and I can have up to seven drives+SSDs and two optical drives (at the time I used 6 HDs. I put an i5 in it, a mini-atx motherboard in a Lian LI box that is pretty small. Looking at the money, I also wanted to avoid an additional machine running so I decided to build a silent PC (well almost silent). Looking into what was available at the time and estimating how many hard drives I was going to need (2tb drives were then the norm, 3tb drives were just starting to be affordable) a 4 to 6 bay fast NAS was expensive.

Now I only really have one and an occasional second client on a laptop. When my kids were living with me I had my main listening area running JRiver as server and three clients. Well getting back to your question, lightning aside and even connections for that matter. I suppose what I'm asking is what is best practice for running bulk storage, JRiver and getting DLNA out the end while still being able to use the File Server on the network Is a better route to build a 'Big Desk Top' file server from a base PC and drives and run MC on that. Reviews of Synology aren't clear on this. I assume something like Synology, Disc Station Manager will provide all the DLNA server I need but I won't be able to take advantage of JRiver's custom tags and library set up, it presumably has some sort of in built library manger of its own. If I purchase a NAS and attach it to the network, in order to use the JRiver's DLNA server will I need to run a second computer running Windows (say), JRiver etc and simply use the NAS as a 'File Server' or a BIG HDD I want to use JRiver as my Library Manager & DLNA server but I want to upgrade to some form of 'File Sever' / NAS and centralise all files, Back Up, maintenance etc.

I think I am answering my own question but here goes.

Jriver server