Can I play Flac files direct from a USB hard drive connected to the Port?

No, the Sonos plays music from a network location, and doesn’t have the ability to read directly from USB sticks. Many, although not all, router’s provide an opportunity to set up USB sticks as NAS drives when connected directly to the router’s USB port, you may want to check the manual for your own router to see if it supports such a feature. 

Many thanks.  It’s not a USB stick, but a small (2 TB) external hard drive.  I thought maybe I could use a USB to ethernet adapter - but it sounds like that won’t work.  I have thought about using one of the USB ports in the router (Arris BGW 210), but I wasn’t sure how I would get the Sonos Port to “see it” in the network.  Is there a “how to” somewhere on that subject?

I haven’t ruled out an NAS server, but my IT skills are fairly modest.  Are there recommendations anywhere on what kind of NAS and software would work well with the Sonos Port?  BTW, when I rip and play files Ion my Windows laptop , I use the J River Media Center.  Now, the FLAC files will play through my Sony BDP without the software, so I know that they can be played without the software if the device can play FLAC files.  Thanks again!

Either way, stick or HD, it needs to be on the network. It can’t be read directly by Sonos. If there is a ‘how to’, it would be specific to your router make and model. As I suggested, check the manual, or perhaps do a google search on your router and the term NAS setup,

Sonos is a networked system, so any NAS that exists on your network would be fine. Right now, there’s a minor caveat that the NAS needs to accept SMB v1, but the expectation is that will change with the upcoming software revision. 

Thanks again.  The router manual confirmed that the USB ports for the ATT model are for “charging only” so that is not an option.  Thanks for the tip on SMB v1, since that’s one element of the alphabet soup of NAS specs.  Since the Sony Blu Ray player is also on the network, does that mean there is a way for the Sonos Port to access it?    

I don’t think so, I don’t believe it is a network location, but instead accesses the network. You could, however, check the manual for it for further details. 

Bruce,  Thanks again.  In the meantime, I have accessed the USB drive with the FLAC files through my laptop, and added them to the Sonos music library, so I know that the concept works!   There’s over 1,200 jazz CDs on the drive, so it took awhile.  I’d like to free myself from having to have the laptop up and booted for access to the music, so I’m going to try an older Windows 7 laptop that is sitting around collecting dust.    

Completely understand. Sometimes, getting music setups to match hardware requirements Seems to be a ‘thing’, but I think you’ll find the one time effort to be worth it. I was happy when I moved my library from my Mac to an NAS as well. 

This is probably a good candidate for a Raspberry PI based homebuilt NAS.  I know a few people here have set them up.  Searching these forums for Raspberry would help.  Just make sure it’s configured for SMBv1. (crossing fingers for S2 to finally overcome this hurdle.)

Something simple like this RAVPower Filehub might work well for you. available on amazon.

Thanks guys.  The RAVPower Filehub looks really interesting.  Given the cost, it might be worth a try before committing to an NAS.    My IT skills are ‘modest’ (to use a kind word), and so the task of building and configuring a Raspberry Pi may be too challenging for me.   Configuring an out of the box NAS is going to be a stretch for me.

So, as an example of my lack of knowledge, especially about networking,  it’s not clear to me how the Sonos system would “find” something like the RAV-PFH?  Would I try and install a Sonos app on this device?  Would I ethernet it directly to the Sonos Port?  If not, how would I connect something like this to the Sonos network?

So far, I’m a couple of hours into trying to get the old W7 laptop and USB drive combination to allow access to the “Music Library” in Sonos.  It tells me it’s still indexing, so I’m trying to be hopeful.     

You mentioned you have an Arris BGW210 and ATT service so based on one version of it’s manual (here) you may have both ethernet ports and wireless available to connect. You might even be able to power the Filehub from one of the USB ports since it uses a regular USB-A to microUSB cable.

The RAVPower Filehub manual is here.

If you have a simple local LAN and an ethernet port available and space near the router it would be simple to attach that way and not worry about the wireless setup. Wireless isn’t hard to setup though.

For file access you can use the Win File Service(Samba) option (page 26, provides SMBv1 which is the Windows file sharing protocol Sonos can use). If you use this you’ll be able to access the disk and add/remove/move the files around without moving the disk to your laptop first. This will provide what Sonos calls a Music Library (Sonos App>Settings>System>Music Library).

Or, if you only want access to the music on the disk, just turn on the DLNA Service option. This will provide a DLNA/UPnP service you can access (uses http) via the Media Server option in Sonos (Sonos App>Settings>System>Media Servers). Of course you can try each out and see which works best. 

Keep in mind the Filehub and similar devices are pretty low-end devices so don’t expect to be able to serve more than one or two simultaneous streams of music/video.

Hope this helps.

edit: fixed “Media Servers” in second Sonos App menu reference above. 

Huzzah!  The temporary system is up and running through Sonos.  I’m running the “old Windows 7 Dell Laptop” as a server.  It’s connected via ethernet to the Sonos Port, and the laptop is connected to the USB Drive with the FLAC music files.  

I was able to add the FLAC files to the Music Library function of Sonos.  I’m not sure how ‘stable’ or robust this set-up will be, but there was room enough in the cabinet to hide the old laptop, so my wife will be happy.  I’m going to order the Filehub as well so I have backup, in case the current set up  gets quirky.   

I’ve also got a bunch of films on the same USB drive, so now I’ll still have to get those onto to another USB drive I have around as a back-up, so the second drive can get plugged back into the Blu-Ray.  Of course, all these media files just make more argument for the NAS.

Thanks again to Bruce, David and AF Teacher for your help and education.  You guys do the “Sonos Community” proud.  

So, I’m still working my old W7 laptop + USB combination connected by ethernet directly to the Sonos Port.  I get the occasional message (1000 something) that there has been a “problem adding tracks to the queue”, but then it mostly plays them anyway.   I checked the support page for this, but It didn’t seem to apply. . .

I’ve disconnected the Wi-Fi from this laptop, since I’m using it in a hardwired configuration, and I thought maybe that was slowing the “buffering”?  Is there something else I can do?  I closed the Sonos app on this laptop as well.  Do I need to do something else to help the speed, and prevent the queue issues?  Would leaving the window open for the USB drive help? (sorry if that sounds really dumb) 

There are more than 1,200 hours of FLAC files in the library, so it seems like a large amount of data.  Maybe it’s too big for the library?

I’m waiting for the Filehub gizmo to arrive before I try and check that out.  Thanks again for any advice.  

it would be most useful to know the exact error message. just as an initial guess, sonos can have an issue adding very large playlists to the queue if the music source library is slow. since you mention 1200 hours of FLAC files i wonder if you have a large playlist as well?

It’s Error 1002.  It seems I get the message, but then if I wait a few seconds and hit play again, it will play the “CD”.  I haven’t used a playlist.  I play the “album” as it comes up.  I guess that means that the “Playlist” is actually the album tracks?  

I looked up error 1002, but I’m not sure how it relates to my set-up.  It mentions the “NAS drive taking too long to respond”.  I’m guessing this applies to my W7 laptop/USB hard drive combination.  That’s the reason I was asking if there was something I could do to improve the speed of that combination.   Since I’m hard wired into the Sonos Port, it didn’t seem logical to me that it would relate to the Wi-Fi connection. Thanks again.

Error 1002 is the one I thought most likely. I’ve only seen it on very large playlists (~1000 or more tracks) and usually only when I shuffle them since it takes time to gather and process the data. Just adding an album (guessing 10-20 tracks) to the Sonos queue shouldn’t cause this issue with a nominally well performing setup. This could be an issue with the speed and settings of your laptop or network connection. You mentioned it took a long time for the Sonos to index your library earlier in this thread so that may be another indicator of the performance issues. I don’t know how your network is setup in general but would expect since you have the laptop connected directly to the Port the problem might be in either the ethernet cable or settings on the laptop.

I’ll be interested to hear if the Filehub performs better - with a minimal setup as a Filehub it will only have one job and might be just what you need.

If you’re serious about making this work reliably and with your large music library it might be better to invest a bit more in a media server. Something like Plex Media Server on your laptop or a Raspberry Pi and adding the Plex client on Sonos would be a simple solution for less than $100 (nearer to free if you dedicate the laptop). If you went with something like an RPi you could also use that to stream your movie files to the TV via the HDMI connection.

Thanks.  Interestingly, I’m not getting the queue error 1002 today.  The “albums: are playing the first time, without any error messages.  Maybe the changes I made in closing the Sonos program on the laptop, or disconnecting from the internet are working?  I can’t see that there are any other changes, except a bit of time.   I’ve gone through 4-5 albums today without any issues.  If this continues to be OK, I’ll go with this set-up for a while.   It may be that the fewest complications work best for me (some version of Occam’s Razor?).

In the meantime, I’ve tried to hook up the RavFH by laptop and phone, using another hard disk I have for the purpose.  I can get to the hard disk, and use the file management properties, but that’s where I’ve hit a dead end.  There’s a section for “Music”, but so far I cannot figure out how to put something there from the hard drive.  It won’t allow any drag and drop or cut and paste into this area, but I tried a few times.  

When I connect the RavFH, it disconnects either laptop or phone from my Wi-Fi, so that leaves me wondering what the heck is going on.  I can get to the Samba / DLNA choice, on the laptop or the phone, but then I go into endless loop again (p 26 of the manual).  The instructions and my limited understanding don’t seem to be a good combination.  I’m still uncertain which mode I’m supposed to be in.  Thanks again.

If this continues to be OK, I’ll go with this set-up for a while.   It may be that the fewest complications work best for me (some version of Occam’s Razor?).

truth. :-)

Hello,
as david82 mentions the ravpowers seems really interesting for guys like me that already have their music on an external drive and don’t need to inverst on an elaborate NAS system. 

From what is described above all i need is a Ravpower device that

1. will be connected to a free ethernet port on my rooter or an ethernet switch port if there are no available ethernet ports on the rooter. 
2. i just connect my external drive to Ravpower on its USB port
3. i get RAvpower IP address and connect to this device using a browser on a laptop, desktop or even mobile device. 
4. As David says i need to enable Win File Service(Samba) option, in order to transfer, delete, update the music folder, which lies on my external drive connected to RavPower, from any other device connected to the same wifi or appartments’ local network so that i edit my music gallery whenever needed
5. I somehow get the IP address of the ravpower device plus the part to my music folder, in order to feed it to SONOS settings so that i can finally access and play music with sonos speakers on various rooms. 

Are these more or less the steps needed to set up and play music in SONOS using the ravpower? It sounds simple but now that i read it i am scared something in the way will go the “other way”

thanks

Yianns

Yiannis,   I wish I could be more help to you.  I couldn’t figure out the steps for the RAV.  I went through multiple procedural variations, and just kept getting caught in the same failure loops.  I already had a solution with an older (Windows 7) laptop as a dedicated “server” for the USB hard drive, which has worked very well for me.  If you are able to get the RAV to work, please post the detailed steps.  I couldn’t make sense of the RAV directions either, so it might just be my limited abilities.  

thanks for your reply deepspace

I also asked Ravpower directly and told me that their hubs do not connect with Sonos, something you also realised the hard way. There is a user here who posted that it worked for him, which is strange. 

Next step is to look for a Odroid solution, it costs around 50-60 euros and you can attach to it an external hard drive and have it as a NAS server. 

I still havent understood how exactly this happens as it is the first time i have to deal with NAS and its settings but i suppose that it wont be that hard (from info i fould it seems to be much easier than using a Raspberry PI and its a faster machine overall). 

Yet, its strange that we have to do such a research for something that so many people probably already use. 

Y,  it looks like you've done some good research here.  I agree with you that it should be an easier subject, but it does seem to fall between Hi-Fi and IT.

Before Sonos,  I used my DVD player to play the Flac files.  Sonos is so much better.  Please post if your proper equipment works.  You can always consider a used inexpensive laptop to use as the server for you USB hard drive.

I've used J River software for managing my Flac library (over 1,500 CDs) and I ran across the Raspberry Pi as a way to interface the library, but i didn't think I was tech savvy enough to be confident.

Sonos works great as being able to access all the Flac music files and use my phone as the remote to play through the Hi Fi system.  It's much better than my DVD approach which was awkward and limited.