You'd be forgiven for not giving it a second thought: after all, the software available has a reassuring label on it – UPnP stands for Universal Plug and Play – and most of it is certified by the Digital Living Network Alliance, confirming that everything carrying that 'stamp' will work with everything else.

However, as I discovered when setting up a new network storage system the other day – simply because the old one was bursting with the amount of music I have stored on it – not every piece of UPnP software is quite as 'U' as it seems.

The one that came with the server I bought failed to find a lot of my music – well, it found it, but didn't pick up on artists, album titles, all that stuff, instead just lumping everything in a huge folder marked 'other' in which titles and artists also appeared as 'other'.

That made it impossible to search for a work or a composer, let alone play through a whole 'disc', as the player didn't know which track went with which, so couldn't put them in sequence.

The solution, as I explain on our sister site whathifi.com, was to indulge in some 'hacking' of my new hardware to allow the installation of some UPnP software I know to be suitable – Twonky Media Server – in order to return some sense to my music library,

But the process got me thinking about what other server software offers, and how it may affect the usability of streaming systems. For example, for a while now I have been using Naim's UnitiServe as a means of ripping music from CD to server, but until now haven't explored its ability as a media streamer.

Now I have, I find it picks up even more detail from the music it stores, allowing search by artist(s), composer, work, conductor and so on. And as well as having its own hard-disk storage, it can also be used with external USB hard-drives, having four inputs for such devices, and also pick up all the network-attached devices on a home network, and act as a server for them all, streaming their contents to whatever client devices you may have around the home.

If you have some of your music on a computer, and some on one or more NAS drives, it'll combine them into a unified music library, visible to all your streaming clients: and given that we currently have at least half a dozen such devices scattered around the home, from the Naim NDX in the main system to a NaimUniti in the dining room and a Revo Pico Radio Station in the bathroom(!), that makes the entire music network much more accessible.

So I'd advise some caution when it comes to buying just any old NAS device to hold your music collection on a home network, although such a device is by far the best approach if you're buying one of the many streaming clients now on the market.

After all, the NAS drive means you no longer need to have a computer switched on to listen to your music collection via a streaming client plugged into your system.

However, not all NAS devices are created (or at least configured) equal, and it's well worth finding out just how much information the pre-installed software will deliver, or at least ensuring the NAS solution you choose can easily be upgraded with software to give you what you want.

I fear I can see a whole new sphere of testing coming on, which is why my home network currently has no fewer than four server options running side by side, with more likely to follow.

I'll be reporting back – but for now, click here for much more on music streaming.