I want to stream my husband’s music library (ripped CDs) to our Sonos Ray. I do not want the PC on all the time. I don’t want it in the cloud. I tried the USB flash drive but apparently misread my router capabilities. I would like a good basic NAS that will stream a minimum of 28 GB of music to the Sonos Ray. It must be turn key. I have someone who will help me with set up if I run into difficulties, but I do not have the knowledge to build my own. And I don’t have the patience to learn. I was looking at the Synology Beestation but am seeing indications that it’s not a “true” NAS and might not be what I need. Looking at a Linkstation but truly was hoping someone could point me in the direction of a good basic NAS for this purpose. Many thanks.
Recommendation for turn key NAS for Sonos Ray
Pretty much any NAS is going to be good enough but I'll include a couple links to major brand, pre-configured ones. Pretty much what you mentioned and details are sparse qnd hard to find but both support the SMB v2 that Sonos needs.
https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-LinkStation-Private-Storage-Included/dp/B00JKM0A36/ref=sr_1_2
If you are willing to install a drive there are more options, also lesser known brands.
If you will spend a bit more on a 2 drive NAS there are a lot more options but they will be far more than Sonos needs.
Personally I set up a Raspberry Pi as an SMB server, far less unneeded nonsense or manufacturer's silly games. That it was dirt cheap (how cheap depends on wanting wired or wireless) rock solid (been running with no attention for months) tiny, low power and silent sealed the deal. Ask your tech guy about that as an option.
Forgot to add this important link for Raspberry Pi NAS use, it removes all the technical stuff and makes setup easy.
https://www.openmediavault.org/
Free software, download and use. Good support too.
I appreciate your faith in my abilities.:) I’ve learned that I do better getting what I need rather than trying to delve into the put it together mode when my understanding flares at the example of modifying the RAID. I know RAID is helpful. I just don’t get exactly what it is.
ANYWAY. So the Synology BeeStation will stream music as well? I guess that’s part of my sticking point with it. I can’t seem to find any reviews that speak to using it to stream music. If it’s likely to work as well or better, I’d lean that way given the ease that seems to be described. I do like the sound that the Linkstation could do more but realistically, I’m not sure if I would be able to find someone to guide me through working on it in the eventuality that I decided to expand it.
Personally Synology NAS (not sure about Beestation) + appropriate disc(s) and you can't go wrong - as long as you can plug it into your router, access it, create a shared folder, populate it and supply a path to Sonos* then you should be OK... From experience (Western Digital) a 'cloud' NAS solution is best avoided as it over complicates 🤷🏼♂️
You will have to cope with a bit of a learning curve regardless of NAS choice unfortunately...
(* this and preceding list is something you will have to do regardless of make choice...)
Honestly, I skipped all the stuff about the Synology that wasn't related to the Sonos music library. There is a lot of stuff there, as with many other consumer devices, they pack in every feature they can to get more tick-marks in reviews.
What I checked was to see that both supported SMB v2 and better as that is what the S2 Sonos uses to connect to the library.
RAID is really simple to understand, it is a way to connect multiple disk drives so that the data is stored in a manner that will allow it to be recovered if one of the drives fails. Sadly the simple ends there as there many classes of RAID that vary in capability, speed and storage efficiency. If you have other backups of your data then for Sonos use RAID is not really a factor. If you don't maybe learning more would be good and prepare you for the inevitable oopsie my data is gone situation.
For a basic Sonos music library server pretty much any commercial NAS is way more than you need. Unless the other functions look like something you'll use they are just clutter around the basic SMB system.
Your comment about your abilities is tempting me to write a tutorial for Sonos / Open Media Vault / Raspberry Pi use.
Here I originally went simple, I added a Pi with an SMB share, hung a USB drive on it to gold the music and stuck it out of sight. I'm bringing up a more complex setup, still Pi based that uses an external USB enclosure that has RAID 1 (mirrored drives, that need double the space for data) to replace my aging big NFS serving NAS, and two M.2 drive connectors, using one to provide the SMB share. For far less and with less useless cruft than a consumer NAS box.
Go with what works,for you, Sonos will. E happy to use it as long as it does SMB v2.
Please don't 😂🤣...😭
No worries, it wouldn't get posted here but on my Live Journal account with my other (very old) Sonos and Pi tutorials.
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