External storage or network storage for streaming audio at home?

April 1, 2006 11:58 AM

I'm using a Squeezebox to stream music from my 'puter (running XP) and my wife's (running OS X) to my amplifier via my wifi connection. It's time to get me some external storage so we can combine libraries, so I'm looking for either a plain ol' external drive OR a networked storage drive. Question is: can I get away with an external drive or do I need networked storage to make this work? I've read through similar archived questions but haven't quite gotten the clarity I so desperately need. More inside....

Here's the issues:

* The Squeezebox uses Slimserver software, meaning one of our computers has to be running to be able to stream music. I'm fine with this (in other words, I don't need to run software on this new drive).

* We don't want to have the drive physically attached to one of the computers at all times if we can avoid it. So I'm hoping this server can have an IP on our wireless network. Obviously this is possible with networked storage, but can it be done with a regular external drive? The cost per GB is much lower this way, so it would be nice. If so, what else would I need to purchase to give it an IP?

Clearly I'm networking-ignorant, so please be gentle.

Also: bonus points for recommendations of storage with good read speeds (in this case, they'll be a lot of readin' and not all that much writin').

Happy to answer followups if I've omitted important info....

posted by alexfw to technology (9 comments total)

What you want to do cannot be done with a USB or Firewire drive unless it is connected to a computer, or you have a really funky router that has a USB connection (such a thing does exist - you can get wireless routers that have USB connections so they can mount a drive and share it on the network).

What you're really going to need is a "NAS" (Network Accessible Storage) drive. You can buy a NAS drive prepackaged, or you can buy a NAS enclosure (a box that you put your own hard drive in), and find a good cheap hard drive after rebate by checking sites like slickdeals periodically.

It will usually be cheaper to buy a NAS enclosure and put in a drive than to buy an premade drive.

Because you just want to serve up music - you really do not need to worry about read speed on your media. A cheap 5400RPM drive is more than enough to stream mp3s. If you were streaming high definition video, then you might want to worry about that.

I would google around for NAS enclosure review and see what people are saying about the various boxes, then look at their prices.
posted by twiggy at 12:37 PM on April 1, 2006

I second twiggy's conclusion. Another option, if you were game for it, would be to run everything under linux on an old PC. I've been doing that with the slimserver software for several years and have been very happy with it.
posted by roue at 12:44 PM on April 1, 2006

If you're using iTunes, you can add songs to the library (on either the XP or OS X machine) over the network. Just make certain that you're not copying files from one machine to the other (there's an option in iTunes preferences that controls this).

Squeezebox can use iTunes playlists just fine. It should be possible to stream music from both machines without having to resort to external storage. The downside is that both machines have to be running and connected to the network for this to work. If one is down, those tracks simply won't play and will be flagged with an exclamation point in iTunes.

That said, it's more elegant to use a single drive for all of your media. I have everything on a Firewire drive connected to my Mini. As has been mentioned previously, you can get a network drive, but I don't quite see the advantage in that. Your machine needs to be running in order to use the Squeezebox anyway, so what difference does it make if the drive is connected? Other computers will still be able to access the music over the network, etc.
posted by aladfar at 1:22 PM on April 1, 2006

Thanks everyone. Sounds like NAS is the way to go (and I guess I'll be getting a little less networking-ignorant). I was hoping there might be a little adapter-thingy that could attach to the drive and magically get it on the network....

I'd thought about the old-PC-running-Linux option, but unfortunately don't have an old PC lying around.

aladfar -- the reason that just keeping the external drive connected isn't an option is that we both have laptops and tend to move around a bit with them....
posted by alexfw at 1:56 PM on April 1, 2006

I had a feeling you might be using laptops. NAS is probably the way to go. Good luck!

P.S. I have the original SliMP3 attached to my wireless router. I absolutely love the thing.
posted by aladfar at 4:36 PM on April 1, 2006

The Linksys NSLU2 will let you hook a USB drive to the network for a simple NAS. It runs linux and I think people have a way of running slim server on it directly. I've also seen other NAS solutions that either ship with slim server, or have a community supported version.
posted by Good Brain at 5:39 PM on April 1, 2006

or you have a really funky router

The "really funky routers" cost around $100, usually feature a couple of USB ports, and the savings in electricity over a year or two compared to running a superfluous PC for the same task is several hundred dollars. There's also the zero-admin factor.

The ASUS WL-500G Deluxe is a nice one - it's user-upgradable using to Linux software such as OpenWRT, DD-WRT, and can function as a mini, power-saving PC if you want it to do so.
posted by meehawl at 5:33 AM on April 2, 2006

Thanks meehawl -- I will be looking a little more closely at this as well. As usual AskMe is coming through.
posted by alexfw at 3:07 PM on April 2, 2006

I have heard good things on the SlimDevices list about the ReadyNAS from Infrant Technologies.

It is fast, has RAID, and can run slimserver. Of course, all that means it is more expensive than more basic NAS set ups. I think a ReadyNAS NV with 1 250G drive is about $800. A TB is about $1300. I think you can also buy it without drives and perhaps save $ buy hitting up the weekly hard drive deals.

I'm hoping the price will come down in the future. That's the only thing preventing me from getting one to use w/my Squeezebox...
posted by shakobe at 3:36 PM on April 2, 2006