Best way to transfer 300+ GB music from HDD to NAS ?

[cornishmanc]

Hi all, as always apologies if this has been covered in detail elsewhere.

 

I have just bought a 1TB WD My Book World II NAS and I want to transfer the 300GB of music ((30K songs) I have on a USB 2 HDD so I can access the music from both main iMac and iBook.

 

I started the transfer across ethernet to the Public folder on the NAS but the Finders said it would take more than 150 hours so I attached the USB drive directly to the NAS and that will take 450 hours!

 

Am I doing something obviously wrong?

 

Both macs are on OS 10.4

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hmm, something weird is going on. I just transfered 2 TB in 10 hours over my network.

 

Here is how my NAS transfer worked.

 

GB Ethernet connection directly from Mac to NAS bypassing any router or switch. I manually set IP addresses on both units since neither one acts as a DHCP server. I mounted the NAS drive on my Mac and used AFP instead of SMB or FTP to transfer the files.

 

 

 

[cornishmanc]

Thanks for the swift response Chris - I have the NAS plugged into the router so should I just connect iMac and NAS together with an ethernet cable?

 

I also get nervous when discussing IP and DHCP - as a Mac user we tend to be shielded from the messy stuff !

 

[cornishmanc]

Well I am sat here with the WD NAS sat on my desk with the ethernet cable plugged directly into my iMac. It does not show up on the desktop so what am I doing wrong?

 

[PeterSt]

Most probably you must use a "crossed" ethernet cable for this. Like one which usually comes with an ADSL modem.

 

But personally I doubt that will bring you more speed. Unless your router is a 10Mb version of course.

100Mb also is not the best, and 1000Mb would be normal these days.

 

HTH,

Peter

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Your network card should auto-sense and remove the need for a cross-over cable. I'm willing to bet you didn't give your NAS an IP address thus you can't communicate with the unit. Here is what you'll likely have to do.

 

1. Connect the NAS to the router so you can at least communicate with it.

2. Give the NAS a static IP address

3. Connect the NAs directly to your Mac

4. Mount the NAS drive by using the IP address you assigned to it in step 2.

 

 

This may be more confusing to you if you're not that good with this type of configuration.

 

[Audio_ELF]

From reading your first post I'm unsure where your USB drive is connected? If at all possible, connect the USB drive to your Mac not to a router, NAS, etc. as this will reduce network traffic.

 

I.e try to achieve

Old drive --USB--> Mac --Network--> NAS

 

Not

Old drive --USB--> Router --Network--> Mac --Network--> NAS

 

Also, as I think Chris meantioned, try to use AFP (Apple networking protocol) rather than SMB (Microsoft) or NFS (UNIX) protocols.

 

[cornishmanc]

Thanks for the tips - I set the IP address to static but could not get the NAS to mount on the desktop so I had to reset the NAS and set it back to a dynamic IP (which was the same as the static address) I then then found it on the network but with an afp:// etc. rather than http. The data transfer seemed faster after that but I still had to do it over a couple of nights.

 

Anyway, all now seems fine- my music sits on the NAS and we can play it in the home office through my iMac plugged in via powerline ethernet (thick granite walls mean it is out-of-range of wireless) and in the lounge or bedroom courtesy of our laptop and a couple of Airport Expresses and controlled from my wife's iPod Touch. Prior to this I had to set up a playlist on the iMac and stream it via the powerline ethernet to the other rooms which was OK but a real pain if I wanted to pause or skip a track as I had to run back upstairs to the iMac !

 

By the way, in the bedroom we have the AE plugged into a Klispch iGroove HG. Volume is never high but we are very pleased with the sound quality as we play a selection of mellow, drifting-off-to-sleep tunes. The lounge has the AE feeding an Onkyo CR 515 DAB with AVI Duo speakers. I bought the speakers a couple of years ago as ex-demo from AVI so they were a very good price but to honest they have never had an amp of real power and quality to drive them so I have never really heard their potential.