Synology NAS and no Rose DLNA client workaround

Function Airplay & Bluetooth & DLNA
#1

I have recently borrowed a ROSE 201E to see if it will work in my setup where I have my music library stored on a Synology DS1621xs+ NAS system.

So the Rose has DLNA server capability if an SSD is installed but it does not have DLNA client capability. Accessing my music library on the NAS was going to be a problem. I am unwilling to use SMB v1.0 with all the security issues as proposed by Rose, and even then the Rose would be compiling a database over the network, although 1Gbps, so again not ideal in terms of rescanning performance. My music library has around 21,000 tracks.

So I got thinking – install a 1TB SSD and keep my music library in the Rose as this would be network safe and hopefully the fastest solution for rescanning the database. I had a spare Samsung 1TB SSD 850 EVO to test this. My expectation was to use the Rose WebDav client to copy across the tracks manually. Had a play with this on my Mac after setting up a WebDav account on the Rose and could copy files to the Rose just as if it was a shared drive. WebDav also worked on my windows PC but not as straight forward as the Mac for some reason.

The Synology NAS has ‘Cloud Sync’ and can utilise ‘WebDav’ – so I set-up a Cloud Sync task on the Synology NAS of my music directory to ‘Upload local changes’ to the Rose shared ‘/ROSEDISK/…’ directory. I have the Rose unit assigned a fixed IP via my router so the IP address is always the same.

Over my network to copy my complete music library of ~21,000 tracks, 590GB, was going to be an overnight event. Tracks were a mixture of CD(ALAC)/FLAC/MQA files. All were copied overnight in around 9 hours 15 mins according to the NAS logs.

If I add or rename any file on my NAS this is replicated on the Rose 1TB SSD. I can access the music folders directly on the Rose and play them as soon as copied across using the ‘folders’ icon. If I want to search the new files then I need to do a Database Rescan on the Rose.

I set an initial database after installing and formatting the 1TB SSD and this was immediate as no tracks. My first database scan with an empty database after adding my music library took around 38 minutes, for 20,226 tracks. I have just added another album, copied across to the NAS from my PC in seconds. Then for the database rescan to recognise the new tracks, this has taken longer at a whopping 3 hours & 20 minutes, for 20,238 tracks. Whilst it was rescanning the DB, my original music library could be searched – just the new tracks were not in the database awaiting inclusion.

I was curious how long a new DB would take to scan so tested that and for the above 20,238 tracks took 41 minutes.

Have just put my order in for an RS150B in black.

Will see how this all works out as my music library is pretty much where it needs to be in terms of content, and occasionally may add a track or two.

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#2

Windows 10 was having problems with permissions accessing the internal SSD via WebDav which I resolved with the following registry change:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Services > WebClient > Parameters. Open BasicAuthLevel and set the value data to 2.
Restart your computer and try connecting to the shared folder using WebDAV again.

#3

Hi @Woorlord, that is some pretty interesting findings…. Many of us on this forum have complained about the lengthy time to to rescan the library for a new album. Your testing says that creating a new DB and scanning the entirely library is a fraction of the time to rescan for just one album.

Can you confirm these conclusions? Sounds like you are heading towards a new RS150B - it would be great to have you confirm those findings on that device.

#4

Took delivery of a new RS150B yesterday and transferred the same 1TB SSD from the returned ‘loaner’ RS201E to the RS150B.

Did a DB initialise to capture all the SSD tracks and this took around 40 minutes on the RS150B. The database seems to be stored internally to the RS150B and not on the SSD.

Timings are not to the minute as it requires you to stare at the front panel screen - so not the most enjoyable experience. If you see the “DB Caching” message after the “Media Scanning” message then the caching takes around 5 minutes for my library. All my times include both of these, i.e. neither of these messages are displayed.

#5

Thanks for the update. I wondered about the location of the DB as it it not visible on my SSD.

When you RIP a CD, I do notice that it creates a folder and some metadata files for each track and the album cover. I invested a lot of time in RIPping my 500 CDs onto the SSD on my 150B - I back up those files onto my computer using SMB mount to the 150.

When you RIP a CD, a new library database gets created for the CD that is aggregated into the main library DB instantly. I wish that Rose was more open about their DB structure and would provide similar speeds for adding new folders copied to the SSD.

You seem to have stumbled upon an important workaround to reload the library rather than rescanning - your numbers show much faster speeds.