setting up S1

the share is called RAS or ras depending on OS - tried both - failed
the server name is the router name which apparently cannot be changed

S2 can only map a local music folder

The share is easily seen by WINDOWS

BUT NOT in S2

i.e. imho upnp in S2 is broken or disabled - no network discovery, no SMB

adding music library is not working if I use the ip address \\192.168.50.1\RAS\music

it is not working if I use \\ZenWiFi_XT8-2790\RAS\music

it is not working if I use \\192.168.50.1\music (dlna name)

S2 is also unable to add the mapped network drive drive S: which points to \\192.168.50.1\ras - which is not shared in Windows

I will notice failure to discover NAS drives form time to time, but this is a W10 issue. As I type, two NAS drives are not seen by File Explorer, but I’m currently playing music through my SONOS system from one of these drives.

Edit: In this particular case SONOS was not playing from the NAS because the drive was  still powered down by an earlier power failure. A familiar album was playing from an online service. The network switch promptly acknowledged the NAS was connected, but W!0 File Explorer seemed to take forever before discovering the drive was back online.

It might be important to be aware that your Sonos system doesn’t really care if Windows can or cannot see the NAS. The Sonos devices are not going through your Windows connection, but is running through the Linux kernel that Sonos operates. The Windows controller is just a remote control that tells the operating system on the Sonos devices where to reach the data. 

The cause is simple:-

the SONOS S2 system is not recognising FDD or SDD with NTFS file systems, a USB stick with FAT32 has no problem

All other devices have no problem mapping the NTFS SMB share.

It is thus most likely a SONOS LINUX problem, not a router problem.
 

update

S2 is the latest “release/update” build 67126143 - though SONOS never publishes release notes a.f.a.i.k.

On the ASUS XT8 router or satellite node

SONOS S1 could easily add the ~43Gb music folder on a USB3 NTFS 1Tb Samsung PSSD T7 to the music library

SONOS S2 cannot add the same folder to the music library

On a satellite XT8 node

• SONOS S2 cannot add the ~43Gb music folder on a FAT32 64Gb USB3.1 stick (SANDISK 3.2 gen1) to the music library
• SONOS S2 cannot add a ~ 7.5Gb music folder on an 8Gb FAT32 USB2 stick (near max capacity of the stick) to the music library

   BUT if you delete some files -

• SONOS S2 can add a ~6.8 - 7.2Gb music folder on an 8Gb FAT32 USB2 stick  to the music library

I now have 2 satellite nodes with an 8Gb FAT32 USB2 stick each, and have added both ~7Gb folders to the music library (“8Gb” - in reality 7.2-7.5Gb)

BESIDES

SONOS S2 does not see any DLNA servers which other devices and applications have no trouble using

My conclusion

unlike SONOS S1, a build with SONOS S2

1. cannot handle SMB shares (SAMBA) on NTFS or FAT32 USB3 of ASUS XT8 mesh pods
2. cannot handle the SAMBA share on an 8Gb FAT32 USB2 device when the music folder is larger than ~7.2Gb max at a time, though there seems to be no problem adding several of them
3. is blind to dlna services (yes the tickbox is marked)

AND

SONOS is apparently unable to work on nowadays commonplace wifi6 or higher multiband mesh networks

• a Wireless-only build with a CONNECT, several Play1 and SONOS ONE in S2 on XT8 mesh network does not work, both in my experience and as documented in various online articles

there are reports of crippling workarounds which are impossible for me
- e.g. using the 2.4GHz band exclusively for SONOS, connecting all speakers to one 2.4GHz only node -

The Asus XT8 has its own problems with Sonos compatibility (search for it on these forums) outside of file share access. You might want to look into that also, especially as you are using Nodes.

 search here for  “sonos mesh networks” => Sonos has problems with many triband or dual band mesh systems

2949 entries

p.s. the 64Gb usb3 drive was exfat not fat32 - windows refuses to format it fat32

one issue cleared - XT8 does not support exfat -

So I formatted the 64gb usb 3.1 sandisk as ntfs

I put a small 6Gb music folder on the drive which was successfully mounted and SMB-shared on the router - then added to SONOS music library successfully

hence it is

• not a USB3 problem,
• not a file system format problem

BUT, when I added files to the folder to see what happens - S2 says that the drive is no longer available - 20Gb on disk, 19Gb files

Therefore UNLIKE S1, SONOS S2 is no longer capable of indexing large drives

S2 is worse than S1
shame on SONOS developers

I currently have five folders in my library with a total of 337GB on my NAS and it’s working fine on S2.

I currently have 6362 folders in my library with a total of 937 GB on my NAS and it's working fine on S2.