iTunes on a NAS?

[AudioDoctor]

Is that possible? Can I have iTunes store its music on a NAS, pull it from there, and play it on my iMac as if the file was locally stored?

 

[toddbagwell]

That's how i have my iTunes setup. I'm on a PC (windows xp) though.

 

In iTunes preferences, then advanced tab.

Set the itunes media folder location to your NAS drive folder location.

 

Then check keep itunes folder organized check box.

 

When you confirm the choices, itunes will organize things for a bit and then you're in business.

 

Two things about this set up:

1) you will need to consolidate your library files that are stored on other disks to the new location

 

2) every so often, my itunes forgets that i've pointed the location to the NAS, and defults to a location on the local machine. No problem to reset it, it will rescan the drive and you'll be good to go.

 

Hope some of this is helpful.

 

Later

Todd

 

[AudioDoctor]

have Dropouts of the music? Do you stream any hi-res music?

 

[toddbagwell]

I never have dropouts. Everything is hard wired.

 

I do send hirez. Mostly 24/96 and 24/88.2 and no stuttering / buffering issues. My DAC / prepro won't accept 24/192 so i rarely buy it...

 

Todd

 

[AudioDoctor]

I need to go wireless if I do that, or I lose all the benefits of moving the music to a NAS anyway, which are quieting the drives it is on now.

 

[wgscott]

You just display the remote device in the Finder and drag and drop the music, after setting a preference in iTunes not to copy the music to the local iTunes directory.

 

With wireless, I occasionally get dropouts, especially with larger files. However, if you play the music in something like Audirvana or Decibel with memory play, that won't happen. Works fine on my laptop with minimal extra hard drive space.

 

[Paul R]

Even if you setup and manage a wireless LAN/VLAN just for NAS activity, which is, by the way, about the only way to get a highly reliable wireless NAS.

 

On the other hand, there are other technologies you can connect a NAS a music server up with - one of the easiest and sometimes most reliable is power line networking. Unless you have a transformer between the two locations, it generally works well, and zips your data around at a respectable 200mbs with a good connection.

 

Also, sometimes you can run ethernet cable in an inventive manner, and the job is a lot less irritating and expensive that it initially looks like.

 

-Paul

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

a hassle, but a maybe... I think my original idea of building a sound box for my externals is an easier and simpler fix.

 

[Paul R]

The best NAS systems are anything but silent or cool running, mine is in an air conditioned closet (along with other gear) that is also paneled floor to ceiling with acoustic foam. Ugly as sin, but quite. We have not had to turn the heat on in the winter time for years, but the way... though I admit, we live in Texas and it just does not stay cold here for long.

 

Anyway, the point is, you can use better and more reliable gear that way.

 

Now having said that, I am negotiating a sell off of the rest of our high end gear, including the wonderful, but hot and noisy, enterprise class storage system I use. When this happens (hopefully the week of the 20th!) I will be reduced to either PC class NAS systems, or using Firewire/USB drives.

 

The LaCie "Rikki GO" drives seem to work well for storing Audio/Video on. They are only a terabyte, so they are kind a small, but they are bus powered and absolutely silent, and cool running. They also keep up even when streaming multi-channel hires (720p) video.

 

A little array of those guy should handle the library, and provide a second copy, synchronized with SilverServer, as a backup.

 

Might look into something like that as an alternative.