Plex / NAS Setup

  • 23 November 2020
  • 15 replies
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Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos.  I currently use Youtube Music but the integration with Sonos is buggy.  

For example, I was thinking of putting my collection on a Synology media server and run Plex to stream it to my Sonos nodes.

Thoughts?


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15 replies

I’m curious as to what’s meant by “the Sonos implementation of Plex” - did Sonos make a fork of Plex?

It explains it here https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3405?language=en_US

I’m curious as to what’s meant by “the Sonos implementation of Plex” - did Sonos make a fork of Plex?

They implemented it so that you could use it from the Sonos Controller (add it as a service)… I believe that the development work was mainly at the Plex end and is receiving no further enhancement.

It’s been a while now since I tried it, though ;-)

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I’m curious as to what’s meant by “the Sonos implementation of Plex” - did Sonos make a fork of Plex?

 

As far as I can see, there’s the main version of Plex (outside of Sonos) and there’s the Sonos version. I only tried the Sonos version, but it was very limited, and hence useless for mixed taste in music - probably OK if you just like one genre.

 

Can you describe what you mean by this? I was planning on streaming through the Plex servers, not the local music library service.

You said “Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos. “ - so my assumption is that you want to stream it locally - otherwise why would you set up a NAS?

The part I didn’t follow was that Plex was useless unless you only like one genre.  It’s your music library on plex, so I don’t see why there genre restrictions were coming from.

I was talking about the Sonos implementation of Plex, which (the couple of times that I tried it) was  limited. It displayed lists in either album or artist order, which is pretty useless with a mix of classical and popular music - which is why I usually only use the Sonos folder view. I keep my folders in a more logical order. The full version of Plex does (IIRC) support the folder view.

If you only liked (say) popular music, then this limitation may not bother you as much as it did me.

 

As far as I can see, there’s the main version of Plex (outside of Sonos) and there’s the Sonos version. I only tried the Sonos version, but it was very limited, and hence useless for mixed taste in music - probably OK if you just like one genre.

 

Can you describe what you mean by this? I was planning on streaming through the Plex servers, not the local music library service.

You said “Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos. “ - so my assumption is that you want to stream it locally - otherwise why would you set up a NAS?

The part I didn’t follow was that Plex was useless unless you only like one genre.  It’s your music library on plex, so I don’t see why there genre restrictions were coming from.

 

Regarding using plex outside of the home, it does work, but you need the premium/paid account for that.

Userlevel 2
Badge +4

Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos.  I currently use Youtube Music but the integration with Sonos is buggy.  

For example, I was thinking of putting my collection on a Synology media server and run Plex to stream it to my Sonos nodes.

Thoughts?

As far as I can see, there’s the main version of Plex (outside of Sonos) and there’s the Sonos version. I only tried the Sonos version, but it was very limited, and hence useless for mixed taste in music - probably OK if you just like one genre.

 

Can you describe what you mean by this? I was planning on streaming through the Plex servers, not the local music library service.

You said “Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos. “ - so my assumption is that you want to stream it locally - otherwise why would you set up a NAS?

Streaming it to my phone / car (when driving), streaming to office setup at work...

In your original post you said ‘stream to my Sonos’ - not to your car… Can’t help there I’m afraid.

The reason for setting up a Plex server with remote access is to kill all those birds with one stone.

Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos.  I currently use Youtube Music but the integration with Sonos is buggy.  

For example, I was thinking of putting my collection on a Synology media server and run Plex to stream it to my Sonos nodes.

Thoughts?

As far as I can see, there’s the main version of Plex (outside of Sonos) and there’s the Sonos version. I only tried the Sonos version, but it was very limited, and hence useless for mixed taste in music - probably OK if you just like one genre.

 

Can you describe what you mean by this? I was planning on streaming through the Plex servers, not the local music library service.

You said “Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos. “ - so my assumption is that you want to stream it locally - otherwise why would you set up a NAS?

Streaming it to my phone / car (when driving), streaming to office setup at work...

In your original post you said ‘stream to my Sonos’ - not to your car… Can’t help there I’m afraid.

Userlevel 2
Badge +4

Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos.  I currently use Youtube Music but the integration with Sonos is buggy.  

For example, I was thinking of putting my collection on a Synology media server and run Plex to stream it to my Sonos nodes.

Thoughts?

As far as I can see, there’s the main version of Plex (outside of Sonos) and there’s the Sonos version. I only tried the Sonos version, but it was very limited, and hence useless for mixed taste in music - probably OK if you just like one genre.

 

Can you describe what you mean by this? I was planning on streaming through the Plex servers, not the local music library service.

You said “Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos. “ - so my assumption is that you want to stream it locally - otherwise why would you set up a NAS?

Streaming it to my phone / car (when driving), streaming to office setup at work...

Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos.  I currently use Youtube Music but the integration with Sonos is buggy.  

For example, I was thinking of putting my collection on a Synology media server and run Plex to stream it to my Sonos nodes.

Thoughts?

As far as I can see, there’s the main version of Plex (outside of Sonos) and there’s the Sonos version. I only tried the Sonos version, but it was very limited, and hence useless for mixed taste in music - probably OK if you just like one genre.

 

Can you describe what you mean by this? I was planning on streaming through the Plex servers, not the local music library service.

You said “Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos. “ - so my assumption is that you want to stream it locally - otherwise why would you set up a NAS?

This brings up an interesting point.  My collection is south of 1TB (probably around 0.8TB at this point). Since 1TB USB drives are available and not terribly expensive, why not just put the whole darn collection on that and plug it into a device from which it can be streamed.  That seems a lot simpler and cheaper than dealing with a NAS.

Or am I missing something?

 

It’s a good question.  This article seems to make me think it would work just fine, particularly if you use a Shield Pro.  If you start using it for video, you run into some limitations.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/221099648-limitations-when-running-plex-media-server-on-nvidia-shield/

 

  I don’t think the TB USB drive would be a complete waste if you start running into performance issues, as you could just get a mini PC with the drive as your plex server as a backup.

 

Full disclosure:  My music collection is much smaller, and is currently at a low bitrate.   I have it all and several movies on a 128 GB stick.  I have contemplated upgrading my bitrate and adding more movies, with a bigger drive, but have yet to find the motivation for that effort.

 

Userlevel 2
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This brings up an interesting point.  My collection is south of 1TB (probably around 0.8TB at this point). Since 1TB USB drives are available and not terribly expensive, why not just put the whole darn collection on that and plug it into a device from which it can be streamed.  That seems a lot simpler and cheaper than dealing with a NAS.

Or am I missing something?

Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos.  I currently use Youtube Music but the integration with Sonos is buggy.  

For example, I was thinking of putting my collection on a Synology media server and run Plex to stream it to my Sonos nodes.

Thoughts?

As far as I can see, there’s the main version of Plex (outside of Sonos) and there’s the Sonos version. I only tried the Sonos version, but it was very limited, and hence useless for mixed taste in music - probably OK if you just like one genre.

 

Can you describe what you mean by this? I was planning on streaming through the Plex servers, not the local music library service.

 

Not following what amun was getting at here either.  I’ve setup and been using plex sparingly for a couple months now.  I like the idea of using plex to manage local libraries rather than Sonos doing it directly.  I do like the interface overall, that I can use the plex app through Sonos, TVs, and mobile devices, and that it manages all media devices.  The downside is that plex mixes in sources not from your library. I can live with that.

FYI, I don’t use a NAS or computer with my setup.  I have a thumb drive stuck in the back of a Nvidia Shield as my plex server.

Userlevel 2
Badge +4

Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos.  I currently use Youtube Music but the integration with Sonos is buggy.  

For example, I was thinking of putting my collection on a Synology media server and run Plex to stream it to my Sonos nodes.

Thoughts?

As far as I can see, there’s the main version of Plex (outside of Sonos) and there’s the Sonos version. I only tried the Sonos version, but it was very limited, and hence useless for mixed taste in music - probably OK if you just like one genre.

 

Can you describe what you mean by this? I was planning on streaming through the Plex servers, not the local music library service.

Can anyone recommend whether I should set up a NAS with Plex support?  I have a large collection of music and would like to stream it to my Sonos.  I currently use Youtube Music but the integration with Sonos is buggy.  

For example, I was thinking of putting my collection on a Synology media server and run Plex to stream it to my Sonos nodes.

Thoughts?

As far as I can see, there’s the main version of Plex (outside of Sonos) and there’s the Sonos version. I only tried the Sonos version, but it was very limited, and hence useless for mixed taste in music - probably OK if you just like one genre.

I use a sacrificial NAS (due to the SMBv1 issue) which happens to be an LG - it could be any NAS, really. This works fine with the standard Sonos software, but it depends on whether you exceed the inbuilt Sonos constraints. How many tracks do you have, and of what type (e.g. pop, blues, classical etc)?

Userlevel 5
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 Hi @mborella, thank you for reaching out to the Sonos community. We appreciate you for bringing this concern to us. Let me help you with this.

If your computer can hold the storage of your large music collection, it should be fine. A NAS drive stays online without the use of a computer, making your music library songs accessible by your Sonos system without having to rely on a computer staying powered on. To use a NAS drive with Sonos, the NAS must support the SMB(v1)/CIFS file-sharing protocol.  Let me share with you the following community threads that may help you out.

https://en.community.sonos.com/music-services-and-sources-228994/synology-nas-6841843

https://en.community.sonos.com/music-services-and-sources-228994/nas-drive-6847062

We can wait for suggestions and feedback from our Sonos community members, they might provide additional information about this. You may also reach out to our Sonos Customer Care support team to further assist you with this. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have further questions or concerns. We are always happy to help out.