Never did any Escient back int the day but a new customer has one and I'm wondering if it's worth keeping in the system because I'm adding Sonos.

Can Sonos access music in the Escient Hard drive? If not is it possible to copy music files to a NAS for Sonos to read?

I'm not sure about the Escient; haven't touched one since Bush v.2 was in office but Sonos will definitely work with a NAS. Nearly every Sonos we put in includes a NAS. In anticipation of "which NAS?" Synology RackStation with WD Red drives.

Yes, sonos can pull from the escient just like any other Network drive. But expect that escient to die any day. Tell the client to spend $100 and buy a NAS drive and back up the contents.

goodness. Unless you actually hate your client, get rid of the escient and put his music on a Nas drive for him... Or amazon cloud.

Yes, the sonos can pull content, yes the escient hard drive will fail so you need a backup.

Oh why oh why did "all" the Escient drives fail?

And fail they do!

All hard drives fail, it's just a matter of when, not if they will fail.
The escient was a single drive in a tight enclosure, so when it fails there is no failover drive to pick up the load.

I just installed a DVD ripping computer and 16TB WD nas to replace 2x Escient units with 6x 400 disc ES changers. The Escient server has been shut down so DVD lookup no longer works. I think the music side uses the open music database but I would play it safe and sell him a new nas and copy over his music and trash the Escient unit. It had its hayday, sort of.

What's the best way to add new music to Nas from a CD? iTunes then access with sonos? Does the sonos have to be updated each time a song is added?

Depends on the savvy of your customer. If they already use iTunes, then it makes sense to let them continue to use it to rip their CDs. WMP is another that a lot of Windows users who do not use iTunes are familiar with. Aside from those "default" apps that are included in the OS, there are literally thousands of "CD ripping" apps available. Some are easy to set up to be automatic, so when you load a disc, it rips it and stores it where you want it. Some are more interactive, so users need to be somewhat computer literate to configure and use them.

I am sure there are some threads on SONOS' forum that go into detail on different programs and their pros/cons.

You can program SONOS to automatically update the music index every 24 hrs. at a time of your choice. Or the option to manually update it is available from the UI.

But yeah, the Escient needs to go. It will die. And it might be repairable....it depends on how many spare parts are available from other dead units when you send it in. :)