External Storage Device

Pretty much any NAS on the market. I happen to use a WD Mycloud, but mostly because it was on sale.

I am very happy with my Western Digital Live Drive, older version of the MY Cloud. It was easy to set up, checking for updates tot he firmware is easy and aside from dusting it there is nothing else needed.

I've tried a few other brands for external Ethernet connected storage but the WD was not expensive and just works for Sonos storage. Use it as your baseline in looking at other options and you'll end up happy.

If your drive will be visible watch out for ones that have a glaring activity light, that is ugly.

I've been through a number of NAS drives, Buffalo and WD. The latest, a My Book Live bought 4 years ago, long since started acting up. Since my local library has been static for some time -- new music coming from a streaming service -- I simply migrated the FLAC library to a very large flash stick plugged into my router.

a very large flash stick plugged into my router.
For some years, I used a USB HDD in this way; it worked fine for most times except when streaming different music to different rooms. I was advised that the lack of a processor in the HDD meant that the processor in my 2011 make router was being overloaded and causing stuttering. Once I moved to a WD MyCloud, all has worked fine. If this issue isn't present with current generation routers, the memory capability of these sticks now is a neat way to meet this need. Very discreet, and one less mains socket needed.

All great suggestions. This link is an overview on how to add a NAS device to your Sonos system.

Many Wifi Access Points offer the option to make them into a cheap NAS by adding a hard drive. It won't be a speed demon but Sonos' needs are modest.

Given that Sonos continues to rely on SMB1 and NTLM v1 authentication to connect to a local NAS, I would not store anything but a copy of your music on that NAS. That protocol is so old, it's turned off by default on may newer file servers, including Microsoft's, the author of SMB. Enabling SMB1 and NTLM v1 puts your data at risk.

It would be great if Sonos decided to commit to updating the network stack. This is especially relevant now that WannaCry and similar derivatives are circling around exploiting NTLM v1 authentication issues. But in the meantime, I would treat any NAS that has it's SMB access dumbed down to meet the needs of Sonos as burner device.

I don't want to hijack the thread, but I believe my questions are on-topic. Thanks a lot Ratty for mentioning the flash drive option - this answers one of my questions.

How do artists and albums display when accessed from a pendrive/NAS/HDD?

Are there any other considerations I need to make before trying this with a SONOS1?

How do artists and albums display when accessed from a pendrive/NAS/HDD?
Just the same as from any kind of network share. The actual metadata text comes from the library index held in the player (having originally been extracted from the files by an indexing scan), and artwork is fetched on the fly either from the file's metadata or a 'folder.jpg' in the same directory.

It would be great if Sonos decided to commit to updating the network stack.
You hit the 'Wishlist for Sonos Controller Improvements' thread with this demand, at some length. It could get tiresome if you posted the same message onto each and every thread which happens to mention network storage for a local library.