Soon to be Touch owner

[DubMarc]

I've been in the process of upgrading the quality of my music library, from when I jumped in several years ago. I now have a lot of it re-ripped to FLAC, as well as some live concert stuff in SHN (and FLAC). My original plan was to focus on converting from those formats to VBR 0 mp3 to load up my iPhone. I still plan to do that, but mainly to fit more on and use in the car and the gym. For home listening, I realized I could pretty easily have better quality, but still getting my head around the most optimal setup.

So, the Touch is on its way. I've got a week or so to prep before it gets here, or maybe I'll take more time, depending on what I learn. I currently have a laptop for local music and iTunes, and a 3 TB external drive sneaker-netted to my laptop and my wife's laptop to archive my music, her pictures/videos, and assorted big files I don't want to load up to Dropbox. I also have an old PC that I was going to turn into a fileserver for us at some point. I just started reading about Vortexbox, so possibly would change my plans there, not sure. Also started reading about NAS, which is another possibility. I'm somewhat comfortable cobbling together and configuring whatever software I might need...my bigger limitation is finding the time to do it.

Finally, if I'm going to set up some sort of music server, I'd love to access it from work. Or even in the car via my iPhone.

With all that in mind, if anyone has some thoughts or could point me to some good starting points for my own research, that would be great . Otherwise, I'll start from the top and work my way through. Thanks!

[pippin]

"old PC" usually sounds like a good idea for a music server.
Vortexbox also is nice. But since it's a Linux distribution in the first place you could start by installing it on that very old PC and see how you like it. If you later decide you also want the hardware they sell for it, you know what you are getting.

Remote access: I've written something up here:
http://penguinlovesmusic.de/2011/02/...mote-playback/

It's written for iPeng but applies for the Squeezebox in a similar way. The one thing to have in mind is that the Squeezeboxes themselves can only use (fixed) IP addresses, not dyndns addresses for a remote server. Some of the software players support it, though. Not sure about SqueezePlay, but SqueezeSlave does it.
For the "in car" application I will have to do a shameless self-promotion and recommend iPeng with the playback add-on although there are also other solutions to stream to a mobile, but they are obviously not so well integrated into your Squeezebox setup. The App for Android would be "SqueezePlayer" (no self promotion, that's written by bluegaspode, another user here on the forum).

Welcome to the Squeezebox universe

[DubMarc]

"old PC" usually sounds like a good idea for a music server.
Vortexbox also is nice. But since it's a Linux distribution in the first place you could start by installing it on that very old PC and see how you like it. If you later decide you also want the hardware they sell for it, you know what you are getting.

Remote access: I've written something up here:
http://penguinlovesmusic.de/2011/02/...mote-playback/

It's written for iPeng but applies for the Squeezebox in a similar way. The one thing to have in mind is that the Squeezeboxes themselves can only use (fixed) IP addresses, not dyndns addresses for a remote server. Some of the software players support it, though. Not sure about SqueezePlay, but SqueezeSlave does it.
For the "in car" application I will have to do a shameless self-promotion and recommend iPeng with the playback add-on although there are also other solutions to stream to a mobile, but they are obviously not so well integrated into your Squeezebox setup. The App for Android would be "SqueezePlayer" (no self promotion, that's written by bluegaspode, another user here on the forum).

Welcome to the Squeezebox universe

Excellent, thanks...checking out that article now!

[ply3908]

You can download Vortexbox (http://vortexbox.org/content/123-downloads) and install on your "old pc".

[DubMarc]

Hope that the Touch gets here before I have time to do to much more research...my head and/or wallet may explode . I think I might buy a Synology NAS for both active media serving as well as a smoother backup option for both my wife and I. Not sure what the best solution is, given I already have a large external HD. Perhaps use that as a backup for the backup, keeping it mostly at my office.

After researching the Vortexbox, I'm not sure it's worth incorporating if I do get a Synology. Perhaps short-term, to re-rip my CDs. Just about all the new stuff I'll get will be downloaded FLAC files.

Next topic: RAID vs unRAID .

[garym]

I have two votexbox systems and don't use them for ripping at all. The value for me is use as a server to feed my SB players.

[DubMarc]

I have two votexbox systems and don't use them for ripping at all. The value for me is use as a server to feed my SB players.

Thanks. I will do some More poking around on the VB forums, too. At a high level, though, what do you feel the big server oriented advantages are, compared with using the server bundled with a supported NAS? My impression (admittedly not deeply researched) was that as servers, they'd be comparable. Is the value in organizing and indexing?

[garym]

Thanks. I will do some More poking around on the VB forums, too. At a high level, though, what do you feel the big server oriented advantages are, compared with using the server bundled with a supported NAS? My impression (admittedly not deeply researched) was that as servers, they'd be comparable. Is the value in organizing and indexing?

A vb system essentially is a nas. Just a powerful one. My small vba is not much bigger than my readynas duo, but much more powerful. And of course both are tucked away in a back cabinet and neither has a keyboard or a monitor. In short, you see these as different options. Instead it is more like asking if you want a dell laptop or a leveno laptop. You can install vb on an old pc (which might be big) or on something like a FitPCi that is the size of two packs of cigarettes.

Mostly you don't want some underpowered nas that can't run LMS very well. Otherwise, almost anything will work (windows, apple, Linux, vortexbox(uses Linux). An old pc, a tiny pc, a net book, all would work.

[garym]

A vb system essentially is a nas. Just a powerful one. My small vba is not much bigger than my readynas duo, but much more powerful. And of course both are tucked away in a back cabinet and neither has a keyboard or a monitor. In short, you see these as different options. Instead it is more like asking if you want a dell laptop or a leveno laptop. You can install vb on an old pc (which might be big) or on something like a FitPCi that is the size of two packs of cigarettes.

Mostly you don't want some underpowered nas that can't run LMS very well. Otherwise, almost anything will work (windows, apple, Linux, vortexbox(uses Linux). An old pc, a tiny pc, a net book, all would work.

And by server I mean the computer (and a nas is a computer). The LMS software is just a program that can run on many operating systems.

[Mnyb]

Installing a server Linux ( no GUI ) on a HP Microserver is another NAS like option ( I uses clear OS ).

Some are using WHS on the HP microservers with success and probably also vortex box .