[ratso]

i am thinking about getting a big azz NAS to hold all my music/movies. if i do this (and if it will work) i could also seriously downsize some gear i have accumulated. i presently have a small buffalo nas to hold various junk. my music is stored/served on a vortexbox appliance to a squeezebox touch. i also have a external HDD to back up the vortexbox. if i get a this:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=A2362487&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch

couldn't i just stream music from it to my squeezebox touch (or another music server if i decide to upgrade later)? before you answer, a note: my music is all flac files so i do NOT use itunes to stream music. i know you used to be able to get a nas and squeezebox to talk to each other, but it was not a simple process. i am hoping that things are now more plug and play. please enlighten me!

[GBB]

i am thinking about getting a big azz NAS to hold all my music/movies . . . please enlighten me!

I recently did something similar.  I bought a QNAP TS-219+ (http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=182) and loaded it with 2x 2TB drives in a RAID configuration.  You can run Squeezecenter directly on the QNAP and stream to your squeezebox.  It handles flac files just fine.  If you haven't used it in a while it tends to go to sleep and takes a while to wake itself up when you want to play music.  Other than getting used to that, it's been a seamless transition from running Squeezecenter on my big desktop, which I now leave off most of time.

I'm sure there are ways of running similar setups on other NAS devices.  There is some discussion of this on the SqueezeboxWiki - http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SqueezeCenter.  But it was particularly simple on the QNAP since QNAP provides all the tools to run it without having to mess around. 

---Gary

[firedog]

if you are only going to use the NAS as a storage device (with SBS on your vortexbox machine) you will have no problem.

If you want to load SBS on the Buffalo NAS and use the NAS as your SBS, you may or may not have problems. Depends on the capabilities of the NAS.  Try this thread over at SB forums, the answer you need is probably there, or you can get an authoritative answer there:
http://forums.slimdevices.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18

[chip]

What about installing vortexbox on this with 4 drives in it - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859105905&cm_re=hp_microserver-_-59-105-905-_-Product

[ratso]

thanx for the help/suggestions guys. it's been a long time since i looked into this - i was under the assumption (faulty memory) that the buffalo was the easiest nas to make everything play nice. actually, that's wrong (and it looks like nothing has changed since i last looked at it). it's a real bear to get things like squeezebox on a buffalo. what it looks like i need is actually one of the faster models of netgear's readynas - i think i'm going to go with an ultra 4. most of the things i want to do i can already do with my vortexbox appliance but i think i will eventually need more room (i can fit my music on it but i am now thinking of storing dvd's and blu rays on it and those eat up space pdq).

[chip]

Also have you thought about diy and unraid?

[ratso]

i will leave that to the more ambitious (and knowledgeable). i am more plug and play here