Question

Moving music files to new server and existing playlists

  • 14 January 2017
  • 5 replies
  • 991 views

I have purchased a QNAP NAS and will be moving all my music files from an old NAS to the new server and also setting up Plex with Sonos. I have created a ton of playlists through the SONOS app, once I point SONOS to the new location of the music files with the playlists continue to work or will they all have to be created again?

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5 replies

Since a Playlist is a list of pointers to file locations I would expect your old Playlists will stop working unless you can use the same share name for the new location. If you change the path in setup and then re-index your library I would expect you will see the cover art disappear in all of your Playlists and you will get an error if you try to play them.

If you can't use the same share name then maybe somebody can suggest a good way to apply a path change to your existing Playlists.
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I suggest you rename your old NAS and give the new NAS the same name as your old NAS. Set up the shares with identical names and mirror/copy the contents from your old NAS to your new one. The track paths will be the same as before and your Sonos playlists should continue to work.

I'm looking into replacing my 5 year old QNAP NAS with the QNAP TS-453A so that I can run Plex for movies, home videos and photos. I don't think I will be using Plex with Sonos though. Which QNAP do you have and have you set it up for movies? I need confirmation that the QNAP TS-453A can handle 4K (using Plex) before I purchase as my Home Videos for the last couple of years have been filmed in 4K. My TV plays the 4K videos from my wifi-laptop running Plex using Direct Stream (no transcoding) so I'm hoping it will work fine with the new NAS. It's a lot of money (especially after adding 2x 8Tb drives) so I don't want to purchase it and then be disappointed!!! I'm not bothered about playing 4K videos on other devices. I just want to play them on my TV.
Which QNAP do you have and have you set it up for movies? I need confirmation that the QNAP TS-453A can handle 4K (using Plex) before I purchase as my Home Videos for the last couple of years have been filmed in 4K. My TV plays the 4K videos from my wifi-laptop running Plex using Direct Stream (no transcoding) so I'm hoping it will work fine with the new NAS. It's a lot of money (especially after adding 2x 8Tb drives) so I don't want to purchase it and then be disappointed!!! I'm not bothered about playing 4K videos on other devices. I just want to play them on my TV.[/quote]

I purchased the TS-251+ with two 4TB NAS drives. I previously had all my content on a Buffalo NAS and some of my media on a Mac mini running OS X Server with two LaCie Thunderbolt Drives for backup. I think the QNAP system will handle everything very well. I've moved all my documents over to it, and mainly have a lot of music and music videos, home videos, and TV shows. It is a lot of money to put out and I hope the 4TB drive will suffice, if not I can add on. Both the 251 and 451 can handle 4K. I don't have any 4K content, but would like to give it a try! Do you use any cloud backup services or all on your own network?
I haven't tried this with recent SONOS updates, but an undocumented feature will usually figure out a library relocation.

I suggest copying the fines, then change the Music Library setup. The worst that can happen is that the playlists will not work and you'll have wasted some time on the re-index. I this does not work out you can always swap drive names.
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I purchased the TS-251+ with two 4TB NAS drives. I previously had all my content on a Buffalo NAS and some of my media on a Mac mini running OS X Server with two LaCie Thunderbolt Drives for backup. I think the QNAP system will handle everything very well. I've moved all my documents over to it, and mainly have a lot of music and music videos, home videos, and TV shows. It is a lot of money to put out and I hope the 4TB drive will suffice, if not I can add on. Both the 251 and 451 can handle 4K. I don't have any 4K content, but would like to give it a try! Do you use any cloud backup services or all on your own network?


I have all my music uploaded to iTunes Match and also Google Play. My photos since 2007 have also been uploaded to Google photos without using full quality (free mode).

The QNAP TS-453A is classified as a 4K NAS but I've heard that Plex can only do software transcoding and can't use the hardware of the NAS. I don't think I need transcoding of 4K content as I will only play that on my 4K TV which can direct stream.

My alternative of replacing the NAS is to wait and try out the Plex Cloud solution that is currently in beta. I'm not sure if this is going to be able to support 4K content though. In the short term I think I will make backups to USB drives rather than splashing out a lot of money on a new NAS.