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I want YOUR Approval! :)

Unverrich

Unverrich

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 24, 2008
100
0
USA
Ok, so I got a question and I want you guys to give me some feedback and let me know if its a good idea or not.

I have 2 Apple TV's, in the Living Room and Bedroom. They are wired to my Airport Extreme Base-station. I have a 24" iMac 2.93GHz with 4GB Ram, and I have 8 External HD's attached to a USB hub to my iMac. (1 is Time Machine, 7 are Content for Apple TV) (1,155 Movies=2.4TB & 248 TV Shows=2.2TB)

Everything right now runs perfect and I love it. But I want to move my Airport Extreme and all my Hard Drives to one central location and cool everything down. So I was going to purchase a Mac Mini (Low End) and place it in my closet and hook everything up to that and make it just for my Apple TV content.

Is this a dumb/bad idea? I will be putting fans and such to cool it down but I didn't know if there was a better idea on this? I tried hooking my USB hub to my Airport Extreme but everytime the computer restarted it couldn't find my movies in iTunes because I would have to go and re-mount all 7 of my HD's.

Anything? Thanks!
 
sounds like a good idea, but Jeff, aren't you worried about spam bots getting your info from these posts?
 
What do you mean? If I did the MacMini then all my HD's will be connected to that, not the Airport Extreme. I just tried putting the HD's on the Airport for the time being and I didn't like the outcome, having to put in my password every time I want to access my HD's.
 
by spambots he means that your email address is open to the world in your signature.
 
Another Question I had was if I decided to do the MacMini, does it matter how fast it is if I am just running iTunes? Reason I am asking is because do I buy a new low end one from Apple or buy a used Old one on eBay. (Like the old 1.6GHz, 1GB Ram)
 
A Mac mini seems like a good way to go. But try your AirPort Extreme again. You'd be buying another computer for basically the same thing it's suppose to do. If you go with the mini, you may as well put that in your living room and turn it into a HT setup. It would then show movies on your TV and stream to your other Apple TV. That's a good route. Just try troubleshooting the Extreme.
 
Unverrich said:
Another Question I had was if I decided to do the MacMini, does it matter how fast it is if I am just running iTunes? Reason I am asking is because do I buy a new low end one from Apple or buy a used Old one on eBay. (Like the old 1.6GHz, 1GB Ram)
Click to expand...

Well, here's an example - I'm running a setup similar to yours, however with two 1.5TB external drives filled with movies, music, and tv shows, providing content for two Apple TVs as well as a couple computers (all hooked-up wirelessly via an Airport Extreme), and the "media server" I'm using is an old eMac running Leopard that I picked up for $70 on eBay, and I haven't had a single problem with that. I haven't even had to upgrade the RAM from the original 512MB as yet.
 
Couldn't you sell the 8 hard drives, and buy a NAS and fill that up with ~6-8TB of space?

That way, you can connect that to your Mini (In the living room), using one USB port, and if you need more external hard drives, hook them up with the other USB ports.
Then stream the content to your other Apple TV.
 
I dont know what Im looking for when troubleshooting. I don't know how to get around my iTunes library not finding my movies on my HDs connected to the Airport Extreme after I reboot my computer. It shows them in the shared drive on the finder, but I have to go into each HD and mount them and type in a password and everything works fine. But I restart and have to do that all over again... any suggestions?


Well, here's an example - I'm running a setup similar to yours, however with two 1.5TB external drives filled with movies, music, and tv shows, providing content for two Apple TVs as well as a couple computers (all hooked-up wirelessly via an Airport Extreme), and the "media server" I'm using is an old eMac running Leopard that I picked up for $70 on eBay, and I haven't had a single problem with that. I haven't even had to upgrade the RAM from the original 512MB as yet.
Click to expand...

Wow, I guess I could do something similar instead of a MacMini. Is the computer you bought Intel or Power PC? What is the HD size in it and the Processor spec?
 
Well I have 8 HD's but only 4 Enclosures. I bought 4 enclosure kits that hold 2 HD's each and I'm pretty happy with them. Its a swappable enclosure kit so I can remove and change out the HD's very easily.
 
 
Unverrich said:
Ok, I think I am going with what "FoundAHalo" is doing. Its a cheaper route. Which one seems better out of the 2 or is there a better deal anyone can find?
Click to expand...

Just make sure you check the shipping price. That is one HEAVY and BIG box (assuming they use something close to the original size). Did i mention heavy?

We have a 1.25mhz G4 that the kids use, it's been a work horse for the kids. The Super Drive is getting ready to go though i think, and it's loud. I swear the fan did not used to be this loud nor stay on all the time. I just put Leopard on it about a month ago, and i have maxed the ram.

So just make sure you won't be overpaying with the shipping!
 
Are you running your ATV`s hacked to mount network drives?
Is that why you are being asked for a password each time?

Personally have a core duo mini coupled with a drobo+4x1TB which gives me 2.7TB of redundant storage sharing via iTunes over an airport extreme 802.11n only network. It works very well for this purpose except that the drobo parks the drives and then starts them slowly 1 at a time. However that`s really only for the first thing after not using it for a while. (Must see if i can switch this off).

I imagine with all those drives you`re at an increased risk of at least a partial loss in data. Does that worry you at all?
 
Yeah, I saw that and was looking at the price. My only concern about buying one is I want to make sure I can install Leopard, and run iTunes fine and play all my Movies/TV Shows/Music fine on the computer. Also, stream to my Apple TV fine wired over gigabit Ethernet.

Is there certain specs I should be looking for in an older Mac?
 
Are you running your ATV`s hacked to mount network drives?
Click to expand...

No, Apple TVs are not hacked at all.

Is that why you are being asked for a password each time?
Click to expand...

I am being asked for my password on my Mac for the HD's not Apple TV.

I imagine with all those drives you`re at an increased risk of at least a partial loss in data. Does that worry you at all?
Click to expand...

It does but I don't want to go and spend more money on more HD's to backup all 6-7TB of Video files.
 
Why do you shut down the iMac? We've got ours in our bedroom and we just sleep it at night, (if we remember).
The only noise comes from the external drives, and if you (we) had them on the AE in a closet then there'd be no noise at all. Try sleep instead of shutdown, it could save you some money.
 
I do if I will be out of town for a couple days, or if I install something and it needs to reboot. Also when I go into Windows via Bootcamp because I rip Blu-Ray movies.

Anyone have any suggestions as to why I have to re-type in my password and mount all my HD's every-time?
 
Unverrich said:
I am being asked for my password on my Mac for the HD's not Apple TV.
Click to expand...
The password should be in keychain, look for an afp mount entry matching a drive and check it has a password.
If you do, delete it and then next time you try and mount the drive the keychain entry will be recreated, it might work this time.
If there`s no AFP entry then you can try creating one by hand. Can't give instructions right now as i'm not near a mac.

It does but I don't want to go and spend more money on more HD's to backup all 6-7TB of Video files.
Click to expand...
That would be prohibitive as you'd be buying a equal amount of storage ie. a mirror. The advantage of a Drobo or other array is you typically buy 1.25-1.5 times the storage you need, the surplus is used as parity to rebuild in the event of a disk failure.

I accept you have a large investment in drives already, i just hope that anything critical is on more than just the iMac and the Time Machine drive.

Oh, just occurred to me, if you buy a drobo, take the 4 largest drives out of their cases and install them in that. Play around on the drobolator tool at www.drobo.com to see how much useable storage you`d get. Then as bigger drives become cheaper you can put them in the cases/drobo as your requirements change.

I've only got a weeny 2TB library on my 2.7TB Drobo, but i'm watching the price of 2TB drives and when they're reasonable i'll pop 2x1TB's out into my macpro and pop 2x2TB's into the Drobo.

When you are getting into the 6-7TB range there isn't a cheap option other than a very large spindle of DVD's and a lot of time on your hands. Or with a cool grand and change in your pocket the DroboPro. :eek:

Regards
M.
 
 
Re: I want YOUR Approval! :)

Sorry, don't know you well enough.

Though I can probably give you a Scooby Snack, pat you on the head, and say "good boy."
 
So if I buy that second one, it will be good enough to drive both my Apple TVs and run iTunes? It will have 5-6 External Enclosures hooked up to it with a USB hub, just making sure that will work as well.
 
I've just been playing about with AirPort Utility, and noticed this that may help your USB drives attached the the AEBS stay connected, but may just be rubbish!

Open Airport Utility and look at the settings for your AEBS.
Click on 'Disks' then select the 'File Sharing' tab.
On this bit you can select the password for your shared disks, you may be able to change this to something that stops them disconnecting, mine uses the Time Capsule Password, (obviously your AEBS won't say that;)) I can also choose 'With a Disk Password' or 'With Accounts', and you can select to remember this in your keychain.

HTH
 
Pretty much any computer should handle streaming to the Apple TV. I'm just using a 500Mhz G4 PowerMac w/ 1GB RAM with 4 external HDs and it works just fine. I don't use it for anything else though, it just sits down the basement and serves media.
 
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