iTunes with media on a NAS

[Kristan]

Hi guys,

As I've only got an SSD in my new MBP, I've moved all my itunes media folder to my NAS. I've got this working, but editing metadata like track number (manually, or via TuneUp) is stupidly slow - I just get 5-10 seconds of nothing and then it comes back to life. Fixing bad tags has gone from a 2 min job to a 10 minute one, with lots of frustrating waiting inbetween.

Everything else runs fine from the NAS, I've got my entire photo collection on there (approx 8,000 RAW files) and lightroom flies. Streaming HD content is quick, general file operations are fine - it just seems to be iTunes that has issues.

I'm using SMB to connect as NFS seems to be beyond me and AFP isn't an option, so I'm not sure if this is the cause or not. There's various other threads with people saying similar, but I've not found any definitive cures or causes.

Can anyone shed some light?

 

[blevins321]

Are you using wireless when you're doing this? That might explain the latency. Your computer has to copy the entire file, edit it, then send the entire file back. For 8-9MB music files, that can add up. I use a Synology NAS the same way and have no issues while wired. Wireless is a tad slow for this though.

 

[Kristan]

I was doing it over wireless originally (and watching iStat to try and figure out where the hold up is) but then switched to wired to eliminate that. It may have got slightly quicker, but not much.

My issue is I can, for example, pull 3 RAW files at 10MB each and have photomatix do an HDR pass over them via wireless in the time it takes iTunes to edit some metadata cabled into a gig switch!

 

[Lagmonster]

If you can, swap to wired ethernet and see if the problem persists. I know wireless to my NAS is a bit slow.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

I have a QNAP connected via 1GB ethernet

The setup is done in a way that the library file is stored on the iMac but the media folder is soft-linked via AFP to the NAS. Works flawless and fast.

Have also my raw files in the NAS, but don't do high workload there.

Why AFP is not an option for you ?

 

[blueroom]

OP, which NAS do you have? What format are the music files? I have a Synology NAS supports AFP works great.

It could be the NAS auto reindexing your music folder.

 

[Kristan]

Hmm, wonder if it's just my NAS then.

I'm using NexentaStor and it only supports CIFS or NFS (and I can't get NFS to work) so I'm connecting over CIFS.