I have had two of the 2TB Caviar Greens for a year or so now, chugging along without a problem, quiet, low power, get the job done with HD streaming. I recommend it!
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Storage Solutions for our OUT-OF-CONTROL iTunes Libraries
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I have had two of the 2TB Caviar Greens for a year or so now, chugging along without a problem, quiet, low power, get the job done with HD streaming. I recommend it!
When I purchase HD content I don't even bother downloading the SD versions as I have no portable device to play them on and it's just a waste of storage space and download bandwidth. The down side to this is I now have about 120 un-downloaded SD items in my iTunes download queue that I can't get rid ofMeaning every time I try to download something in iTunes the whole queue starts to download and i have to delete everything I don't want from the queue
I've already done that. It's HD or nothing for me!
I'm sure it's a "per basis" type thing. I've done this 3 times and they let me every time... only problem is you have LOTS OR SORTING to do because every app you've ever downloaded also comes with it. They queue your entire history of downloads.
No complaints with my Drobo v2, either. I swear it's quieter than the 1.5TB Seagate FreeAgent Desk external drive I was using before. That thing would click and whirr And make all kinds of horrible noise. The Drobo, with 4 WD20EARS drives, is much less bothersome.
I currently have a 2TB MyBook external (two independent 1 TB hard drives) via Raid 1 for iTunes storage. I'm closing in quick on the maximum data allowed. I'm happy with this original purchase. I'm considering either...
1) buying identical 2TB MyBook external..or
2) buying 4TB MyBook external
If I do #1, could I somehow set it up as Raid 1? Still don't understand this stuff, please make a recommendation on purchase. Option #2 is $400 and that's the upper limit I will spend. Thanks.
1) buying identical 2TB MyBook external..or
2) buying 4TB MyBook external
If I do #1, could I somehow set it up as Raid 1? Still don't understand this stuff, please make a recommendation on purchase. Option #2 is $400 and that's the upper limit I will spend. Thanks.
Need advice for trying to manage multiple itunes libraries hopefully at same time
I have 15TB of music, and 6TB of HD movies. Yes i said TB, while that may sound alitle extreme or lot extreme, it is what it is... i love music and have an out of control OCD music addiction with some ADHD in there too, not a good combo...
oh and i am terrified of losing any version of any songs so i have double storage issues also.
i do have some duplicates due to mergin all the comps after home sharing etc, and i have stacks and stack of old Ext HDD and plain HDDs sitting around. I currently use the Seagate Barracuda 3TB and buy them buy the cart load and want to use only those from now on.
I am trying to figure out how to have multiple libraries all on my Mac Pro tower attached to my network with DROBO etc or some type of multiple bay enclosures, prolly go with DROBO...
I need to know how to open 2 or more libraries at same time and i do know the option trick when switching on Itunes, thats not it, i want to see them all in one itunes window (via sidebar) and see the files only if I click on the library. home sharing yes, but then they are on diff accounts and i have to keep switching users etc.
I use a mac pro Quad with 3TB in 4bays for 12, and i have multiple NAS and Ext HDD arrays holding another 24 TB of mp3 mp4 aac flac wav, hd and movie formats etc. not to mention 4TB of photos.. packrat central also have 6 imacs, and a mini, 4 apple tvs and 4 ipads, maybe 6 iphones and pods in the household and i want them all to be able to see and hear all this stuff. i do not like to see 456 movie titles in apple tv, so until apple tv has a better interface for searching and opening movies, this will have to do.
Why would i need this??? because if you have more than a couple TBs on any one library every stroke or click slows down all of Itunes and you get this terrible delay thing and with ADD i tend to keep clicking and then you know what happens....
so i am crazy...yes...but is there any way to do this or any solution that would help???
i do have the Multiple Itunes library management app but i can not see that it does what i need.
thanks for the replies in advance..gotta go keep transferring...
I have 15TB of music, and 6TB of HD movies. Yes i said TB, while that may sound alitle extreme or lot extreme, it is what it is... i love music and have an out of control OCD music addiction with some ADHD in there too, not a good combo...
oh and i am terrified of losing any version of any songs so i have double storage issues also.
i do have some duplicates due to mergin all the comps after home sharing etc, and i have stacks and stack of old Ext HDD and plain HDDs sitting around. I currently use the Seagate Barracuda 3TB and buy them buy the cart load and want to use only those from now on.
I am trying to figure out how to have multiple libraries all on my Mac Pro tower attached to my network with DROBO etc or some type of multiple bay enclosures, prolly go with DROBO...
I need to know how to open 2 or more libraries at same time and i do know the option trick when switching on Itunes, thats not it, i want to see them all in one itunes window (via sidebar) and see the files only if I click on the library. home sharing yes, but then they are on diff accounts and i have to keep switching users etc.
I use a mac pro Quad with 3TB in 4bays for 12, and i have multiple NAS and Ext HDD arrays holding another 24 TB of mp3 mp4 aac flac wav, hd and movie formats etc. not to mention 4TB of photos.. packrat central also have 6 imacs, and a mini, 4 apple tvs and 4 ipads, maybe 6 iphones and pods in the household and i want them all to be able to see and hear all this stuff. i do not like to see 456 movie titles in apple tv, so until apple tv has a better interface for searching and opening movies, this will have to do.
Why would i need this??? because if you have more than a couple TBs on any one library every stroke or click slows down all of Itunes and you get this terrible delay thing and with ADD i tend to keep clicking and then you know what happens....
so i am crazy...yes...but is there any way to do this or any solution that would help???
i do have the Multiple Itunes library management app but i can not see that it does what i need.
thanks for the replies in advance..gotta go keep transferring...
hey panicgolf, that really is quite an OCD obsession you have there! i am kind of the same though
for your multiple library issues, im just trying to think of the best hack for you (it would basically be some sort of hack).
if you have two instances of iTunes open on the server, then it might let you see 2 different libraries through the connecting server.
you could also host 1 library on the server computer, and 1 library on the machine - the local library would appear as usual, then the server one would appear as the sidebar thingy.
personally, i wouldnt go DROBO. too inconsistent, but thats up to you.
I had a Ready NAS NV+ with 4 1 TB hdds in a raid 5 array. This nas was used to store my out of control library which at one point was border-lining close to 1 TB ( yes may seem small but i wanted it to expand couldn't do it on my imac ) The Library was put onto my Ready NAS and simply just told itunes to point to a share on the NAS.
However the nas i feel was a little under powered as if major changes were done particularly editing things in itunes or importing then everything stopped and froze
I have recently purchased a new NAS Thecus N55200xxx, has great specs and 5 drive bays. I have 5x 2 TB hdds in a raid 5 array with 8 TB total, 7.5 TB usable. i am able to do all sorts of editing, file copying and modifying itunes content with out it freezing
However the nas i feel was a little under powered as if major changes were done particularly editing things in itunes or importing then everything stopped and froze
I have recently purchased a new NAS Thecus N55200xxx, has great specs and 5 drive bays. I have 5x 2 TB hdds in a raid 5 array with 8 TB total, 7.5 TB usable. i am able to do all sorts of editing, file copying and modifying itunes content with out it freezing
thanks toolbox, i see your point, and not being too savvy i guess hosting most of them on an actual server and not the local might solve the sidebar preference but wouldn't they all take forever to load up under a "share" like in home sharing?? thats the real issue...when i click on a share library, whether another local machine hosted library or a NAS like the Stora (which sucks by BTW) it still takes forever to actually load up, can i increase the load speed anyway??
i guess that is my real gripe, that anything super large takes a long time to load and when looking to listen by the time it loads i am no longer focused enough to listen, usually walk away before it even loads.
my other misinformed thoughts say i might not be understanding the library and what it really is, why so long to load?? if the files are there already isn't it just populating the grid in the Itunes UI? if the actual media folder contains all the files and its just linking when i click over on a shared library, why so long to populate? and is there a preference That allows me to see several shared libraries on the same itunes UI?
any hack to move files between home shares in itunes or still have to go to root folders??
i know itunes is a database, but why is there no way to just point the Itunes UI and different data within the same UI?
i guess that is my real gripe, that anything super large takes a long time to load and when looking to listen by the time it loads i am no longer focused enough to listen, usually walk away before it even loads.
my other misinformed thoughts say i might not be understanding the library and what it really is, why so long to load?? if the files are there already isn't it just populating the grid in the Itunes UI? if the actual media folder contains all the files and its just linking when i click over on a shared library, why so long to populate? and is there a preference That allows me to see several shared libraries on the same itunes UI?
any hack to move files between home shares in itunes or still have to go to root folders??
i know itunes is a database, but why is there no way to just point the Itunes UI and different data within the same UI?
can you suggest anything better, not sarcasm, i would love anything that did what i wanted simply, but I assumed, maybe wrongly, that Itunes was the "end all be all" it is after all.....Apple.
RAID 5? is that the best use for Itunes? i don't want to go overboard and waste space on truly not really critical data,b I do want some degree of safety.. also with Iphoot, I need real safe RAID backup protection, which RAID is best for truly redundant but not really slow pro?
My nas is not only used just for itunes! There are other things hosted on it that if i lost i would not be happy camper. The older nas will have the raid re done and used as a backup of the Thecus
Raid 5 is the best for this purpose. With raid five you can have one drive fail and still not loose any data. It is most efficient if the RAID is made with 4 or more drives so only one of the four drives holds parity data. A mirror uses half the drives for redundant storage. RAID 5 has the most usable space for a given number of drives.
But RAID is NOT a backup system. You still need to keep multi[le copies and at least one off site copy to be safe. The leading cause of lost data is NOT drive failure. Theft of the equipment, operator error and software errors cause more data loss. RAID will not protect frm the leading causes of data loss. Backing up two copies of a large RAID is expensive but if tou have that much data the data is worth far more
Not sure if this is what you need, but I use it to stream to my mobile phone via 3G, who needs icloud?? You can also get a desk top version from the app store, seems to work alot faster than itunes, have a look at "Subsonic" http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
Cheers Phil
I'm trying to wrap my head around this number. That means you have at least 20,000 UNCOMPRESSED albums. Why? (Not why do you have 20,000 albums, but why would they be uncompressed? You could shrink that library down at least 30% (probably more) if you used ALAC). And if you have them compressed, so you have more than 20k, A) wow. that's rather crazy. Where do you store the physical discs? and B ) How long did it take you to encode that many albums or C) assuming you may have pirated huge chunks of that... do you even have time to listen to them? It would take more than 3 years to get through it all listening 24/7.
I've upgraded my Drobo to 4 of the WD green 2TB drives and its running fine, very good performance streaming video.
My bigger concern was how to back 4TB+ of data, but that's been solved with the new WD MyBook 6TB Studio drive which is about £350. I'll just run a CCC job once a week to back it up.
There still doesn't seem to be anything out there that can truly be an iTunes server to devices as well as allowing synching of IOS devices, so the plan is to buy a Mac Mini and hook that up to the Drobo to act as a server and that saves us having to leave the iMac on 24*7.
My bigger concern was how to back 4TB+ of data, but that's been solved with the new WD MyBook 6TB Studio drive which is about £350. I'll just run a CCC job once a week to back it up.
There still doesn't seem to be anything out there that can truly be an iTunes server to devices as well as allowing synching of IOS devices, so the plan is to buy a Mac Mini and hook that up to the Drobo to act as a server and that saves us having to leave the iMac on 24*7.
I just ordered one of these bad boys:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop/
And some 2TB drives to go with it.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop/
And some 2TB drives to go with it.
For the moment I'm getting by with a nice, quiet Fantom 2TB USB drive plugged right into my Airport Extreme. The AppleTV is hard-wired with shielded cable from upstairs (25' cable). Its working fine, but I think I want to mod the ATV so that I can stick the drive right upstairs with the ATV and a 12" shielded cable. Sometimes if my Apple goes to sleep the media drive can't be found by the ATV so I have to run downstairs and wake up my iMac. Then it works fine.
I now have two 1TB Fantom green drives and this 2TB one that is dedicated to media. These drives have performed _better_ than my old Lacie 1TB FW800/400/USB Time Machine drive, which Lacie replaced when it died. They gave me a different model (single drive) that seems to be running better. But the Fantoms are cheap, quiet, fast enough, and they work.
I now have two 1TB Fantom green drives and this 2TB one that is dedicated to media. These drives have performed _better_ than my old Lacie 1TB FW800/400/USB Time Machine drive, which Lacie replaced when it died. They gave me a different model (single drive) that seems to be running better. But the Fantoms are cheap, quiet, fast enough, and they work.
just started my own thread on this and suddenly find this much more comprehensive one! And I searched!
So:
"OK, so I have 2 500GB Western Digital MyBook external hard drives. They're great. But they're firewire, and need to be plugged in and yadayadayada.
My good friend "easy" says it's be sweet to have a little rack that accepts the HDD's inside these encolsure's (i believe they're SATA - this one.
Ideally I would like to have these put in a small rack in my closet or something. When I want to back up files or access them, I just go turn it on, it sees my wireless network, and it pops up on my MacbookPro. Easy a pie.
Possible? Cheap? doesn't seem so =,(
I am starting to think...what If I just daisy chained the Western Digital Firewire externals to my iBook G4 that is currently (and will for a while) accessing the internet through an ethernet cable and sharing it wirelessly. Longevity is key, so I want to be able to turn them on/off as needed.
How would I then share them to other users who access my iBook made wireless network?
Aside on iTunes Match - I inherited my dad's CD collection so I have about 300 gigs of music I digitized. I figure once iTunes Match is up and running I won't have a problem as I'll be able to just download what I want and not worry about having this 300 gig chunk floating around. Do I understand this correctly? What about all the indie guys I download on Bandcamp?"
So:
"OK, so I have 2 500GB Western Digital MyBook external hard drives. They're great. But they're firewire, and need to be plugged in and yadayadayada.
My good friend "easy" says it's be sweet to have a little rack that accepts the HDD's inside these encolsure's (i believe they're SATA - this one.
Ideally I would like to have these put in a small rack in my closet or something. When I want to back up files or access them, I just go turn it on, it sees my wireless network, and it pops up on my MacbookPro. Easy a pie.
Possible? Cheap? doesn't seem so =,(
I am starting to think...what If I just daisy chained the Western Digital Firewire externals to my iBook G4 that is currently (and will for a while) accessing the internet through an ethernet cable and sharing it wirelessly. Longevity is key, so I want to be able to turn them on/off as needed.
How would I then share them to other users who access my iBook made wireless network?
Aside on iTunes Match - I inherited my dad's CD collection so I have about 300 gigs of music I digitized. I figure once iTunes Match is up and running I won't have a problem as I'll be able to just download what I want and not worry about having this 300 gig chunk floating around. Do I understand this correctly? What about all the indie guys I download on Bandcamp?"