![]() I've been running a similar setup with a Synology NAS for a few years now and it's been really good. I've got no idea what QNAP is like in terms of interface, but I've been connecting my Syno directly to my DAC by USB and streaming from there (it has an android app for controlling playback). I'd say it's definitely quiet enough for living room use and I never really noticed it even when new, but it's not totally silent because of the HDDs and fan. If you used SSDs instead of HDDs it would be a lot quieter but waaaay more expensive! You'll ultimately be limited to the number of bays and whatever the largest size of disk it supports is, although you can probably plug in extra USB disks (bear in mind though that putting USB disks in RAID is possible but could be problematic and is likely to result in a performance hit). The advantage of the PC server over this would be extensibility and flexibility - you can add more disk space over time if you buy a different case and transplant the components, or as you suggest add a USB disk (if you're just streaming individual music/video files from it USB 2.0 is fine). The disadvantage is that it will be significantly louder - it's a much more powerful computer, and more power = more heat = more fans needed = more noise. Unless you buy some decent low noise fans and CPU cooler you're going to notice it in your living room. The third option is to keep the server/NAS elsewhere (i.e. where noise isn't an issue) and get something like a Raspberry Pi and use that as a streamer. You can then stream music/video over the network via ethernet/WiFi to the Pi, and run Kodi/Plex/whatever on there. Output could be USB to your DAC, and it'd be totally silent as passive cooling should be sufficient to keep it cool. I like the idea of using a qnap nas since I can hdmi it to the TV and use it for movies and such with a remote it comes with. I'm not sure how that would work out in terms of user experience The only somewhat issue is I believe they run a custom OS so I cant just load on anything (say Jriver or Audivarna or whatever), I'm restricted to what apps they have (which qnap has kodi/plex apps).OR, running through a virtual since the nas can create a virtural PC of win or linux. I'm sure the PC will be very loud in comparison. ![]() I can probably replace the fans with a more quiet cooling. Also, I wish the PC had more bays for hard drives. I'd really prefer 4 so I have room to grow, as you mentioned. I dont think the RPi4 is very good for transcoding high def video. I suppose the difference is really just software! For my UPnP AV server, I really like the look of Asset UPnP, along with the fact that it has a control panel that is accessible via http, but I’ll likely compare it to minimserver just to make sure I’m not giving up performance.īUT, a Nvidia Shield can, I thought about getting one of those with a big external drive but decided I need a raid config so with that I may as well just use a nas or PC that can do everything and dlna to my stereo system. I’ll also run BubbleUPnP Server for Qobuz streaming. ![]() All of these appear to be available for both QN and Synology, along with various Linux distros like Debian/Ubuntu. ![]() I definitely want it to be a fanless design. ![]()
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