Hassle factor = high compared with a Drobo.
to each his own.
As to the other poster: I simply formatted my DROBO into separate partitions - TM has one and I control what size, the rest I can use for other purposes.
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Storage Solutions for our OUT-OF-CONTROL iTunes Libraries
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Hassle factor = high compared with a Drobo.
to each his own.
As to the other poster: I simply formatted my DROBO into separate partitions - TM has one and I control what size, the rest I can use for other purposes.
As a few others have done, here is my setup as it will be. The only two things I don't have right now are the AppleTV for the Bedroom, and the ceiling speakers hooked up. I have to cut the holes in the ceiling, and run the wires. Other than that, it's all a go:
I have a relatively small music library, it's only 17.79 gigs right now. TV shows and Movies are going to fill up those drives quickly, and then I'll move to a more elegant solution. I had the Dell and drives already, so that's why I'm using them for now.
Great looking setup. One question - are you able to mirror the 2 drives attached to your Dell SFF PC?
Thanks! It's impressive what Apple has built with all these devices and how well they play together. It wouldn't be half as cool of a setup if the iPhone couldn't control it all.
As to the drives - to be honest, I'm not really sure. That's what the plan is, but it's just sitting there plugged in right now. I set the one drive up and got it streaming to
TV and Boxee, but haven't had time to go in and try to mirror the other drive. I don't know crap about Windows, so there's probably going to be a heavy amount of Googling and cursing in my future.
I'm too lazy to make a diagram, but here's a description of the topology of my home network/storage/entertainment setup:
Basement mechanical room, all wall mounted:
FiOS 20/5 internet connection
Verizon-provided Actiontec router
Netgear 8 port gigabit switch (sort of the core)
UPS
Termination of 5e runs to 3rd floor, basement server room, 1st floor den
Basement server room/storage room:
HP EX470 Windows Home Server, upgraded to 2.7GHz CPU and 2GB ram
Rosewill 5 bay ESATA drive chassis
500gb USB drive for nearline backup of software installations
Total usable storage, not including backup drive: 7.05 terabyte
UPS
1st Floor Den (Main entertainment center):
Netgear 5 port gigabit switch, connected to core switch in basement
Linksys WRT54G acting only as WAP for the house G WLAN
Popcorn Hour A-110 networked media player (no local storage)
Apple TV 40gb upgraded to 250 gb, used for music playback, local library synched to library on server
Pioneer Elite 50 Plasma TV
Onkyo TX805 AVR
Verizon networked DVR
Logitech 890 remote
3rd Floor, my office:
Netgear 8 port gigabit switch connected to core switch in basement
Linksys WRT54GL running Tomato, acting only as WAP for house G WLAN
Apple Time Capsule 500gb upgraded to 1tb, acting as Time Machine backup for my MBA and my wifes white Macbook. Also acts as the dedicated 5GHz N WAP
Homebuilt gaming PC, dual Dell 24 monitors shared among various machines
Homebuilt ripping/transcoding PC (BD drive, bare bones XP install with utilities required for MKV encoding. Uses about 1/3 the electricity of the main desktop, so thats why I have a dedicated machine
Verizon HD cable box for bed room TV, Niles IR blaster
3rd Floor, wifes office:
Netgear 5 port gigabit switch, connected to switch in my office
Vonage endpoint for her business line
Networked HP laserjet printer
2nd Floor Master Bed Room:
Wall mounted 42 Sharp LCD TV, Niles IR blaster receiver
Apple Airport Express configured as WLAN bridge for 5GHz N network
Popcorn Hour A-100 networked media player (connected to Airport)
Roku Netflix box, connected via G house WLAN
Logitech 880 remote
The most relevant part to this thread is of course the server. When I was looking to replace my old lame 500gb NAS drive last year I started looking in to the HP Mediasmart servers. They got pretty good performance reviews and the price wasn't that much higher than a dedicated NAS chassis. Now the longer I have it the more useful it's become. Since it's basically a little Windows Server 2003 machine that uses little electricity I can keep it on all the time and RDC back into it from anywhere to start downloads or whatever.
The new version doesn't support it anymore, but the one I have suports port multipliers on the ESATA port. Currently I have the external chassis populated with 3 x 1.5TB drives, with 2 empty slots. The server itself has 4 slots. WHS uses something called Microsoft Drive Extender to aggregate selected drives into one seemless storage pool. Redundancy is provided at the shared folder level and will mirror the folder across 2 drives, according to the storage manager's logic and available space.
With the storage I have now, the 108 gb itunes library is a drop in the bucket.
John
Basement mechanical room, all wall mounted:
FiOS 20/5 internet connection
Verizon-provided Actiontec router
Netgear 8 port gigabit switch (sort of the core)
UPS
Termination of 5e runs to 3rd floor, basement server room, 1st floor den
Basement server room/storage room:
HP EX470 Windows Home Server, upgraded to 2.7GHz CPU and 2GB ram
Rosewill 5 bay ESATA drive chassis
500gb USB drive for nearline backup of software installations
Total usable storage, not including backup drive: 7.05 terabyte
UPS
1st Floor Den (Main entertainment center):
Netgear 5 port gigabit switch, connected to core switch in basement
Linksys WRT54G acting only as WAP for the house G WLAN
Popcorn Hour A-110 networked media player (no local storage)
Apple TV 40gb upgraded to 250 gb, used for music playback, local library synched to library on server
Pioneer Elite 50 Plasma TV
Onkyo TX805 AVR
Verizon networked DVR
Logitech 890 remote
3rd Floor, my office:
Netgear 8 port gigabit switch connected to core switch in basement
Linksys WRT54GL running Tomato, acting only as WAP for house G WLAN
Apple Time Capsule 500gb upgraded to 1tb, acting as Time Machine backup for my MBA and my wifes white Macbook. Also acts as the dedicated 5GHz N WAP
Homebuilt gaming PC, dual Dell 24 monitors shared among various machines
Homebuilt ripping/transcoding PC (BD drive, bare bones XP install with utilities required for MKV encoding. Uses about 1/3 the electricity of the main desktop, so thats why I have a dedicated machine
Verizon HD cable box for bed room TV, Niles IR blaster
3rd Floor, wifes office:
Netgear 5 port gigabit switch, connected to switch in my office
Vonage endpoint for her business line
Networked HP laserjet printer
2nd Floor Master Bed Room:
Wall mounted 42 Sharp LCD TV, Niles IR blaster receiver
Apple Airport Express configured as WLAN bridge for 5GHz N network
Popcorn Hour A-100 networked media player (connected to Airport)
Roku Netflix box, connected via G house WLAN
Logitech 880 remote
The most relevant part to this thread is of course the server. When I was looking to replace my old lame 500gb NAS drive last year I started looking in to the HP Mediasmart servers. They got pretty good performance reviews and the price wasn't that much higher than a dedicated NAS chassis. Now the longer I have it the more useful it's become. Since it's basically a little Windows Server 2003 machine that uses little electricity I can keep it on all the time and RDC back into it from anywhere to start downloads or whatever.
The new version doesn't support it anymore, but the one I have suports port multipliers on the ESATA port. Currently I have the external chassis populated with 3 x 1.5TB drives, with 2 empty slots. The server itself has 4 slots. WHS uses something called Microsoft Drive Extender to aggregate selected drives into one seemless storage pool. Redundancy is provided at the shared folder level and will mirror the folder across 2 drives, according to the storage manager's logic and available space.
With the storage I have now, the 108 gb itunes library is a drop in the bucket.
John
I think we would all enjoy some great pictures. The entire system sounds great. I'm sliding towards the HP Media Server but for some reason still holding out for an Apple product.
There is a hassle factor (sort of) However this can do so much more then a drobo but then again. To each his own. Just putting it out there as another possible solution for the ever expanding media collections people have.
I can't even guess what your power bill must be!Sweet setup though.
Thanks!
Actually, the electric bill isn't that bad (when the central air isn't running). The desktop with the 1kw power supply only runs when I'm using it, as does the machine I use for recoding. The server's UPS reports about 120w of usage. Half that is the chassis. I think they over-spec'ed the power supply in that thing a little.
I try to balance that out by using timers and motion sensors on lighting.
I'll try to take some photos this weekend...
John
I was bored so I drew up a diagram lol.
The 512GB SSD would be the boot drive.
The 1TB HDD is the Time Machine drive for the SSD.
The 4 2TB HDDs are the movie drives in RAID 1.
The Time Capsule serves as the AirPort Extreme base station, Time Machine drive for MacBook, and for file sharing between Mac Pro and MacBook.
SSD and 1TB HDD would go where the second optical drive bay is.
One day... One day...........
The 512GB SSD would be the boot drive.
The 1TB HDD is the Time Machine drive for the SSD.
The 4 2TB HDDs are the movie drives in RAID 1.
The Time Capsule serves as the AirPort Extreme base station, Time Machine drive for MacBook, and for file sharing between Mac Pro and MacBook.
SSD and 1TB HDD would go where the second optical drive bay is.
One day... One day...........
I was bored so I drew up a diagram lol.
The 512GB SSD would be the boot drive.
The 1TB HDD is the Time Machine drive for the SSD.
The 4 2TB HDDs are the movie drives in RAID 1.
The Time Capsule serves as the AirPort Extreme base station, Time Machine drive for MacBook, and for file sharing between Mac Pro and MacBook.
SSD and 1TB HDD would go where the second optical drive bay is.
One day... One day...........
Every Tech Geek's dream right there ^^^
Taking a break from editing, I whipped together how my house is set up.
Data has built-in redundancy between the two Drobos. I have a syncing program sync new stuff from the iMac's Drobo to the MacBook's Drobo (as well as the 2TB MyBook hooked up to the bedroom's AppleTV), so if one dies, I have a backup. MacBook replaces AppleTV in the Home Theater because I now have 1080P movies I need to play into that TV. Mac Pro has 4TB inside for editing, photos, documents, personal stuff, etc. with plans for a 3rd Drobo added to that for backup. All media machines are hardwired through Airport Extreme, while my bedroom AppleTV and MacBook Pro feed off the wireless. All in all it's a great solution. I can watching anything from anywhere, and everything stays automatically up to date.
Data has built-in redundancy between the two Drobos. I have a syncing program sync new stuff from the iMac's Drobo to the MacBook's Drobo (as well as the 2TB MyBook hooked up to the bedroom's AppleTV), so if one dies, I have a backup. MacBook replaces AppleTV in the Home Theater because I now have 1080P movies I need to play into that TV. Mac Pro has 4TB inside for editing, photos, documents, personal stuff, etc. with plans for a 3rd Drobo added to that for backup. All media machines are hardwired through Airport Extreme, while my bedroom AppleTV and MacBook Pro feed off the wireless. All in all it's a great solution. I can watching anything from anywhere, and everything stays automatically up to date.
Well, I posted a while ago in this thread, but now my setup has been changed a great deal. I was having a large amount of trouble with the diagram, so until I can get one up, here is my setup: (all is wireless except for XBOX 360)
Main Airport Extreme--In Basement, serving Comcast internet to house (Wii and other Airports connected))
Slave Airport Extreme--In office, bounces main signal, (XBOX 360, iMac, HP C6200, 2 Dell laptops connected (only 360 via ethernet))
Slave Airport Express--Upstairs, bounces signal again (2 iMacs, 2 iPod touches)
So, for the media portion, one iMac has a 500gb WD My Book Home Edition (FW 400, USB 2.0, ESATA, for iTunes) and 750gb Maxtor One Touch 4 (FW 400, USB 2.0, ESATA, for Time Machine). It is on from about 8 AM to 10PM, encoding or serving as well as being used as a main computer. This serves all the media for the house.
The other iMac is just pulling media off of the first, and is basically just a family machine. It is connected via Airport to the other, and gets all of the same content.
We currently use 3 iPod Video 30gb 5gs, an iPod Nano 3g 8gb, an iPod touch 1g 16gb, and an iPod touch 2g 32gb. Some of the music and video from the iMac is stored on an iPod 5g and plugged into the XBOX for use in the basement. We are hoping to either get an Apple TV when it goes 1080p (the difference is noticeable on our 110" basement TV) or just use Netflix on the XBOX.
If you have any ideas on improvement, please let me know.
Also, is there a way to point a Time Machine drive connected to an Airport Extreme to another drive connected to a second Extreme? I have been unsuccessful in doing this and it would make everything easier for our house as it would not require the iMac to be on all the time.
Main Airport Extreme--In Basement, serving Comcast internet to house (Wii and other Airports connected))
Slave Airport Extreme--In office, bounces main signal, (XBOX 360, iMac, HP C6200, 2 Dell laptops connected (only 360 via ethernet))
Slave Airport Express--Upstairs, bounces signal again (2 iMacs, 2 iPod touches)
So, for the media portion, one iMac has a 500gb WD My Book Home Edition (FW 400, USB 2.0, ESATA, for iTunes) and 750gb Maxtor One Touch 4 (FW 400, USB 2.0, ESATA, for Time Machine). It is on from about 8 AM to 10PM, encoding or serving as well as being used as a main computer. This serves all the media for the house.
The other iMac is just pulling media off of the first, and is basically just a family machine. It is connected via Airport to the other, and gets all of the same content.
We currently use 3 iPod Video 30gb 5gs, an iPod Nano 3g 8gb, an iPod touch 1g 16gb, and an iPod touch 2g 32gb. Some of the music and video from the iMac is stored on an iPod 5g and plugged into the XBOX for use in the basement. We are hoping to either get an Apple TV when it goes 1080p (the difference is noticeable on our 110" basement TV) or just use Netflix on the XBOX.
If you have any ideas on improvement, please let me know.
Also, is there a way to point a Time Machine drive connected to an Airport Extreme to another drive connected to a second Extreme? I have been unsuccessful in doing this and it would make everything easier for our house as it would not require the iMac to be on all the time.
i think i have the same sony receiver as you do.
geez i wish i had some of these setups, although for my audio setup right i think its just about were i need and want it
kinda wanted to post my full set up
2.2 ghz mbp
with
a 19 Westinghouse screen that has a dual link cable between them
then for my internet all cat 6 cable from my port which is hooked to a gigabit router and modem
then optical cable to my sony receiver which has 4 speakers, 1 center speaker, 2 subs.
then to a 500gb external drive using usb
then external keyboard and mouse
then printer
then from my drum set
my mbp connected
to my sony receiver again, diff connection
then to a old monitor in front of my drum set
then from my receiver a cable going through my drum set to under my snare for my headphones
which are beyer dynamics pro dt 770's or westone um1's
ya, now i just need some more external hdd space, like a nice terabite would do me good.
you guys with a bunch of 2tb drives just make my storage problem look like nothing,
ya my storage problem has had my mbp and external maxed for like a year now.
Music File Storage and backup
There are a lot of solutions, but obviously you need larger drives for back up than your primary drives.
At present, I basically install the biggest possible hard drive on my machines, and have an external backup drive via and eSata connector or USB 2.0 connector. I am finding this does not work, as my Time Machine backups have started failing as time has gone on.
I think it is important to split data and applications apart as I've been unable to go back to earlier releases of software like Safari under Time Machine--so there is no point in keeping these on backup except as compressed packages.
Further redundancy by duplication on multiple machine helps, but there are issues making sure the latest files are updated. Some of this can be automated. I want to avoid a lot of maintenance work and network traffic. My network has grown a bit, and gotten correspondingly more complex. I have eight machines, and expect to add one more Mac Mini for development and testing, and perhaps an iMac for my girlfriend. I'm trying to phase out my Windows machines, but I'm forced to keep them for certain software I must have--some of which I will have to test under Parallels.
I use manual backups at times. I consider a Gigabit Ethernet the minimum necessary for this. Anyone who does backup over Wifi, needs to see a doctor.
The bottom line is I have not been satisfied with this configuration for music file back up, and furthermore, all file backups, including video files. Building a good configuration takes a combination of time and money. I like to do things as cheaply as possible, so I tend to build and/or modify things to suit my needs.
My plan, which is under construction, is to build a case which will hold 10 hard drives, plus two RAID Arrays of 5 each in RAID 0, with mirroring between the two 5 TB RAID Arrays--one will be my primary data drive configuration. I'm not sure exactly how I'll use the other ten drives aside from Time Machine backups. At first I'll toss in all the 500GB drives and maybe concatenate various drives together. Later I'll upgrade all drives to 1TB Seagates. I like Seagates, and the cost is quite low. The bigger 1.5TB drives have a higher failure rate.
I have to get going. I'll try and update this post later.
There are a lot of solutions, but obviously you need larger drives for back up than your primary drives.
At present, I basically install the biggest possible hard drive on my machines, and have an external backup drive via and eSata connector or USB 2.0 connector. I am finding this does not work, as my Time Machine backups have started failing as time has gone on.
I think it is important to split data and applications apart as I've been unable to go back to earlier releases of software like Safari under Time Machine--so there is no point in keeping these on backup except as compressed packages.
Further redundancy by duplication on multiple machine helps, but there are issues making sure the latest files are updated. Some of this can be automated. I want to avoid a lot of maintenance work and network traffic. My network has grown a bit, and gotten correspondingly more complex. I have eight machines, and expect to add one more Mac Mini for development and testing, and perhaps an iMac for my girlfriend. I'm trying to phase out my Windows machines, but I'm forced to keep them for certain software I must have--some of which I will have to test under Parallels.
I use manual backups at times. I consider a Gigabit Ethernet the minimum necessary for this. Anyone who does backup over Wifi, needs to see a doctor.
The bottom line is I have not been satisfied with this configuration for music file back up, and furthermore, all file backups, including video files. Building a good configuration takes a combination of time and money. I like to do things as cheaply as possible, so I tend to build and/or modify things to suit my needs.
My plan, which is under construction, is to build a case which will hold 10 hard drives, plus two RAID Arrays of 5 each in RAID 0, with mirroring between the two 5 TB RAID Arrays--one will be my primary data drive configuration. I'm not sure exactly how I'll use the other ten drives aside from Time Machine backups. At first I'll toss in all the 500GB drives and maybe concatenate various drives together. Later I'll upgrade all drives to 1TB Seagates. I like Seagates, and the cost is quite low. The bigger 1.5TB drives have a higher failure rate.
I have to get going. I'll try and update this post later.
I am using an external Hard drive attached to my hacked ATV.
I hacked the ATV using ATVUSB-Creator
How should my external drive folder structure be organized?
Exactly like iTunes?
I want to store all my Music and Movies on my external but I want to be able to have playlists and the album covers for the music.
How is this possible?
I only access these files thru AppleTV.
I hacked the ATV using ATVUSB-Creator
How should my external drive folder structure be organized?
Exactly like iTunes?
I want to store all my Music and Movies on my external but I want to be able to have playlists and the album covers for the music.
How is this possible?
I only access these files thru AppleTV.
Taking a break from editing, I whipped together how my house is set up.
Data has built-in redundancy between the two Drobos. I have a syncing program sync new stuff from the iMac's Drobo to the MacBook's Drobo (as well as the 2TB MyBook hooked up to the bedroom's AppleTV), so if one dies, I have a backup. MacBook replaces AppleTV in the Home Theater because I now have 1080P movies I need to play into that TV. Mac Pro has 4TB inside for editing, photos, documents, personal stuff, etc. with plans for a 3rd Drobo added to that for backup. All media machines are hardwired through Airport Extreme, while my bedroom AppleTV and MacBook Pro feed off the wireless. All in all it's a great solution. I can watching anything from anywhere, and everything stays automatically up to date.
how much did all that cost
A lot. A year ago there's no WAY I could have imagined I could have afforded this, but I got a new job in August and this is the result! If you want a rough guestimate:
52" LCD: $1400
32" LCD: $450
2.4Ghz MB as HTPC: $300
4TB Drobo: (freelance charge to client)
8TB Drobo: (freelance charge to client)
AppleTV: $150
AE "N" Base Station: $100
20" iMac: $900
Octo Mac: $2300
30": $1000
2.8Ghz MBP: $1900
2TB WD MyBook: $250
A lot of this stuff I bought on Craigslist, MacRumors, Ars for cheap from people who didn't know or care what they were worth. The TV's were bought new. Some of the Apple stuff is "employee" discounted. Drobos were compensation for favors for some freelance clients. I'm swapping out a few pieces in the near future (15" getting swapped to 17" MBP in a few days, Octo Mac to whatever the next one is, same for the 30" ACD)
Where did you purchase the WD 2TB drive from? I'm looking for a few and trying to compare the different pricing.
Thanks
Taking a break from editing, I whipped together how my house is set up.
Data has built-in redundancy between the two Drobos. I have a syncing program sync new stuff from the iMac's Drobo to the MacBook's Drobo (as well as the 2TB MyBook hooked up to the bedroom's AppleTV), so if one dies, I have a backup. MacBook replaces AppleTV in the Home Theater because I now have 1080P movies I need to play into that TV. Mac Pro has 4TB inside for editing, photos, documents, personal stuff, etc. with plans for a 3rd Drobo added to that for backup. All media machines are hardwired through Airport Extreme, while my bedroom AppleTV and MacBook Pro feed off the wireless. All in all it's a great solution. I can watching anything from anywhere, and everything stays automatically up to date.
Since your told me in PM YOU dont ned your 30" DISPLAAY, i reccommnerbd you dontae it to luke.