Accessing media from a newtorked hard drive

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Hi all. I have owned a Roku (aka pinnacle) Soundbridge M101 for a couple of years now which has freed up all the audio content on my pc to be available via my hi fi system. It is one of the best pieces of electronics I have ever owned and I'm looking to upgrade my wifi network to include a Network Accessed Drive (eg the Western Digital 'My Book').

I want my hi fi to have access to my digital audio 24/7 instead of at the moment only when the pc is on (I could leave the pc on all the time but would rather not).

Apparently, the Soundbridge will not support this which is a great shame - it will access the wi fi network drive, but only via the pc. The idea of 24/7 direct media access via an 'on all the time' network hard drive (which I would much rather do) has tremendous appeal.

So - my question is - is there any newer streaming hardware out there that I could replace the Roku with that will work directly with a NAS drive, and does anyone have any preferences on whether there are NAS drives (or 'some kinda wi fi media storage system') that work better than others.

Many thanks in advance - can't find any info on this on the computing forums so thought I'd try here.

 

[John Duncan]

[quote user="rh2705"](eg the Western Digital 'My Book')[/quote]

Not this one, it's rubbish, but yes, all of this is achievable - will discuss tomorrow!

 

[John Duncan]

Right. All you need is a NAS device which supports UPnP, and runs some sort of server software, like twonky(?) - some will now do this out of the box, rather than you having to install it yourself. There is a useful article here which should get you going, and has reviews of some devices, UPnP and not. The soundbridge is UPnP compatible, I checked, and so will talk to a UPnP server.

I only warn against the MyBook (NAS edition) because reviews tell of it having appalling access speeds, which would drive me mental.

Another option is AppleTV, which either streams music and video while your computer is on, or stores it on its own hard drive for when it's not. Fabulous interface, but needs a telly to navigate, which may not be where you want your music to be.

 

[Anonymous]

Squeezebox 3 - no contest. Works a dream with NAS device so you can stream your entire music collection without having to have a PC turned on.

Only downside is that it requires slimserver software rather than using a standard DNLA server such as twonky. There are plenty of places that sell NAS devices with this preinstalled however.

 

[John Duncan]

Well yeah, if I was buying from scratch I'd get a Squeezebox I think, but he has a Soundbridge already. And he thought it wouldn't work with a NAS but it will, provided the NAS is compliant and has twonky or similar on it.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi John

Many thanks for the time and trouble taken to tell me this info. Very interesting link - the Linksys NSLU2 Network Storage Link would seem to be exactly what I need as I already have a USB hard drive and all for fifty six quid!

The specs don't mention whether twonky is included but thats no bother if I can eventually get it to work I'm happy to download and install it once I've got it - it'll only need doing the once.

The Soundbridge is indeed UPnP compliant as you say (I didn't know this yesterday). If I can find the thread (on Digital Spy somewhere I think) where somebody posted saying 'sorry it won't talk to a NAS drive directly' I will be glad to correct this info.

Either way once my Linksys arrives I will post a confirmation that it all works once I've got it all running.

Thanks for the heads up on the WD My Book - the customer reviews on sites such as ebuyer are very damning indeed - I wouldn't touch one with a barge pole now!

Best regards

Rob H

 

[Anonymous]

Well all is as I hoped it would be, took me the best part of a week to sort it but job done basically.

gave up on twonky after the first couple of days - the software of choice for the soundbridge appears to be firefly (aka 'mt-daapd')

Needed to flash the bios of my little Linksys box - the NSLU2 known to the Linux community as 'The Slug', reformat the USB hard drive to 'ext3' format as the slug runs Linux not WIndows, took several goes to get firefly to load, on one occasion I pulled outh the mains cable of the slug as I thought it had froze and rendered it useless. fortunately found out how to re-flash its bios back to factory default, but then of course I was back at square one.

Two failed attempts at loading firefly later and its 'third times the charm'.

Only bugbear so far is that you have to reboot the slug every time you add new mp3's/wma's to the USB hard drive or the soundbrisge just won't see them. Other than that my weekend has been a dream. even took the soundbridge into the garage and hooked it up to my seriously vintage Hitachi Ghetto Blaster (a TRK 8080E if anyones interested).

I think I need another Soundbridge now ...

Thanks for all the help guys - one very satisfied customer !

Rob H