@scotte1 you’ve innocently wandered into an area of significant complexity, and though I’m confident a solution exists for you I don’t think you’re going to find the necessary answers along with explanations here. It’s just too hard to guide a novice (forgive me, but you don’t even know how to identify the IP address of your NAS, which is a fundamental concept) to integrate three dissimilar systems (Roon, Synology, macOS) via this forum.
I realise you’ve no way to verify this, but I am in my real professional life a full-time top-tier person to ask about anything related to Apple tech, and I’ve been in that position for over 20 years. It is on that basis I’m going to offer two pieces of advice which I am confident will get you closer to the solution you’re after.
Go to the Roon forum and ask “how do I get Roon Core on my Mac to access the music files that are on my Synology?” The people who have done this, who are best placed to help you, are there not here.
Try to avoid any solutions that involve “/Volumes”. That directory path is not stable in the way that you need it to be – the same string of letters could lead you to different physical storage locations at different times and cause you much grief. Instead you want to tell Roon how to find something that’s specifically on your NAS, on the network. That’ll be of the smb:// form or possibly just the double-slash or double-backslash form depending on how Roon implements support for that networking internally.
Hope you can get this up and running ASAP. Life’s too short to waste dealing with computer issues!
Item No. 1 is a no go - at least so far. None of the Q&A/FAQs have solved the riddle.
I have a thread working on that forum as well.
As to Item No. 2, my NAS set up is what it is (and I believe I have identified the IP address of my NAS and the subject directory, as noted above): 192.168.4.21/music.
Thank you very much! (Novices Unite!!)
All kidding aside, is that string of numbers I listed not an IP address?
Yes, 192.168.4.21 is an IP address, but it’s the address being used by your Mac not the one being used by your NAS. You will not find success by adding that address to Roon’s configuration.
In that interface you are configuring how other devices on the network can access files that are on your Mac. The IP address shown is the address you would enter on other devices to initiate a connection to the Mac. Your NAS’s IP address remains a mystery to me.
By the way, that’s another option you could consider: there’s a version of Roon Core that you can run directly on your NAS. I’ve got my core on the QNAP. There are trade-offs, but the Roon forum definitely has active threads where you could get support with that.
I’m tempted to inquire about the ultimate solution, but a voice in my head is saying “Jimmy… Let it go.” Advice I think I will heed. Glad to hear the issue is resolved. Now go forth and enjoy the music!
(Novices Unite!!)
