Netgear Readynas Ultra 2 plus

[ClausDK]

Hi David,
thanks for the tip abort mp3tag, I’ll give it another chance then. The last use was changing tags on only 2 songs in the same album, and it took some 20minutes... in fact I thought it had stopped running. It was with Ethernet from pc to nas (or both to router).

But it might be a solution to copy folders from nas to pc, edit tags there, and copy back to nas.

Why use synctoy instead of simply copy?

One thing though, I don’t remember if I saw the missing track numbers in mp3tag or first noticed this when opening in foobar. The latter might be the case. Even if sounds weird.

Oh yes, each album has its own folder. I have considered putting operas on 2-3 cd’s in the same folder, and use track numbers from 21-39 for tracks on cd 2 and 41-59 for cd 3. Or arrange after the acts in the opera in stead of cd nr. If so I would have to change album in the tags accordingly as well.
Pc is Asus Notebook with 8gb ram. Not terribly slow, but not very fast either. Anyway, when editing only 2tracks at a time pc should not be a limiting factor.

Claus

[simoncn]

(29-10-2017 10:25)ClausDK Wrote:  Oh yes, each album has its own folder. I have considered putting operas on 2-3 cd’s in the same folder, and use track numbers from 21-39 for tracks on cd 2 and 41-59 for cd 3.

MinimServer does this renumbering by default for discs that are part of a multidisc album (same ALBUM tag, DISCNUMBER tag set to the disc number). You see a single album with consecutive renumbered track numbers.

[DavidHB]

(29-10-2017 10:25)ClausDK Wrote:  ...thanks for the tip about mp3tag, I’ll give it another chance then. The last use was changing tags on only 2 songs in the same album, and it took some 20minutes... in fact I thought it had stopped running. It was with Ethernet from pc to nas (or both to router) ... But it might be a solution to copy folders from nas to pc, edit tags there, and copy back to nas

That's really weird. A a test, I have just opened a 36 track album on my ReadyNAS 2 in MP3Tag on my PC. The album opened in five seconds or so. I'd suspect that either something is wrong with your network or security software on the PC is playing up. If you can copy reasonably easily between the PC and the NAS, that is the answer, as it makes sure you have a backup copy of your precious music library. As I said in my previous post, a USB backup drive attached to the laptop should do the job very well.

(29-10-2017 10:25)ClausDK Wrote:  Why use synctoy instead of simply copy?

Short answer: because Synctoy was designed to do the job. But you may also find the long answer interesting.

I first came across Synctoy 12 or 13 years ago when I was trying to reorganise my digital image library, and was getting file corruption in large copying operations. I learned that this was a problem with the Copy command at that time, and that Microsoft had produced SyncToy to make large batch copying operations more reliable. As far as I know, the issue with the Copy command has long been fixed, but it seems sensible to go on using SyncToy for the job for which it was designed.

When, four years ago, I established my music library for Hi-Fi use (at which point I already had the Netgear NAS), I adopted a variant of the system that had worked with my images. I did all the processing (downloading, ripping, folder organisation and tagging) on the PC, using a consistent 'workflow' or sequence of actions for each addition to the library. At Simon's suggestion, I also installed a copy of MinimServer on the PC, so that I could rescan the changed library and check in the MinimServer log that there were no problems with the new accessions. An error-free rescan is a good indication that the new material can be copied over to the NAS.

Synctoy uses pre-defined tasks, which it calls 'folder pairs'; the 'left' folder is the source, and the 'right' folder is the destination, and they are selected in the usual way. There are different copying schemes, or 'actions'; for my music library, I use the 'Echo' action, which identifies all the changes (additions, amendments and deletions) made since the last update in the source folder, and 'echoes', or mirrors, those changes on the destination. As the folder pair tasks are pre-defined, I can can use a task as many times as I want, simply by opening Synctoy and selecting that task.

This all means that there are identical copies of the library in the two locations; in fact I now keep four copies - the master, a backup on a drive attached to my PC and a copy on each of my NASs. Both NASs have MinimServer installed. so I can play music from both, and switch instantly from the one to the other if necessary.

(29-10-2017 10:25)ClausDK Wrote:  Oh yes, each album has its own folder. I have considered putting operas on 2-3 cd’s in the same folder, and use track numbers from 21-39 for tracks on cd 2 and 41-59 for cd 3. Or arrange after the acts in the opera in stead of cd nr. If so I would have to change album in the tags accordingly as well.

I've done all of those things. You can also use disc numbers as well as track numbers to keep things in order; disc numbers are a bit easier to use, as you can change them in many files at one go. Or, of course, you can use the auto numbering wizard. I also always prefix my file names with the track number (or, as necessary, the disc and track numbers) to keep the files in order. If this is not already done by the ripping program, MP3Tag (Convert > Tag to File name) will do it very easily.

(29-10-2017 10:25)ClausDK Wrote:  Pc is Asus Notebook with 8gb ram. Not terribly slow, but not very fast either. Anyway, when editing only 2tracks at a time pc should not be a limiting factor.

I agree.

David

[ClausDK]

Hi again,

Mp3tag is ok to use directly on pc. Hopeless directly on nas drive, this morning almost half an hour to edit two tracks. Copied an album to pc, did the auto re-tracking numbers and there it was very quick. The caveat here is that it would take quite a while, even Ethernet connected, to copy all albums to the pc and back after editing.

Then tried Foobar. Found a similar auto track numbering function. And this one runs really quick directly on the nas drive. Some 5 seconds to write new track numbers for the whole album, compared to 30minutes for two songs with mp3tag editor.
At first I blank all existing values in track number, then I use auto track numbering. Time per album estimated to less than 30seconds to fix this alone. I do however usually add the year as well, and with lookup on the net included it comes to approx 2 min per album. Not bad at all. Would of course have preferred this not to be necessary, but much, much faster than copying to pc and back.

Since it’s that easy to edit, I’ll start by simply fixing track numbers per cd, at least then I can see and access them from the control app. later I’ll look at how to organize the operas. Maybe as mentioned by Simon.

Still no problems with the contact from app to streamer/server. Maybe on the first day the lack of contact was due to MinimServer being busy with a first time reading of the cd collection on the Nas .

It seems that I’m up and running, with a few hours yet to go in doing the renumbering with Foobar. This really does the trick and makes the songs visible on the app, problem likely due to most songs not even having a track number already in the Foobar window.

Thanks again to both of you for all your help.

Claus

[DavidHB]

I'm glad you've found a system that works for you. As I said, I cannot think why your NAS (or your PC connecting to the NAS) should be so slow with MP3Tag. The symptoms you describe, taken in conjunction with my test, suggest that MP3Tag itseslf is not the problem, but that there is something in your NAS or PC setup that is causing the issue. As Mp3Tag is probably the best tag editor available for the PC, this is a pity.

David

[ClausDK]

David, I must admit that I'm really puzzled about MP3Tag as well. With albums stored on the PC it's working fine though. If I was still having the music on the PC, about to copy to the NAS, I could have used it to edit the tags before copying. But having 80-90% on the NAS already, moving to PC and return to NAS after editing would take quite a lot of hours for the 2 x transfer of files alone.

I must say that I find Foobar very easy and fast to work with. Really fast also with files on the NAS. For my present needs I can't imagine MP3Tag (or any other software) to be noticably better.

Claus