Help organising large media librarys.

[AdamMinefield]

Hello all

This is my first post and indeed the Macbook Air will be my first Mac product.

However I have a bit of an OCD problem.

I have a desktop PC with nearly 50GB of images and almost 170GB of music. I use Picasa on my PC because I quite like the face detection and other features. Clearly the Macbook wont have the size needed to have all my pictures and music but I would like to find a way to have the Macbook have access to pictures so I can use iPhoto and iMovie. I know I will probably just have to use something like Dropbox of a shared folder on the network to have some of my music shared but I would like for there to be a nicer way to have the photos in sync with each other.

What would you all suggest?

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[lucashungaro]

When I had two machines, I had Dropbox to sync files between them. It's amazing.

If your feeling geeky, you can use something like rsync (http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/). There are some GUIs for it on Mac OS X, easy to find through Google.

 

[AdamMinefield]

Hello there

Thanks for getting back to me.

I will have a look at rsync. Having something like Dropbox would be great without having the cloud storage limits.

Having 50GB of pictures might be a bit too much for a Macbook Air but who knows.

I will have a look and see what happens.

Any other ideas?

 

[lucashungaro]

Yeah, that's actually a problem: with Dropbox or rsync you still need to have all files on your MBA.

I have a lot of photos and other media and I use a LaCie Rikiki 640 Gb to carry it around if I need. It's a really small HD, so it's easy to carry it along with your MBA in your backpack. So you can keep your photos on a small external HD and plug it to your desktop or laptop as needed. Of course, you should have a backup of that photos on another HD. That's what I do.

 

[Beaverman3001]

I carry a small external usb hdd around for my photos/documents. I have a ton of photos (raw) so it is about the only reasonable way to keep them with me.

 

[redkamel]

Hello all

This is my first post and indeed the Macbook Air will be my first Mac product.

However I have a bit of an OCD problem.

I have a desktop PC with nearly 50GB of images and almost 170GB of music. I use Picasa on my PC because I quite like the face detection and other features. Clearly the Macbook wont have the size needed to have all my pictures and music but I would like to find a way to have the Macbook have access to pictures so I can use iPhoto and iMovie. I know I will probably just have to use something like Dropbox of a shared folder on the network to have some of my music shared but I would like for there to be a nicer way to have the photos in sync with each other.

What would you all suggest?

Thank you in advance for your help.

My advice:
Music- I don't know if you just have lossless files or a gazillion MP3s. Either way you can: A. Clean out your music library. B. Connect it on a hard drive to an Airport, and stream at home. When you are away, use Pandora. C. Get an iPod classic to carry a significant portion of your music with you.

Pictures: A. Keep your main library on your desktop; keep copies of medium size jpegs on your MBA and update when you get new ones. B. Keep only new pictures (eg last 8 months) and a few favorite albums on your MBA.

I slimmed my music collection down, and I keep my master photos on a separate computer just for photo editing. I keep jpeg copies of whatever suits me on the MBA.

I also reccommend using Disk Inventory X to see if something is taking up a lot of space...you never know, there might be some random folder, file, or album that is bigger than normal. I know for me, it made me realize that a full 250gb of my HD was Aperture vaults...which did not need to be kept on the main HD at all times.

Of course, you can always just use an external drive

 

[Boston007]

Depends...

Are you going to keep your PC or get rid of it.

A simple solution would be to store all your media on your PC and use it as a "server" and simple use your MBA to access your PC via home network.

What backup solution do you have for your media?

Dropbox will only give you 2G of space. I love it, but it's not a solution for media

 

[AdamMinefield]

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Hey redkamel.

Thanks for that I think you might have cracked it.

I'll see about getting an HDD connected to my home wireless network and keep all my music and photos on there and give both my PC and MBA access then I can use things like Dropbox when I am out and about.

That could work ...

 

[barebackbadger8]

i had this sort of problem.
i want to get the MBA 11" but storage space was an issue, but i have a shuttle pc connected to my tv.......anyway i brought a 500gb sata hdd for it (£29) and installed it in shuttle.
created folders, shared the folders etc
its easy to do but found this if your not sure
http://tech.ifelix.net/3020.html

 

[AdamMinefield]

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Hi guys.

Thanks to your help I have a solution.

I have found the Buffalo LinkStation which looks lovely and has some great features. This will hold all my media and stream it to my devices when I need it.

However this does make me wonder what to do with my current external HDD which I use for backups. Should I see it to try and raise some funds for the LinkStation and trust it to hold my media or should I keep the external HDD as another level of redundancy?

Choices.

 

[neko girl]

Another vote for Dropbox. It's amazing..

 

[AdamMinefield]

Oh I completely agree. I'm still going to be useing it. It's the beat of it's type around.