more comprehensive tool for managing your collection, you will find the Synology server very basic. So you might elect to set up both as servers.

If you want to use Synology as a server, you will need to move your files to the designated directories (or use a hack to run a mount command on the Synology - see the Synology forums for details).  If keeping MC as a library server then you'll probably need to use MC's Rename & Move tool to actually move the files.

I am sure that setting up both as servers wouldn't cause any clash.

Note that MC is a Windows-only platform, so you cannot put its server onto the Synology, nor can you run its client user interface from the Synology.

Does this help in any way?

[csimon]

What you could do is turn on the Synology DLNA server, copy a selection of your media files to its designated directories, and then play around with the Synology's client apps to see how they work.

[soongsc]

Seems like it's worth a try.  Thanks!

If the setup is flexible enough to change without moving the media files and folder structure every time I want to change MC library server and MC controller setup, the I'm willing to try anything.

[csimon]

Yes, if you copy some files to the Synology directories as an experiment then you can find out if it will be good enough for you. If you then decide that it is good enough, you will have to do a once-only move to move your proper library and from then on you can access it from both Synology and MC servers.

[chasmatic]

I am very interested in this discussion as I have just purchased an Emotiva DAC and was planning on getting a Synology 411 Slim for duty as my audio server. I was wanting to use MC on the 411 and not have my computer running (its too far away from the stereo). My plan is to run the Synology > Emotiva > Emotiva Pre/Pro and Amp. . I will hold off buying the Synology for now and see what further develops here.

Chas

[soongsc]

Yes, if you copy some files to the Synology directories as an experiment then you can find out if it will be good enough for you. If you then decide that it is good enough, you will have to do a once-only move to move your proper library and from then on you can access it from both Synology and MC servers.

Copied the files.  Things are working with MC as usual.  Took some time to figure out the user/file/directory privileges, but things work.  I will report back as I progress.  Going to switch to Win7 from Vista.