This could be a power-efficient small computer or laptop located next to your amplifier. Once you’ve got the data back-end sorted out, you need a digital “front-end” for your stereo system that will produce actual sounds.įor this, you basically need a receiving device that can read from your music collection on the network.

For example, my Apple Airport Extreme comes with a USB port that can be used to hook up practically any external USB harddrive. Better safe than sorry.Ī cheap alternative is to utilize your wireless router’s USB port.

Regardless of the approach, I’d recommend planning for the worst. So you would either need to duplicate your primary hard drive manually or add additional disks to your NAS. Most people forget that they need a solid backup strategy in place. But the core principle is that you need ample hard disk space for your entire music library. If you want a more sophisticated solution, you could put your music on a NAS (Network Attached Storage).

This can be simple external USB hard drive connected to a computer running some sort of server software (filesharing protocol etc.).

A music server typically consists of a data back-end which is where you store your actual music files.

Best nas for home av