NAS drive first steps

[daveyjay]

Hello all,

I'm considering getting a Western Digital My Book Live 2tb to use with my Marantz M-CR603, but thought I'd get a few things straight, before I splash out.

Does the drive have to be wirelessly connected to the Marantz, or can it be wired? (Is there an 'audio' use for the optical digital input on the Marantz - I'm thinking this would give the 'best' possible connection in terms of SQ. Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick?) I suppose this is the whole point of having 'network attached storage', but, more often than not, it's the network - with drops outs etc - that is the weakest link, isn't it?

Once I've got all my cds loaded up onto the WD, will I be able to control everything - searching for albums,tracks etc - via the Marantz?

Is there an alternative to a NAS drive, that would allow me to play stored music wired (using optical digital in) through the Marantz?

As you can tell, I don't know an awful lot about this stuff. And I'm not a big fan of wireless connections.

 

[AnotherJoe]

You connect both the Marantz and the WD to your router using ethernet cables. (Or homeplugs if in different rooms).

With DLNA, the Marantz pulls songs from the NAS across the network and decodes and plays them locally on the Marantz - giving you the best possible sound quality.

 

[nads]

To use the optical you would need a player.

But the marantz is one. Just plug the WD into your router and do the same with the marantz and it should find the WD.

 

[daveyjay]

Right, ok, thanks for the answers, chaps.

I'm thinking the WD My Book is the way to go, then?

 

[skippy]

Just make sure you rip your CD's in something like FLAC and back them up...It's worth it

 

[amcluesent]

>I'm thinking the WD My Book is the way to go<

So long as you go for the World Edition with Twonky DLNA server pre-installed. TBH, these WDs are no power-houses. A lot of peeps use QNAP, Synology, ReadyNAS etc. or even the HP microserver for the speed and flexibility.

 

[michael hoy]

>I'm thinking the WD My Book is the way to go<

So long as you go for the World Edition with Twonky DLNA server pre-installed. TBH, these WDs are no power-houses. A lot of peeps use QNAP, Synology, ReadyNAS etc. or even the HP microserver for the speed and flexibility.

I am running a couple of HP Microservers at the moment, one the current version and the other is the previous version.

Installed Windows Home Server (WHS) 2011 with 5TB of disk space (2.5TB usable) mirrored.

There is currently £100.00 cash back from HP bringing the price down to £129.00.

One example here.

 

[daveyjay]

How would I know if I'm getting the 'World Edition' with 'Twonky' etc installed, amcluesent? I can't see anything about this on Amazon (I'll be getting it from Amazon, as I've got a bunch of tokens to spend, you see).

You've mentioned a whole bunch of different makes there, guys, all in preference to the WD kit. I notice Andrew Everard mentioned elsewhere on these forums that he has used Western Digital drives for a while now without any problems.

Calling WhatHiFi - any NAS drive reviews coming up.

Aren't these things all much of a muchness???

Thanks for your replies, so far, chaps...

 

[skippy]

Ease of setup is another biggie. I spent 12 hours on a QNAP before I took it back to the retailer. I swapped it for a D-Link, 2 hours later I had music and movies on it. I'm led to believe the QNAP is a better unit, but it tested my PC knowledge to destruction.

Very happy with the D-Link hooked up to a Sonos Connect though.

Turned out nice