Media server to stream music across the WiFi in our house to all devices and Chromecast?

[stodge]

I ripped most of my CDs onto my laptop but I've also bought some songs from Apple that's downloaded and stored locally. Most of my music has been uploaded to Google but I want to store them on some form of media server on our local network at home so that we can stream them to any device or chromecast.

I was wondering if anyone was doing this rather than than streaming across the internet from Google? If so, what media server are you using on your local network? I want to locally manage and collate all of our songs.

I should add that I don't want to spend time turning a basic desktop PC into a media server. I really don't have the energy or desire to do this. I want something I can switch on, point at the WiFi and it'll do it's job.

We have an old ReadyNAS we're using for storing documents and pictures but I don't think it's modern enough to support Chromecast.

Should I just buy some kind of network hard drive/SSD or would it have to be a full on media server?

Our mobile devices are primarily Android although we have one iPod Touch and an old iPad. Oh and I have a Win10 laptop.

We have a couple of JBP Flip 4 speakers that I'd like to try to connect to our devices via Bluetooth; hopefully whatever songs we stream can be played over those via our mobile devices.

Thanks

 

[maf113]

have you tried plex? It is both a media server and player. Works with most NAS devices and there is a version for just about every OS. Once you tell Plex where your media is, it can serve it over your network to multiple devices. Also if you set up your online account to do so, your can serve your media over the internet. It supports video, photos and music in multiple formats.