Hi,

I asked this over on the UK version of this site but the media streming section of that site is very quiet and I go no responces, I wonder if anyone can help here please.

I currently have a squeezebox with a 300g Qnap Nas running Slimserver. (for my music)

All is well and great and we love the squeezebox, with the success of that I was hopeing to buy a bigger NAS maybe a ReadyNAS with say 2TB of disk space to rip all my DVD's too and for any other *ahem* obtained material.

I would then of course buy something to stream too maybe a limHD200i media streamer. Is this possible? The readynas can come with slimserver on it for my squeezebox, would I be able to use the same NAS device to supply both the squeezebox and the LimHD? (not actually at the same time but could I switch from useing one to another without doing anything to the nas box?) Or would I have to keep my current 300gb nas as well as buy a new one?

Hope that makes sence
Thanks

Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: if it's just serving files, you'll be fine, but if you need the NAS to do any transcoding, you can run into problems.

I suspect the limiting factor is the sustained bitrate the NAS can deliver to the network.

We have a 1 TB WD MyBookWorld on a 100MB home network that does just fine serving MP3 music files to an Audiotron and a couple of PC's all at once. But it looks like the MyBook can only deliver 15-20 MB sustained, so if we someday get to the stage of trying to stream a couple of HD video files at once. I don't think it will deliver the goods! That will be the cue to look for a better NAS device...

Thanks, It would never be doing both at once anyway, the squeezebox would be on the shelf next to whatever media streamer I buy and I wouldn't be listening to music and watching TV at the same time.

I know any media streamer would handle music fine but then I'd have to turn the TV on to listen to music and I like the current simplicity.

I'll read up a bit more and decide if the limHD is the one for me or if I should wait a little for the next gen of devices and jump in.

Thanks

Remember that everything shown on the Sqeeze Box display is sourced from the Slim Server. This includes the clock or whatever when it is not playing music.

Granted, this is very low bandwidth stuff but the server still runs.

I suspect the limiting factor is the sustained bitrate the NAS can deliver to the network.

We have a 1 TB WD MyBookWorld on a 100MB home network that does just fine serving MP3 music files to an Audiotron and a couple of PC's all at once. But it looks like the MyBook can only deliver 15-20 MB sustained, so if we someday get to the stage of trying to stream a couple of HD video files at once. I don't think it will deliver the goods! That will be the cue to look for a better NAS device...

Not necessarily. You don't have a 100MB (Byte) network, it is either 100Mb (bit) or GigE (1000Mb). However, the streaming may be 15-20MB. Since 15MB is a bit higher than 100Mb, you may be seeing your NAS hitting the network limit. You may also be saying you see 15-20Mb throughput - if so, that is horribly slow. Of course, if you have GigE and were converting the bits to Bytes, then ... nevermind!

That's why they call it a NAS.

Hi,
... I was hopeing to buy a bigger NAS maybe a ReadyNAS with say 2TB of disk space to rip all my DVD's too and for any other *ahem* obtained material....

The ReadyNAS delivers the goods to multiple clients...

Shortly after setting up my ReadyNAS I tried to bring it to it's knees. And failed miserably.

I fired up 4 simultaneous DVD resolution streams
1 - Xbox Living Room
2 - Xbox Bedroom
3 - Main PC (VLC)
4 - Laptop (VLC)

All on wired 100 network with various switches thrown in the mix. The ReadyNAS is upstairs in my office, as is one PC - the remainder of the clients are one the other side of one/sometimes two, switches and a lot of CAT5 that goes into the attic, down a two story wall and into the crawl space.

So 4 streams of full bitrate .VOB content (not compressed to Divx etccc) and no micro-stutters or dropped frames or audio issues that I could discern as walked around the house checking them.

I was extremely stoked.
(Still am, although I'm now constantly hovering around 90% of capacity on the thing).

"The ReadyNAS delivers the goods to multiple clients..." Amen brother.

"Shortly after setting up my ReadyNAS I tried to bring it to it's knees. And failed miserably."
Me too.

I fired up 4 simultaneous 1080 Mpeg2 HDTV resolution streams
Not a single playback issue. Network is Gigabit which really helps.
The Infrants were a good buy for me. Good luck.

i do it all the time with buffalo linkstation supporting up to 3 network media players

i do it all the time with buffalo linkstation supporting up to 3 (simultaneous) network media players playing back mpg or ts video