Twisted_Firestarter

Suggestions please!

I'm looking for a good Network Attached Storage device. It will be primarily for my iTunes music, so built-in iTunes streaming support is a high-priority. Wat protocol is that? I see some NAS devices claim iTunes media streaming support, but I don't see any info on what exactly that means..and I'm pretty sure I read somewhere it's more than just pointing iTunes at a remote directory to get working properly when you have multiple users accessing that directory. Then I see posts like this one which indicate you can't use album art or rate songs if they are on a NAS? Surely that can not be correct, can it?

It will also serve up photos and other media too. I don't particularly care about uber performance, so RAID support is not a necessity. It needs to have an ethernet connection--wireless is not necessary.

Any suggestions?

TF

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Twisted Firestarter
a.k.a |TG| Harkonian

Apophis

Rather than a device would you consider building your own appliance?

Two software applications come to mind:

Openfiler - Openfiler is a powerful, intuitive browser-based network storage software distribution. Openfiler delivers file-based Network Attached Storage and block-based Storage Area Networking in a single framework.

Openfiler uses the rPath Linux metadistribution. It is distributed as a stand-alone Linux distribution. The entire software stack interfaces with third-party software that is all open source.

File-based networking protocols supported by Openfiler include: NFS, SMB/CIFS, HTTP/WebDAV and FTP. Network directories supported by Openfiler include NIS, LDAP (with support for SMB/CIFS encrypted passwords), Active Directory (in native and mixed modes) and Hesiod. Authentication protocols include Kerberos 5.

Openfiler includes support for volume-based partitioning, iSCSI (target and initiator), scheduled snapshots, resource quota, and a single unified interface for share management which makes allocating shares for various network file-system protocols a breeze.

FreeNAS - FreeNAS is a free NAS (Network-Attached Storage) server, supporting: CIFS (samba), FTP, NFS, AFP, RSYNC, iSCSI protocols, S.M.A.R.T., local user authentication, Software RAID (0,1,5) with a Full WEB configuration interface. FreeNAS takes less than 32MB once installed on Compact Flash, hard drive or USB key.
The minimal FreeBSD distribution, Web interface, PHP scripts and documentation are based on M0n0wall.

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ScratchMonkey

It probably can't handle streaming media, but if you just want cheap NAS, check out the Linksys NSLU2 (affectionately known as the "slug"). You can re-flash it with custom Linux firmware do be a tiny server for all kinds of things. It's slightly smaller than a paperback.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2

Hmm, looking at that page, I see people have used it to serve DAAP, which is the iTunes protocol. So it might work for you.

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Apophis

I've used both FreeNAS and OpenFiler for streaming media without any issues. FreeNAS has a built-in DNLA compliant media server that I use to stream rips of my DVDs upstairs to my PS3. Over wireless, no less.

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Hambergler

Can these work with itunes?

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Acreo Aeneas

Just copy the .mp4 files from iTunes and move it to your NAS device/server. The NAS doesn't need to have iTunes installed.

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Acreo_Aeneas
Former 9th Member

Apophis

I've never tried that specifically. But I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "working with itunes'. Are you saying that you want iTunes to be able to play the media that is on the NAS device or you want to use the NAS device to store your iTunes music? Or something else?

EDIT: Apparently FreeNas has ZeroConf networking support using mDNS so Apple's Bonjour product sees it without a problem. (For whatever that's worth as I'm not sure what Bonjour really does).

With OpenFiler you can install the MT-DAAPD to have it act as an iTunes music server with support for encryption.

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Twisted_Firestarter

Thanks for all the great info, Apo! I would typically be happy to roll my own server, but this is something I would really prefer not to have to deal with at all. I'd just like to plug it in and forget it. Although, if there isn't anything in a decent price range that does what I want I will build if I have to.

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Twisted Firestarter
a.k.a |TG| Harkonian

Twisted_Firestarter

Actually, I'm doing more research on DAAP and maybe I really don't want or need it...check out this thread:

And one of the responses:

So, all DAAP gets you is the ability to stream music to your PC, which is cool, but what I really want (and what I assume any sane person who wants a central repository for their music wants) is the ability to have my music files available anywhere on the network so I can synch my iPhone/iPod/etc easily. Maybe there just isn't a way to do this with iTunes. I know if I simply point my iTunes library at a share nothing will synch correctly, e.g. if I add some songs and some playlists from one computer they will not show up in iTunes on another computer since I tunes will keep the library XML file locally.

Argh. This should not be that complicated.

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Twisted Firestarter
a.k.a |TG| Harkonian

ScratchMonkey

Aha. What you're asking for is a central repository of meta information about the music. Not the music itself. You don't need streaming for that. Streaming is for low-bandwidth storage (ie. the Internet) where you can't guarantee the media will load quickly enough to keep up with the play rate. Local NAS is much faster than the required streaming rate, so you don't need "streaming" in the Internet sense.

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birdie_in_Texas

OK..so this thing you are talking about Apophis..what would that take..? more than a hard-drive in an enclosure? or a whole 'nother machine? I still have that little barton 2500+ that "was" the CS server just setting idle...or another little 2600+ AMD, the one i volunteered that you "sneered" at..! hahahah just kidding..

it woul dbe very beneficial for me to have saya 1TB drive setting on my gigabit router that i could get to from outside but especially inside..

so would that officially be called an "ftp" server? i am not a network person much, so i need a bit of help here...let me know what it wil take or if i already have it, and what you think best...

how would i get around not having a static IP with the cable company to access said machine/unit from say, here at work?

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Twisted_Firestarter

LOL, how did I give you that impression Scratch? I want to store everything in a central repository--music, metafile, album art, etc. Basically my scenarios are:

• Open up iTunes from computer A, add some music, add some cover art
• Open up iTunes from computer B, see the added music and cover art
• Open up iTunes from computer A, synch to my iPod
• Open up iTunes from computer B, synch to my iPod
• Open up iTunes from computer A, purhcase a (DRMed or not) track from iTunes
• Open up iTunes from computer B, listen see and listen to newly purchased track.

This is would seem to be an incredibly common scenario for any home network. Yet, it seems the only way to get it even close to working like this is to jump through many many hoops. For example, iTunes does not allow you to specify where you keep your iTunes metadata--it always goes in your "My Music" directory. The only way to trick it into going somewhere else is either editing your registry or using TweakUI to change your My Music directory to point to somewhere else. Lame.

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Twisted Firestarter
a.k.a |TG| Harkonian

ScratchMonkey

There was another thread recently involving a little computer about the size of a hard drive enclosure. It had no HD of its own, and cost about $250. That looks like a good candidate for this kind of application.

To make an internal server visible to the Internet, forward the needed ports from the router. I'd recommend using SFTP over the ssh port, to keep your passwords from being passed in plaintext across the Internet. Check out WinSCP for use as a client.

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ScratchMonkey

The streaming was a red herring and had us focused on the wrong problem.

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Hambergler

I am not familiar with itunes, but isn't what you're describing the entire reason DRM exists. What would be stopping computer a-z from participating.

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