Not interested in storage media (CD, DVD, USB, iPod, LP, 45 ...). 

I've had time to organize my vast collection of music on my PC.  The problem is I haven't decided on a good library system.

iTunes used to be mandatory if you bought an iPod of any flavor.  Now, though, you can pretty much use anything and sync to anything else.

I used Amazon Prime Music service for a little and tried their cloud storage.  Not very good as a repository for a large collection, but useful for having the same playlists and songs on several devices.

I've found lots of reviews and recommendations for Music Bee.  Anyone have experience with that?

https://getmusicbee.com/

Any personal insight is appreciated.  Can't always trust the Internet.  Wait -- this is the Internet.   

Always have redundancies, backup of the files, on different medias and locations.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/audio_station

Yeah, I looked into those already.  I already have 2 older NAS toasters.  Both are ReadyNAS models -- one from Infrant and one from Netgear after they bought Infrant.  Neither have the buffering needed for smooth high res video streaming, and running any kind of transcoding on them makes it that much worse.  Right now, I just do 720p streaming, and it's fine.  One of my NAS boxes is about 10 years old and running an ancient variant of Debian Linux called Sarge.   

My newer NAS can stream music fine, but I'm looking for an easy-to-use music library management application that's available across platforms (home cloud/server-based), no annual fees involved, and has basic auto-categorizing and smart playlist features.

I've been thinking of building a new storage server to make use of these 500GB - 2TB disks I have.  I could make a descent PLEX server for movies, a FreeNAS server for storage, a VM server, and so on.  With the M.2 NVME SSDs coming out at PCI-E 4.x speeds and Ryzen Thread Rippers with huge numbers of cores & threads for a few hundred bucks, one beefy server could be configured for around $1500 or so.

I have a tough time letting go of old computer parts that still work even when they don't have many uses compared to new hardware.  In the last 2 months, I've gotten rid of SO MUCH PC JUNK it's almost scary.  Why was I saving that Intel 1000GT network card for so long?  I don't think I'm ever going to need another PCI LAN adapter anytime soon!  Same for those PCI SCSI adapter cards.   

AMD is making me think it's time to build that server.  Lots of sales this past month, and it's getting cheaper and cheaper.  Everyone was worried about the China supply chain making prices of computer parts spike, but so far it's not happening.  If anything, the demand for work-from-home systems is helping keep prices down from the sheer volume of sales.  Can't easily raise prices in a down economy if you have inventory to move before the new product lines come out this Summer and Fall.

I'll check out Synology again.  Maybe I can talk myself out of a project and into an off-the-shelf product.   

Always have redundancies, backup of the files, on different medias and locations.

That goes without saying.  I'm looking more for advice on software utilities or library management.

I've got a subscription for Spotify that's included with my AT&T cell plan.  I've also tried the Amazon Prime Unlimited Music plan.  While that can be fine, there are limitations, and the tools for uploading and organizing what I already own aren't that good.

If I like a song or group, I normally buy the music on Amazon or iTunes/Apple Store.  After buying, I add it to iTunes & playlists, then sync with portable players.

I'm abandoning iTunes as a library manager, so it's time to find something better.  I never really liked iTunes that much anyway, but it was pretty much required. 

I'm looking for input as I'm sure others have struggled with the same decision making process already.

 

The Synology has some nice built-in packages that you can install. Drive redundancies and the ability to backup to USB drives or to other network storage or cloud storage, make it reliable in my mind.

 https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/packages
 
In addition, there are some nice apps already made by Synology that you can check out on the App Store to see how you will be using it within your LAN or across the Internet to your own private hosted cloud.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/Mobile/help

Add RAM to the Synology NAS to max it out, use fast HHDs or SSDs (if you don’t mind spending) and call it a day. 

I like my Synology NAS. While we on topic whats a good free CD ripper?

I like my Synology NAS. While we on topic whats a good free CD ripper?

By CD, are you talking about music CDs, movie DVDs or BluRay discs?

ITunes for Music CDs.

music

music

I've tried many apps in the past, but most recently, I just used iTunes.  The default format for importing a CD is AAC, but I always changed the option to MP3.  Then I could burn a bunch of songs onto a single CD for playing on the go. 

Now I use an iPod in the truck, so no more homemade MP3 CDs.

Now that I'm looking for a new library management app, using iTunes for CD ripping might change for me. 

The Synology has some nice built-in packages that you can install. Drive redundancies and the ability to backup to USB drives or to other network storage or cloud storage, make it reliable in my mind.

 https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/packages
 
In addition, there are some nice apps already made by Synology that you can check out on the App Store to see how you will be using it within your LAN or across the Internet to your own private hosted cloud.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/Mobile/help

Add RAM to the Synology NAS to max it out, use fast HHDs or SSDs (if you don’t mind spending) and call it a day.

Back when I bought my NASes (??), RAID-5 was the "thing" to do.  ReadyNAS was one of the earliest to create a BTRFS type volume manage on the EXT3 Linux filesystems.

Now BTRFS is all the rage!  ReadyNAS called it X-RAID.  It took all the real work out of building a RAID volume.   Put in 1, 2, 3 or more drives, and the system decides whether it's RAID-0, 1, or 5.  If you want to increase the disk capacities later, just replace disk 1 with the larger disk, wait for it to be built, then replace 2, wait, then 3 ... etc.  Once the last disk is built, the volume automatically expands to fill the new physical disk capacity.  Pretty slick.

If I go with a new storage device, I'd opt for RAID 6.  With the capacities of NAS-specific drives what they are, and the cost I found ($160 for 6TB), I can see having 2 x 2 disk's capacity for storage and 2 x 1 disk's capacity for parity/spares.  That allows the volume to remain intact with 2 drives failing, versus just one failure for RAID 5.

My older NAS can handle 2TB disks x 4.  Newer one can use up to 6 TB x 4.  Right now I have 2TB disks in both.  The older NAS is an RSYNC mirror of the newer one.

BTW, Windows 10 kind of screwed over the older NAS.  There's a newer version of the SBM protocol now:  SMB2.  Windows 10 refuses to connect to any device using the "insecure" SMB1.  Guess what SMB version my old NAS runs?  And as old as it is, there's no updating it easily.  I could change the Windows registry to override the restriction, but I don't want to go that route.  I can still use AFS and CIFS on my MAC to see the shares, and of course sftp and ssh let me access the NAS as well.  One more reason the older NASes are becoming less useful.

I was toying with upgrading the disks in the new NAS to 6TB each, but then that messes up my backups.  If I put more than 5.5TB on it, the older NAS can't handle it.  Hence the plan to maybe build a new storage server.

As I was cleaning out 2 decades of backups  I realized my files needed a better system of organizing, particularly my iTunes folders.  Eery time I replaced my iTunes repository drive for a larger disk, or to replace a dying one, I created a more recent backup of all that music.  I must have found 12 or more copies of iTunes repositories across my backup and NAS disks.  I had backups of backups!

I'm almost finished running folder comparisons and merges to make sure I'm left with one repository that contains all my songs.  That's when I need to have something create me a new library, preferably using an external database to clean up the album details and song titles.

When disks were less than a GB in capacity, and the costs were in the $300 range, deleing old unwanted files was easier.  Now, you can store the Library of Congress at your house multiple times, and good luck finding anything!

...

BTRFS is still the way to go with the Synology NAS as it provides the most flexibility. Synology calls it SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID). Some of the Synology packages (Active Backup) also require BTRFS and will not work on a RAID volume. Some DS models may also not have certain software packages so make sure to double check.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Storage/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID_SHR

Attaching external USB drives as big or bigger than the NAS storage capacity is the way to go for backing up your music.  Store everything on the NAS and have a backup job to copy contents to an attached USB drive daily.  Cycling multiple USB drives gives you multiple backups easily with minimal brain damage as to figuring out what drive has what.

Unlike the ReadyNas, Synology seems to do a better job with keeping the software updated and doesn’t have an issue with Windows 10 requiring SMB2.

The DS Audio app has some playlist capabilities and can organize you your library by album, artists, composers, genre and folders, and playback to Airplay/DLNA/UPNP or Chromecast devices.

Spotify <- mp3 <- CD <- cassette <- LP

Evolution of music...

BTRFS is still the way to go with the Synology NAS as it provides the most flexibility. Synology calls it SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID). Some of the Synology packages (Active Backup) also require BTRFS and will not work on a RAID volume. Some DS models may also not have certain software packages so make sure to double check.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Storage/What_is_Synology_Hybrid_RAID_SHR

Attaching external USB drives as big or bigger than the NAS storage capacity is the way to go for backing up your music.  Store everything on the NAS and have a backup job to copy contents to an attached USB drive daily.  Cycling multiple USB drives gives you multiple backups easily with minimal brain damage as to figuring out what drive has what.

Unlike the ReadyNas, Synology seems to do a better job with keeping the software updated and doesn’t have an issue with Windows 10 requiring SMB2.

The DS Audio app has some playlist capabilities and can organize you your library by album, artists, composers, genre and folders, and playback to Airplay/DLNA/UPNP or Chromecast devices.

Yeah, I had 4 external USB disks on my 2 NASes to perform nightly scheduled backups -- different shares backed up every other night incrementally to prevent the "Damn! I didn't mean to delete that folder!" data loss.

I bought a drive from Costco every time they had one on sale.  I had a 3TB, 4TB, 5TB and 6TB desktop backup-plus.  ALL 4 died or started having errors.  Eventually, I couldn't access any of them.  Luckily, Costco has a liberal return policy.  I got full refunds for all of them.  That was a great thing, since they were all beyond the warranties.   

The 2 portable Seagates (4TB & 5TB) are having no problems.  Just the desktops did.  I took my last refund and bought an 8TB desktop model that was $50 off regular price.  So far, so good.  Using it to backup both NASes so I can wipe the old one completely (not with a rag, or something), and then set up the newer one to back up its files to the old one.  The movies have been backing up for a day now.

BTW, none of my NAS drives are SATA III 6GB/s drives.  They are all SATA II / ~5400rpm.  At the time, faster SATA III were very expensive by comparison, and the lower rpms didn't seem to matter if the bus speed was not 6GB/s.  That's another factor in my "itch" to upgrade.  My older NAS only supports up to SATA II, but the newer is SATA III.

Whatever I build/buy will become my streaming repository, and the newer NAS will be for its backup.  If I use both NASes as backup, I could start out with about 10+TB of total storage and still have room to back it up. Later, if the old NAS dies, I can bump the newer one up to ~18TB max capacity.

Know anyone who buys 5400RPM SATA II drives that are still working perfectly?     I even have some matching spares I've been using in my workstation.

I'm sure Synology is working fine with SMB2, as is my newer ReadyNAS.  it's my ReadyNAS NV+ on a SPARC CPU running Debian Sarge that's not keeping up.     This older NAS is my second NV+.  I bought it about 3 years before the first one died.  I used one NAS for streaming and the other for all my other files. Backups were on formerly NAS disks installed in external USB enclosures.

Jan 2015 -- Netgear ReaadyNAS RN314
Mar 2012 -- Netgear ReadyNAS NV+
Dec 2006 -- Infrant RaeadyNAS NV+ (worked for 8 years -- replaced with the RN314)

I don't even want to think about, much less list, the number of drives I've purchased.  I still have all the drives I upgraded from.

I guess 3 NASes over 14 years, and 2 of them still working, isn't too bad of a record!  I seem to be at that 5 year point again.  First one lasted 2006 - 2015 (do the math, man!  That's a long time!  ).

Spotify <- mp3 <- CD <- cassette <- LP

Evolution of music...

You missed 8 track ...

The first stereo I ever bought had an 8 track recorder.  Those things took up way too much room in the front passenger seat and floorboard!

Well, after much research and analysis, I came to a decision.......

this is going to be just like every other computer purchase!!      I'll research this to death for a month, then wind up buying what I wanted to start with.   

So far, I'm leaning toward a NAS for the storage and a separate Home Theater PC (HTPC) to be the server.  It's just getting too difficult to justify $500 +/- $100 for a NAS that acts as a media server, web server, etc.  The standalone NAS devices, including Synology, use 3-5 year old technology for the CPU, RAM and motherboards -- at least those for home and small businesses do.  My current NASes have an Infrant Technologies branded SPARC CPU and an Intel ATOM.  Both are running Linux modified for their hardware. 

I think by building an HTPC server, I can leverage my existing hardware for storage and backups, reduce the load on each for non-storage tasks, and build the new HTPC with better specs than Synology offers at half the price.

I plan to upgrade the disks in my newer NAS, too.  Need to replace the 4 x 2TB 5400RPM SATA II 3g/s drives with at least 4TB 7200 RPM SATA III 6g/s drives.

I also found out Seagate and WD have recently admitted they've been marketing SMR-based drives as NAS-specific items.  SMR creates a write delay that can cause a timeout when a NAS attempts to rebuild a drive causing the rebuild to fail.  From my reading, SMR disks are not suited for NAS use at all. 

WD sent out a list of the SMR disks they offer at present, so NAS users can select CMR drives if desired.  Seagate hasn't offered that info yet, but probably will have to.

The real issue isn't the SMR itself, but that the drives are not sold with the SMR design disclosed before -- or after -- purchase.  Only when you can't get a NAS drive to finish rebuilding will you figure it out.

Intel seems to be the CPU for a good HTPC.  They have the Quick Sync Video technology that helps encode video to H.264/H.265.  AMD Ryzens can do the job, but they have to brute force the encoding at the normal CPU process level.  More cores can help, but by the time you get a good enough core count, you've spent as much on a Ryzen as you could have spent for a comparable Intel CPU.

I have a workstation with a very good i7-7700K CPU that would work.  So I also have the option of moving that over as a server and replace it with a new workstation.  This PC is 3 years old as of March, but after specing out parts, my CPU, motherboard and 1080 NVidia graphics card could be sold for more now than I paid in 2017!  I guess I bought the right stuff back then.   


Not sure if you've seen XPENOLOGY, but I could use that to install Synology's DSM on my own hardware.  There are several other free NAS software programs to choose from.  FreeNAS seems promising.  The ZFR file system appears to have advantages over BTRFS.  ZFS was designed by Sun Microsystems, and FreeBSD is using it now.  FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD (go figure!).

I installed PLEX server on my ReadyNAS RN314 to see how it was for streaming video.  Very nice interface with lots of added info and artwork.

I wasn't positive it also streams music, so I just checked.  Looks like that is just as robust -- even plays over Amazon Echo devices.

So, back to the original reason for this thread:  I'm going to clean up my music files and folders in a format PLEX can easily use, then have it catalog and organize everything.  Should be a good alternative to iTunes for now.

As for video encoding, I usually rip discs down to a format that plays on a PS3, so re-encoding should not be an issue for the TVs.  Might have to do encoding if I decide to use a handheld device, though.

Thanks for getting me wrapped around the Synology axel, though.  I love a good system requirement analysis!       Tech cost, capabilities and compatibilities change all the time.  Have to stay current.  These research projects are always an opportunity to learn.