What's the best way to play music from an external hard drive?

February 21, 2015 10:35 AM

What's the best way to play music from an external hard drive?

(For a friend) I have an external hard drive with all my music on it (1TB WD Elements), and can't figure out the best way to access the music. Right now I have a Sonos speaker and play music through my phone, but don't have any way to access music on the drive. I don't have a computer at home, although I do have access to a computer if I need to move the music to another device.

I would prefer an inexpensive, small solution. What's the best way to set this up?

posted by zibra to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Do you have a WiFi box with a USB port? If you do that may enable the drive to be seen by DLNA devices. Then all you need is the appropriate app for your phone.
Info for iPhones.
Info for Android.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:48 AM on February 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Another possibility: Upload all the music to Amazon Cloud Player and you can stream it all. It's $25/yr.
posted by The Deej at 11:02 AM on February 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you have an Android phone, you could upload your music to Google Music and play all of it from your phone.
posted by Tehhund at 2:07 PM on February 21, 2015

You can also upload your music to iTunes Match and then stream it from any iOS device. It's also $25 per year and you will need use a computer (and iTunes) to upload it initially.
posted by Rock Steady at 4:21 PM on February 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Google Music will let you upload 20,000 songs for free, and you can then stream them from a browser (or your phone, as noted above).
posted by oakroom at 5:22 PM on February 22, 2015