Virgin Post!! Starting a home network from scratch

[admin_exported]

I have looked through the forum but I can’t find anything that really answers my questions so her goes. I want to create a complete wireless home network from scratch but I don’t have a massive budget. I felt that with 3 laptops, an iPad and 2 iPhones it was about time we did something. I am reasonably tech savvy but I am a little out of my comfort zone with this so I am wanting a bit of guidance from someone who knows more about these things. I need to update my router due to a change of IP and will be going for a dual radio N series, probably Linksys (for no other reason that are made by Cisco who know what they are doing). I will then connect my HP wireless printer to it and we are now at the end of knowledge! I want a central server to store all of our files (Word, Excel, etc), photos, audio and eventually video and then be able to access all of those files for a wireless audio system, TV, laptops and iPads etc. I also want it to be fully and automatically backed up. I have read good things about the Synology DS211J and I think it will do what I want but an not 100% sure. Now for the audio. I want to have multiple zones in the house and the obvious choice would be Sonos as they get very good reviews, I very much like the iPad/iPhone control app for it and I like the thought of linking to something like Spotify. But my wife and I have separate iTunes libraries and want to keep them separate. I’m not sure what the file type is but we haven’t changed anything so it will be the default. I’m not/can’t re-rip the CD’s again into a different file type because we don’t have them anymore (I didn’t know that we have broken many a copyright law buy doing that until only last week when it was on the news!) so we’re stuck with what we have. Will the Sonos system be able to stream the default iTunes file directly from the server and keep the 2 iTunes accounts separate? If not, is there are system out there that will? Can you recommend a good value system for streaming video? We aren’t massive movie buffs so don’t want to spend a massive amount. But once I have the wireless server up and running I like the idea of having all of our movies ready to watch at the touch of a button. I have thought about going down the Apple Airplay route for all of this but I don’t think that it is as good as Sonos, but having never used it I don’t really know. Any thoughts on my little project would be very much appreciated.

 

[The_Lhc]

Paragraphs dude!

But my wife and I have separate iTunes libraries and want to keep them separate. Will the Sonos system be able to stream the default iTunes file directly from the server and keep the 2 iTunes accounts separate?

No it won't, you can specify two different shares for Sonos to look at but it'll group all the files it finds together. If you have any seperate iTunes playlists you can import those and use them though (with a few caveats surrounding pathnames to the files).

Incidentally if any of your iTunes songs are downloads with DRM on the Sonos won't be able to play them, other than that it'll play any iTunes format. If you've left everything on the default settings that'll be fairly low bit-rate though.

 

[amcluesent]

Sonos do a FAQ on their system - https://www.sonos.com/graphics/rn/FAQ825/sonos_music_primer.pdf

TBH, making a single jump to a fully networked home server, multi-zoned music and av streaming isn't trivial. Are your laptops Apple macs? If so, I'd be thinking keeping within the Apple family with a TimeMachine, Airport Express and Apple TV

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies. I have read the Sonos faqs thanks and I think that will do what I want. As long as the 2 libraries stay separate in the hard drive I don't mind if the are viewed as one through the player. A lot of our music is downloaded so will be DRM protected so will need to look into that. Unfortunately our laptop are PCs not Macs. I realise that it may be tricky to set up but was possibly thinking it might be easier than it perhaps is. My plan is doing it in stages so starting with the router and attached hard drive as that's the most important, especially as we don't really have anything backed up. But as I we be doing it in stages I want to make sure that what I buy got a start is going to compatable with the final plan. Is AirPlay similar to Sonos in that it will stream Internet radio and from say Spotify or will it only stream iTunes libraries?

 

[The_Lhc]

Thanks for the replies. I have read the Sonos faqs thanks and I think that will do what I want. As long as the 2 libraries stay separate in the hard drive I don't mind if the are viewed as one through the player.

That will be entirely down to you and how you copy your libraries from your PCs to the network hard drive, Sonos won't touch or change your music files at all, it works purely on a read-only basis.

A lot of our music is downloaded so will be DRM protected so will need to look into that.

I believe you can instruct iTunes to replace the tracks with non-DRM versions now (at a cost though), this might also bring a bitrate upgrade if you're lucky.