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Auto import in the background and Synology NAS

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raediant:
Hi.
This is the closest thread I have found to my topic enquiry. I use MC mainly for high quality audio.
Background.
My first HTPC used Win7 and MC17. It had a small SSD for the OS and a large HDD with all my music on it. Everything worked fine and MC imported all the files OK and built and maintained the library.
Now I've built my second HTPC using Win8 and MC18. Again there's a small SSD for the OS but no other storage on board. I decided to store all my music on a separate large physical hard drive attached to my main Win8 PC which does not have MC installed. (Later I plan to move all this music onto a Synology NAS together with my pictures and videos which is how I came upon this thread: very useful. Thanks). All my media on the main PC are stored on drive D and I've redirected Win8 so that My Pictures, My Music and My Videos are on drive D. I add/modify my media on the main PC. ie I rip CDs, download hi-res music, add and manage photos (Photoshop) etc onto drive D on the main PC. The HTPC and main PC are connected to my network by wired gigabit Ethernet and the HTPC acts as a music and Blu-ray (ArcSoft) "player". I don't plan to add/manage media using the HTPC.
Problem/s.
My confusion/concern is around importing/synching my music. As my HTPC running MC does not have any storage for media I expect it to go to the dedicated drive on my main PC over the network to access My Music or My Photos (and later on the NAS). By the way, on the main PC I've mapped My Music, My Pictures, My Videos as network drives M, P and V as I read somewhere else that would be a good idea to help MC pick up those from the network. After installing MC18 I stopped the auto import for the moment while I sort out what to do. Would import actually try import the media files to my HTPC? Where do they go? There's no room on my HTPC to import them. Or does import simply build a "library directory" so to speak on the HTPC pointing to the main PC drive D My Music My Pictures and My Videos (or main PC mapped drives M, P or V) where the media is? Since I'm managing my media on the main Win8 PC drive D, from what I've read on this thread MC on the Win8 HTPC should be able to auto-synch files changes etc. as they're both using Windows. Right?
Is my strategy of using my powerful main PC to manage my media (now on drive D, later on NAS) and using my HTPC with MC to build libraries and play the media a good one? Will it work OK? Are there any other points you feel I should consider?
This proposed combination is all a bit new to me so I'd appreciate any help/guidance. Thanks.

rayooo:
Here is how I handle things, not exactly your needs.. but close

I do use a central Synology NAS for all media storage.  Several computers, with MC installed on each, point to this central NAS media storage share.
(could just as easily be a PC with a large shared "D" drive)

In my specific case, each individual PC with MC on it, maintains it's own library. This has it's limitations as opposed to having a "shared" library that all the players work from, but for me, the individual PCs, each with library, work fine.

The primary two MC players used are:
1. A play only, theater view only, (no mouse, no KB)
This player is for serious listening only, a dedicated appliance (SSD boot drive, Win7, MC) this PC does nothing but run MC in my listening room.
About the only thing I do metadata wise is change rating on individual tracks via the remote control.

2. This PC is used for ripping, downloading, primary metadata.. and playing music (desktop computer)

Here is a workflow example, and, an example of the beauty of this setup.
I added a couple new Test CD rips (FLAC) yesterday using of course PC#2 (PC #1 doesn't even have a CD/DVD Drive)
The two CDs were ripped, stored on the synology, I added basic metadata, but forgot to add any genre info.
Today, I'm in the listening room, and I notice I have two CDs with Unassigned Genres. (Smartlist)
When convenient, I go out to PC#2 and add the proper Genres to the two recordings.
Point being, the new genera info is updated only on the local PC#2 library.

I then walk back into the listening room, where PC #1 has been playing along while I made the changes.
I view the two previously generaless recordings, both ALREADY have the genre info.
This means that within no more than a minute or so, PC#1 while playing merrily along, detected a metadata change within the media storage and updated it's own internal library!  I think this is pretty slick.  ;D

thurston:
Marked for later.  Thinking about coming back to MC and using with my synology and theater view.

normd:
I have a Synology NAS for my music files. If I use my MC Mac to download files directly from HDtracks to the NAS, auto import works. If I download ZIP files from another service onto my main Mac, unzip them and then copy all files to the NAS, the music does not auto import. Running import manually on the parent folder works every time on these files. Why the difference?

zybex:
As the first post says, Synology doesn't support FileSystemWatcher.

When MC runs it asks the OS (OSX): tell me about any modification on this folder - \\nas\share\music (or whatever). The OS will then request the NAS to warn whenever something changes on that folder. The problem is the the Synology Samba/NFS implementation apparently doesn't support these notifications, so it doesn't warn OSX when something happens. So MC doesn't hear about it.

When you change the folder on your 'MC Mac', OSX doesn't need a notification - it is the one doing it! So it warns MC that something changed on that folder. When you do it on a different Mac however, your MC Mac receives no notification so it can't warn MC.

The alternative is to have MC scan the disk to detect changes. That's what you do when you run the Import process manually or on a schedule.

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