erm... I just got home from my best mates 18th 
lol, funny thing is, it made sense when I read it back last night
lol, funny thing is, it made sense when I read it back last night
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Storage Solutions for our OUT-OF-CONTROL iTunes Libraries
- Thread starter fivepoint
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You forgot to say where did you get those 1080p movies you are playing on the MBP?!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.
Not an option
Last year I purchased a 1TB LaCie NAS Mini. It works. But know this, it is a DOS drive at heart. I believe it runs Linux. It supports SMB, AFP and HTTP access. The AFP (Apple File) server access will disappear when there is a power failure and has to be reset using the very very slow and antique NAS setup utility. Once setup and running it seems to be OK but I cannot use it as the media server storage device I needed.
AJ
Last year I purchased a 1TB LaCie NAS Mini. It works. But know this, it is a DOS drive at heart. I believe it runs Linux. It supports SMB, AFP and HTTP access. The AFP (Apple File) server access will disappear when there is a power failure and has to be reset using the very very slow and antique NAS setup utility. Once setup and running it seems to be OK but I cannot use it as the media server storage device I needed.
AJ
I'm considering buying a DROBO or some other NAS device with RAID or RAID-like redundancy. Currently I have a 1TB external drive filled with movies, TV, music, software, etc. I have a MBA (transitioning from a desktop PC that I am selling shortly) and will soon have an AEBS (to work with my current wireless G router). I also have an old PC laying around that I could turn into a fileserver with RAID 5 or something similar instead of the DROBO.
My questions....
If I purchase ATV, I have to have a computer serving the media to it? The DROBO won't do it alone? Does the DROBO have any serving capabilities, or is it basically a big external drive?
If I have to have the DROBO connected through (or networked with and shared through) a Mini or some other computer, I don't see why I wouldn't just upgrade this old PC I have to be a RAID/server box instead (besides the simplicity and convenience factors). It would be cheaper and more functional overall.
I've read through much of this thread. I just want to make sure I know what I think I know. You know?
My questions....
If I purchase ATV, I have to have a computer serving the media to it? The DROBO won't do it alone? Does the DROBO have any serving capabilities, or is it basically a big external drive?
If I have to have the DROBO connected through (or networked with and shared through) a Mini or some other computer, I don't see why I wouldn't just upgrade this old PC I have to be a RAID/server box instead (besides the simplicity and convenience factors). It would be cheaper and more functional overall.
I've read through much of this thread. I just want to make sure I know what I think I know. You know?
Yes, you have to have a computer running iTunes to serve the data to the AppleTV (except for the content actually synced to the device itself) The Drobo does not have any 'serving capabilities'... it is, like you said, basically just a big hard drive.
That would certainly be one option... and if you're skilled in that regard, possibly a better one. It's harder to do, takes longer, takes up more space, etc. but if you've got the skills, you could save a lot of money that way.
I've read through much of this thread. I just want to make sure I know what I think I know. You know?
I'd also caution you to have at LEAST one copy of everything on your iTunes drive. The only thing worse than losing GBs of data to hard drive failure, power surge, etc. is losing TBs of data to hard drive failure, power surge, etc. Know what I mean? An off-site back up is even better.
I think a lot of people here might be making the mistake of housing all of their data on one Drobo and thinking their safe from data loss. While the Drobo SHOULD protect against individual hard drive failure (one at a time), It can't protect against 2 drives failing, or a power surge which takes out everything in the device, or anything else that could happen like data corruption, etc.
It's always wise to have at least two physical devices with cloned data on them, in my opinion.
I couldn't agree more. I would take it one step further and have your information off site. Kind of pain, but it is so worth it.
I'm considering buying a DROBO or some other NAS device with RAID or RAID-like redundancy. Currently I have a 1TB external drive filled with movies, TV, music, software, etc. I have a MBA (transitioning from a desktop PC that I am selling shortly) and will soon have an AEBS (to work with my current wireless G router). I also have an old PC laying around that I could turn into a fileserver with RAID 5 or something similar instead of the DROBO.
My questions....
If I purchase ATV, I have to have a computer serving the media to it? The DROBO won't do it alone? Does the DROBO have any serving capabilities, or is it basically a big external drive?
If I have to have the DROBO connected through (or networked with and shared through) a Mini or some other computer, I don't see why I wouldn't just upgrade this old PC I have to be a RAID/server box instead (besides the simplicity and convenience factors). It would be cheaper and more functional overall.
I've read through much of this thread. I just want to make sure I know what I think I know. You know?
If you want to reuse the old PC take a look at unRAID. I have been using it for a while now and it is working great for me. Read up on their page and the wiki, also feel free to ask some questions on the forums and you should be able to get the answers you are looking for.
unRAID is basically a RAID5 with out the striping and it uses a parity disk (has to be the largest disk in the system) to give you the data protection.
Man this is a long thread. A question for the masses. I have an older Dell Precision M60 1.7Ghz 2 GB RAM running as the iTunes server across a network to a Drobo with DroboShare to make it a NAS. Currently I have my movies split between two computers, one has all of the "Grown Up" movies loaded into it's iTunes, the other laptop has the "Kids" movies loaded. This way one library shows up as "My Movies" and the other as "Shared Movies". This keeps the kids from picking something that they shouldn't watch until I can use MetaX to put in MPAA ratings on all the files (man I wish iTunes would let me do that). Anyway I have about 580 "Grown Up" movies and I wanted to load the kids movies (about 120) onto the same laptop. Mostly because I'm traveling more and I need to take the one laptop with me. However I'm noticing a huge lag in iTunes on that Dell laptop. Do very large libraries really cause it to slow down that much? Are there any tips or tricks to making it run a bit smoother?
Thanks!
Thanks!
Is anyone else still waiting for the WD20EADS (Caviar Green 2TB) drive to be in stock for a reasonable price? I've been waiting a month now for someone that has it for $265 or less to get it back in stock and instead, the price just keeps climbing (Buy.com doesn't even have them in stock and have still raised it well over the MSRP of $300 to $334.99). When New Egg has them in stock, they want MSRP or better. It's getting ridiculous. Restock times are listed well into April at most stores now. I guess the demand for this drive is right up there with the Nintendo Wii the first year.
It's ironic given how high the dollar is per GB for this drive. Seagate 1.5TB drives are in the $140 range. You could get two and RAID them for 3TB for less than one stinking 5600 RPM green drive from WD. The only thing stopping me is that I've read of endless problems with these Seagate drives, either unreliability issues or firmware "freeze" issues and I've seen no indication that Seagate is doing anything about the problem (maybe that's why they're so cheap? No one wants them?)
Regardless, I need a storage solution NOW for my out of control iTunes library. I just recently converted all 250+ DVDs I have to Apple TV compatible M4V (MP4) .H264 and along with my 5500 songs (over 400 CDs), I need more space and I'm afraid 1TB will fill up too quickly. The only thing I can think of is to get two 1TB internals for my PowerMac and RAID 0 them and get a 2nd external Lacie or WD Mybook 2TB (also Raid 0 1TB drives) as a backup. 4 drives = 2x as likely to fail as a single 2TB drive (well...maybe depending on manufacturing issues, etc.) and not as compact, but maybe more versatile to have an external copy of the data (easily plugged into my MBP if there's an issue with the PowerMac).
I dunno. What do you think? Are two 1TB drives with Raid 0 the better option right now? Certainly, I would imagine it could get higher transfer rates than a single 2TB drive, particularly if I got two Raptors for the internal Satas for the PowerMac (although I would think slower, cooler running drives would be more reliable in the long run and high speed transfers don't mean a thing except to back them up and that would be limited to FW400 rates if I have to go external for the backup). Maybe realiability would be a bit worse (that's what the backup is for, though), but given the availability issue coupled with the ridiculously high prices right now for the drive when you CAN find it, I might not have many options.
I need to get these DVDs off my laptop external backup/expansion drive so I can use that space for transferring my VHS and Laserdiscs to the computer with my new Canopus/TBC/Panasonic 1980 Pro VCR editing system. I'm down to less than 90GB on my MBP's internal Sata already and very little space left on my other two computers to store the final MP4 videos regardless (I guess I could dump them onto DVD-R discs for now, though).
It's ironic given how high the dollar is per GB for this drive. Seagate 1.5TB drives are in the $140 range. You could get two and RAID them for 3TB for less than one stinking 5600 RPM green drive from WD. The only thing stopping me is that I've read of endless problems with these Seagate drives, either unreliability issues or firmware "freeze" issues and I've seen no indication that Seagate is doing anything about the problem (maybe that's why they're so cheap? No one wants them?)
Regardless, I need a storage solution NOW for my out of control iTunes library. I just recently converted all 250+ DVDs I have to Apple TV compatible M4V (MP4) .H264 and along with my 5500 songs (over 400 CDs), I need more space and I'm afraid 1TB will fill up too quickly. The only thing I can think of is to get two 1TB internals for my PowerMac and RAID 0 them and get a 2nd external Lacie or WD Mybook 2TB (also Raid 0 1TB drives) as a backup. 4 drives = 2x as likely to fail as a single 2TB drive (well...maybe depending on manufacturing issues, etc.) and not as compact, but maybe more versatile to have an external copy of the data (easily plugged into my MBP if there's an issue with the PowerMac).
I dunno. What do you think? Are two 1TB drives with Raid 0 the better option right now? Certainly, I would imagine it could get higher transfer rates than a single 2TB drive, particularly if I got two Raptors for the internal Satas for the PowerMac (although I would think slower, cooler running drives would be more reliable in the long run and high speed transfers don't mean a thing except to back them up and that would be limited to FW400 rates if I have to go external for the backup). Maybe realiability would be a bit worse (that's what the backup is for, though), but given the availability issue coupled with the ridiculously high prices right now for the drive when you CAN find it, I might not have many options.
I need to get these DVDs off my laptop external backup/expansion drive so I can use that space for transferring my VHS and Laserdiscs to the computer with my new Canopus/TBC/Panasonic 1980 Pro VCR editing system. I'm down to less than 90GB on my MBP's internal Sata already and very little space left on my other two computers to store the final MP4 videos regardless (I guess I could dump them onto DVD-R discs for now, though).
I set up my new Western Digital MyBook II 2 TB last night. I wasn't sure if I set up RAID 1 that it wouldn't screw things up with iTunes. Suppose I was thinking, which hard drive of the 1 TB's would it read off of. Not really tech savvy, but figured it must work some how. It did. I'm assuming folks here don't like the MyBook, b/c I don't see much reference to them. I bought it b/c my 500GB MyBook has been flawless, but not having it backed up scared me.
So, now I guess if I have a failure with one of the TB hard drives, I simply replace it? Once replaced, how does the new hard drive get the duplicate info from the original hard drive? The whole RAID concept is new to me!
So, now I guess if I have a failure with one of the TB hard drives, I simply replace it? Once replaced, how does the new hard drive get the duplicate info from the original hard drive? The whole RAID concept is new to me!
I hear you. I've filled two 1TB drives with archives of my DVDs, and the better portion of my iMac's 500GB internal with .m4v's. I need more space, but am waiting for the 2TB internal prices to drop I want an internal solution eventually, and I don't see the point in buying more external drives. Which kinda leaves me at an impasse in the massive project
I hear you. I've filled two 1TB drives with archives of my DVDs, and the better portion of my iMac's 500GB internal with .m4v's. I need more space, but am waiting for the 2TB internal prices to drop I want an internal solution eventually, and I don't see the point in buying more external drives. Which kinda leaves me at an impasse in the massive project
I've thought about a drobo (4 drives that give you about 3 drives of space which could mean up to 6TB), but from what I've read, it sounds like the Drobo itself is less reliable than the hard drives it holds and if it goes, ALL your data goes with it, which completely undermines the whole point of the device (unless all you care about is having the equivalent of a big Raid5 device). Having a completely separate backup is much safer (only safer yet is to have yet another backup off site, which I do for really important things that can't be replaced like photo albums and home movies).
Network attached options seem very limited since my Apple TV units cannot use them except possibly the new HP Media Servers since they supposedly can run the regular Windows version of iTunes directly, making them the equivlent of setting up small mini-tower PC to use as a NAS. But that's still running a Windows variation 24/7, which I don't trust. So I keep using this PowerMac as a combined NAS/Internet station and frankly, it does as well as any NAS could hope too plus gives me a secure shopping/banking center that can also run Office 2004 smoothly, etc. Leopard is just fine on it with the ATI 9800 Pro. I'm running a 22" 1680x1050 resolution monitor and Leopard and it's fine (feels smoother on this monitor than 1024x768 on the old 19" CRT and translucent effects are much more noticeable). It's not exactly "small" like some NAS units, but it fits in the alcove this desk has without issue and takes up no space on top (who needs an iMac?) and can fit potentially up to 4 or 5 internal drives plus a 22x DVD-RW Lightscribe drive and a nice front panel Firewire/USB 2.0/Audio hub where the Zip drive used to be. I like it. The only thing I worry about adding MORE drives is the power supply so I'd prefer two 2TB internal drives instead of adding a 2nd Sata card and more drives. Of course external options abound. I could replace the cheap USB 2.0 card with a FW800/USB2.0 card I found that will work with it and that would still leave my last usable PCI slot open for something else (there are FW800 only cards as well). There's also several E-Sata PCI cards that will work with it along with a Sonnet Sata 2 card that has 4 internal Sata ports (a little pricey at $180 or more, though). Basically,
I guess I'm saying a used PowerMac (I've seen dual 553 G4s go for as little as $50 on eBay sometimes which leaves plenty of cash for a few upgrades) doesn't make a bad NAS and secondary computer (heck I use it MORE than my MBP or PC since it's on 24/7, it's ultra convenient to just turn on the monitor and there's Firefox ready to go and let's face it, most of us use the Internet more than anything else these days for whatever application). I could put together a server with 2TB of internal storage using a cheap used G4 for half the price of a Mac Mini without the added storage (and all its storage would have to be external) so I think there's plenty of uses for these old machines despite what some would say about them. With TwonkeyMedia, Squeeze Center and/or iTunes, it makes a great whole house media server. It's too bad XBMC doesn't run directly on it, but my Apple TV running it can access it as a network share. I've converted most of my media to M4V anyway (converting Macross The Movie anime from VHS right now to M4v using a Canopus + TBC + used Pro Panasonic VCR (model 1980). I still have plenty of VHS and laserdiscs to convert over and a few more photo albums to scan in, but when I'm done ALL my media will be available on AppleTV around the house and can be controlled from my iPod Touch (or an iPhone). I've got Remote Buddy installed as well which lets me use the iPod Touch as a Front Row remote (PowerMac has no IR port, although you could add one via USB) and I can even view my Logitech 9000 web camera from the iPod Touch with it. I've got Klipsch 2.1 THX speakers and that 22" monitor connected to it so it makes for a nice den media viewing/listening location as well (two AppleTV and an Airport Express unit allow music and/or video access around the house from one media library stored on the PowerMac). I've got iTunes installed on my PC and MBP as well as an interim backup in case the PowerMac fails until I can replace it (the PC also has a backup of my music library) and "Signal" is on both my Macs and PC for iPod Touch access (well that was pre "Remote" which works on both as well with iTunes, although Signal has a better on-the-fly playlist mode).
I just need more Hard Drive space to keep going.
I have a 2 Terabyte Western Digital MyBook (Studio) too, but in Raid 0 configuration. Buying this drive was an easy way to expand my Synology NAS (1TB Raid1) over eSata with about 1,8TB of space. Maybe people do not talk about the 2TB MyBooks too much because they are afraid of Raid0 configurations and do not want to "waste" 50% of capacity in Raid1 configuration.
I think i will get myself at some moment in time a drobo to back up the Synology + WD 2TB MyBook and other data. But before this i need money for a drobo and enough 2TB drives...
Well, I have 5 of them in my QNAP 509, and yes, the initial problems were a hassle, but I've put the new firmware on them, and didn;t have any problems since. Yes, it sucks having to flash your HDDs, and yes, this shouldn't have happened, but IMHO they fixed it and are (again) an alternative.
MagnusVonMagnum;7184151}I guess I'm saying a used PowerMac (I've seen dual 553 G4s go for as little as $50 on eBay sometimes which leaves plenty of cash for a few upgrades) doesn't make a bad NAS and secondary computer (heck I use it MORE than my MBP or PC since it's on 24/7 said:
I fully understand the appeal of a Hackintosh. I'm considering one to replace my tower PC (which I would then move into an arcade cabinet to use as the CPU for a Mame arcade emulator cabinet setup). I'm still not sure I'd want to use it to replace my PowerMac server as I'd imagine I'd have higher-end uses for a newer machine just as I do for my MBP, which I'd rather NOT log in hours on if I don't have to and when it IS on it's doing things like video editing and studio style music recording, not serving AppleTV units their media files (and I don't need that to hiccup because of editing either for that matter). So even if I had/could afford an 8-core Mac Pro, I still don't want to use it as my media server. I've got better things to do with it. Now a cheap PC (say in the $300 range) running Windows Server or even just WindowsXP Home wouldn't make a bad little server, though. Linux would make a great server OS (prefer it over Windows to be on 24/7), except iTunes isn't available for it and Wine doesn't run it very well (not at all the last time I checked on the latest iTunes version).
I see; we're coming at it from different places. In your situation, I totally understand why you'd want to keep the PowerMac as the server. I don't have an AppleTV; my videos play right on my iMac, and that's it. My problem is, having archived my DVDs into Video_TS folders, as well as converted some (all eventually) into .m4v's, I've got two 1TB external drives attached. I don't much care for the external drives; I want everything in one machine.
I'm thinking three or four 2TB WD drives when the price comes down a little. I'm also wondering if archiving the DVDs is a big waste (I'm thinking not, because I can put all my DVDs in storage while still having them readily accessible from two comparatively-small hard drives.)
I agree with you, too; wouldn't make a lot of sense to build a computer just to serve media. I've never worked with Linux before (I'm a pretty casual computer user) but I've always heard great things about it as a server platform.
I have 5 of them, too. None required the firmware update and have all been working fine out of the box(es).
powermacs
ive been leaning towards a powermac situation for an itunes media server but not sure if i should go with g4 or g5's.... i dont like having a bunch of externals hanging out either.... would have liked to gone with a headless mini as its smaller, but I would still have to use an external, and then would still have to turn both off separately.
ive been leaning towards a powermac situation for an itunes media server but not sure if i should go with g4 or g5's.... i dont like having a bunch of externals hanging out either.... would have liked to gone with a headless mini as its smaller, but I would still have to use an external, and then would still have to turn both off separately.
I guess if they've fixed the problems, I will go with the 1.5TB drives. The only question is whether I want to Raid them together for 3TB or if 1.5TB will be enough and use the 2nd to back up the first instead (negating the need for an external backup solution).
I guess you'll need to figure out which is the better overall value for the price you can get which model for used and how much power you think you'll need and whether or not that would require a CPU upgrade for the G4 versus a newer G5 used. If it's only a server, a dual 553 G4 can be had for as little as $50 on eBay (I saw one go for $54; I bid $52 and couldn't snipe the last bid in time) and it can be a good server with the addition of a mere Sata card and some hard drives (maybe USB 2.0 card if you want to sync iPods, etc. with it). If you want to do a bit more with it (I surf, shop, bank, etc, on mine all the time), you might want a better video card and a faster CPU. At a certain point, a G5 might be the better value (definitely more upfront, but possibly cheaper than a G4 CPU upgrade).
Thats what i have. Bought a 800MHz G4 tower for $130 and put a 300GB hdd in it. Should have gone bigger...i've almost filled it after 2 weeks
I have 2 of the 1.5TB drives in my unRAID server and they are doing just fine. The firmware issues seem to be fixed but the bad buzz that was created by it is still present.
I usually run all my disks (Seagate, WD, Maxtor, etc) through a preclear and heavy use cycle. It might take a while and you do not get to use the drive right away but i feel it is very necessary to check the drives durability. I use a script that was written for my unRaid server but you should be able to get the same results using Disk Utlity and the erase option. Press the security button and select the level of erase you want. The script i have will read the disk and then write zero's to the entire drive up to 20 times. I usually go with 3 cycles to make sure that things are good to go.
NOTE: On a large drive this can take a while. The script i use take almost 8 hours to do one one cycle on a 1.5TB drive.
I usually run all my disks (Seagate, WD, Maxtor, etc) through a preclear and heavy use cycle. It might take a while and you do not get to use the drive right away but i feel it is very necessary to check the drives durability. I use a script that was written for my unRaid server but you should be able to get the same results using Disk Utlity and the erase option. Press the security button and select the level of erase you want. The script i have will read the disk and then write zero's to the entire drive up to 20 times. I usually go with 3 cycles to make sure that things are good to go.
NOTE: On a large drive this can take a while. The script i use take almost 8 hours to do one one cycle on a 1.5TB drive.
I had been looking at the G4's, the ones that can run leopard, then started to think that the G5's have "newer" tech and should in theory last a little longer. Also they are already using SATA's, so I figured the power supply should be able to handle a few more HD's and the bus speed(?) would also be SATA ready.. But you are right, up front they are more than the G4's but as they are "newer" they might cost less to upgrade the little things...
Would that be this unraid server: http://lime-technology.com/
If so how do you like it? I have seen other reviews IE avscienceforum.com etc. Just wondering how a Mac user likes it.