Office access of NAS music library at home?

[siudai8888]

I am thinking of setting up a NAS music library at home containing all my FLAC files. I will use a streamer to play those files on my home hi fi system. But I also wish to be able to access my NAS music library at work. What would I need to be able to play from that NAS library, via the internet? Is there specific hardware, e.g. a speaker/amp that I can plug onto the ethernet network at work and set it up to stream my FLAC files through the internet? This may be a dumb question, but please do excuse my ignorance. Thank you so much for your inputs!

 

[Hi-FiOutlaw]

To access the NAS you'll need a PC or a ithing, if it is from Symology, don't know about the others brands.

 

[Craig M.]

Do you have a static ip address at home? If not you'll need to setup a dns server. You should also consider whether you want to open up your home network to the outside world.

 

[Paul.]

If you use a Plex account, you will not need to faff around with static IPs and whatnot. I have been quite suprised at how good Plex is at managing a music collection. I use Plex on a little microserver, then access my music over tinternet via mobile or tab.

You may need to forward a port on your router but that is simple enough to do.

 

[Xanderzdad]

Using Synology NAS and DS Audio app will automatically give you a safe link to your NAS music without opening up your network to the world and his dog.

 

[Paul.]

Using Synology NAS and DS Audio app will automatically give you a safe link to your NAS music without opening up your network to the world and his dog.

Surely its just using dynamic DNS like plex does? Its still opening a port to allow access to your NAS.

 

[Craig M.]

Using Synology NAS and DS Audio app will automatically give you a safe link to your NAS music without opening up your network to the world and his dog.

Surely its just using dynamic DNS like plex does? Its still opening a port to allow access to your NAS.

Yes. Fine if all you have on your nas is music and films, but mine has computers and phones backed up to it, I'd rather not take the chance. Shame, because it was something I was looking forward to doing, streaming to my phone while walking the dog.

 

[Xanderzdad]

My understanding is that the Synology server links you to the NAS more securely than just opening a port but I am definitely not an expert in this area.

The NAS seperates the music etc with access controls but I don't know how these would withstand a 'brute-force' attack.

Your phone effectively links to their server and then they link directly from their server to your NAS - I wouldn't think that this is any riskier than having a NAS on your network generally - but that is just my opinion and I could be very naive.

 

[Paul.]

This sounds very similar to Plex/Freenas. I use an app to connect to the Plex's server, then the server makes the connection to my box. This is mainly to get around the fact that most ISPs do not provide static IPs, your Synology will keep the server up to date with changing IPs and open the appropriate port using DDNS on your router.

Freenas uses a "jails" system (I assume Synology will do something similar) where different data sets will have different privileges. I can set my music and videos data set to have guest read access, yet my Time Machine dataset will have much stricter access. I appreciate opening anything up to the web has inherent risk involved, but I don't really have anything worth stealing 😉

 

[Dave_]

Using Synology NAS and DS Audio app will automatically give you a safe link to your NAS music without opening up your network to the world and his dog.

Surely its just using dynamic DNS like plex does? Its still opening a port to allow access to your NAS.

It probably isn't.

They'll be doing some form of NAT traversal, which avoids port forwarding and DDNS.

 

[Dave_]

This sounds very similar to Plex/Freenas. I use an app to connect to the Plex's server, then the server makes the connection to my box. This is mainly to get around the fact that most ISPs do not provide static IPs, your Synology will keep the server up to date with changing IPs and open the appropriate port using DDNS on your router.

I sincerely hope it isn't, port forwarding needs manual configuration via admin access on the router.

DDNS just updates a name server when IPs change using a client on either the router or the device itself

If you didn't have to manually configure ports and DDNS on your router, and by your description of connecting via a server then Plex is almost certainly also using some nat traversal

Freenas uses a "jails" system (I assume Synology will do something similar) where different data sets will have different privileges. I can set my music and videos data set to have guest read access, yet my Time Machine dataset will have much stricter access. I appreciate opening anything up to the web has inherent risk involved, but I don't really have anything worth stealing 😉

You may not have anything worth stealing, but a *nix box that's open to the internet is more valuable to hackers than your content that's on it...

 

[Craig M.]

Looks like I was wrong. Synology QuickConnect seems to do exactly what I want - access to my media without portforwarding. I'll give it a bash later.

 

[Xanderzdad]

I hoped it would as I've been using it for years so I can access my music, photo's and films whilst abroad. I've not had an issue yet (now crossing my fingers!)

 

[Craig M.]

Well, it works... but constantly stops to buffer over 3G. I've tried enabling transcoding but it makes little difference. I did notice that the iOS version of DS Audio only gives options for transcoding ALAC, AAC, and AIFF, most of my music is in FLAC so I've no idea if it's being transcoded or not. I'll try converting a FLAC album to ALAC and see if that makes a difference - it will be a massive PITA to have to convert all my FLACS though.

EDIT: After a bit of experimentation it looks like the problem is my lowly DS212j, it doesn't have enough power to transcode on the fly. So it's either buy a phone that supports FLAC, convert them all to ALAC, or buy a new NAS. The cheapest, least hassle option is a new NAS. The DS214play looks interesting, if it turns out I can watch films from one over 3G, I'll be like a pig in shhh. *yahoo*