Trying to set up Roon but looks like my music folders on NAS is mounted via AFP

Support
1

Hi - just signed up, trying to set up Roon to locate my music on my NAS. Trying to use Knowledge Base FAQ for help but encountered the below:

“Note that on OS X, watched folders which are over the network must be mounted using SMB, not AFP.”

Frankly, I have no idea what AFP means but in trying to direct Roon to location of my music files I discovered the following when clicking Info for the folder:

Server: afp://DiskStation._afpovertcp._tcp.local/MuiscNAS/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music

So it looks like my music is mounted using AFP. I’m sure there are other options here but not sure what to do? I’m pretty clueless about networking and have no idea what most of the NAS setting features are. The key is that I need to make sure that the Mac mini is accessing the NAS music files via the ethernet and not over wifi.

For now would like to keep new music added via iTunes and organized via iTunes folder structure in case Room doesn’t work out. But open to adding music via other approach in future or even moving out of iTunes entirely. Longer term expect to be moving to a dedicated Room compatible music server if this works out.

Here’s more background info:

  • Set-up is Synology DS1513+ > connected via ethernet to > Mac mini (Late 2014) [3 GHz i7 16GB Memory] > connected via USB to > LH Labs Pulse DAC > Pre-Amp

  • Mac mini is running: Sierra 10.12.5, iTunes 12.6.1.25, Pure Music 3.0.6. Note this Mac mini does not and cannot have ethernet connection to the cable modem – internet access can only be wifi due to location in listening room. The Mac mini is also connected via HDMI to an AVR to TV which allows me to control music selection.

  • Although using Pure Music, all my files are in iTunes compatible file format (mostly AIFF, a few Apple Lossless or MP3); I also typically store JPEG/PNG/PDF cover and/or liner notes in the album folder within iTunes Music folder.

  • Synology NAS is connected via ethernet to remote Linksys Velop node; up until now I’ve essentially been using the 20TB NAS as remote hard drive in a RAID 6 configuration, using only the store music as I have about 10 TB of music files. Generally play music with the Mac mini wifi turned off to ensure the music is being accessed via ethernet and not wifi. (Yes, I realize Roon would require the Mac mini to have active internet connection to pull down web info.)

  • Going through Synology settings, I am seeing that it does have SMB enabled.

  • Setting up the NAS was a major challenge and frankly I’m still not sure how I got it to work. It is connected to a UPS, and I do monitor the NAS and update software as required/notified.

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Hi @Rich_Borow — Thank you for the report and sharing your feedback with us, sorry to hear of the difficulties.

Moving forward, the first step that should be taken is enabling SMB sharing on the Synology NAS. While I do not have that specific device in front of me, after a quick google search I located the following article from the Synology website highlighting how to enable this feature on their products: Disk Station Manager - SMB.

Once you have SMB enabled, you will want to mount the NAS in Roon using the folder path.

-Eric

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Hi - no, it’s not working. Keep getting "Could not connect to share: Host not found.

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Hi @Rich_Borow ---- Thank you for touching base with us.

Just to make sure that we are on the same page, since it’s been a few weeks since we last spoke:

  1. The device is now setup to use SMB and not AFP, correct?

  2. Nothing in your setup has changed and the above description is still valid, correct?

  3. Can you please provide the “path” that you are currently using to try and access the NAS?

  4. Can the NAS be successfully accessed outside of Roon via finder on the Mac Mini without issue?

  5. Apologies for the any confusion on my part, but would you clarify how the NAS is communicating with your Mac Mini via Ethernet and not over the Wifi? My assumption is that the Mac Mini would be communicating with the Velop over Wifi to access the storage device mounted to it.

“Synology NAS is connected via ethernet to remote Linksys Velop node; up until now I’ve essentially been using the 20TB NAS as remote hard drive in a RAID 6 configuration, using only the store music as I have about 10 TB of music files. Generally play music with the Mac mini wifi turned off to ensure the music is being accessed via ethernet and not wifi. (Yes, I realize Roon would require the Mac mini to have active internet connection to pull down web info.)”

-Eric

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Hi Eric - Okay, clearly the path starting with afp specified above that I found following the Roon instructions when I used “Get Info” to discover the path via Finder was not working. Tried several variations of that path, including substituting smb for afp, and still no luck.

Your assumption that the Mac Mini was communicating via Velop over Wifi to access the storage device was incorrect. While I can access the NAS over Wifi because it is connected to one of the Velop modules, the NAS is really used as a dedicated external storage for the Mac Mini. I have nothing but music on this NAS and it’s not used remotely for any functions. Up until now, when playing music the Mac Mini Wifi is disabled and it is accessing music library on the NAS server via a direct ethernet connection. And from based on the path I’m assuming it’s using AFP to do so?

(The Mac Mini is connected to a DAC in my main music system; it is running Pure Music which uses the iTunes library file structure as a front end, and the iTunes on the Mac Mini is specified to be using the DiskStation folder. Unlike Roon set-up I was able to directly specify that path via Finder – presumably Roon could have done this if my Music was indeed located on the host/core computer and not external network.)

Obviously for Roon full functionality the Mac Mini needs to have Wifi enabled, so all my efforts to connect were/are being performed with the Wifi on.

However, I’m happy to report finally had some success!

Poking around Synology settings, discovered under Files Services a tab called “SMB/AFS/NFS” where I had found that the SMB enabled was checked. In that same tab it had instructions to “enter below address to access shared folders using a computer in your local network” and for Mac it specified to use: “smb://DiskStation”

Using that as the start of the path to my music folder path Roon finally found my music. I have about 168,000 tracks, about 8.6TB so took a while to scan and seem to have a few unidentified, potentially corrupt or unreadable files that I’m trying to “clean up”.

Still have not played any music via Roon as still working though Audio set-up, but looks like it’s working so far.

Once I get going, my first steps will be to compare the sound of playing tracks via Roon vs. Pure Music. Let’s see what happens.

Thanks for your efforts.