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Storage Solutions for our OUT-OF-CONTROL iTunes Libraries

Almost 750GB of music on a 1TB hanging off of a Time Capsule in the closet with the printers. (all but purchased music in Apple Lossless format)

Another 1TB mirroring that drive, updated nightly.

A 1TB off-site at a friend's place that syncs weekly in the middle of the night.

Same setup again for movies. Ripped with Mac The Ripper with an AppleTV library of selected films done with Handbrake from the MTR DVD images.

AppleTV in bedroom and living room connected to HiFi (and TV).

Okay computer speakers in office.

Remote for the iPhone was the missing link. I could control music from each room via the AppleTV, but this is really even better.

Media sorted.
 
prostuff1 said:
The remote access is a little tricky so i will forget it for now and move on.

I am a huge fan of the homebuilt server and unRaid. Just do some searching for my username and you should be able to find some of the posts. My setup right now consist of a homebuilt server with 2x750GB HD and 1x500GB HD (with another 500GB to be added shortly), along with 2 laptops on the network. I have the NAS wired to my router (not a Gig router right now, but soon to be). The way i have it set up is the server houses my DVD collection, music collection and general storage. I use a program called MultiTunes to manage the multiple library's i have. I have a "server library" that has all my music, video's, and audio books and then i have a "mobile library that contains all the music i might need when i am traveling. The mobile library is a fraction of the size of my server one. It can be a little tricky to set up the two separate libraries and it might take a few tries. Just make sure you ALWAYS have a backup of your library that you are not messing with, and ALWAYS let MultiTunes create the new library for you (i.e. do not use the "hold option key trick when starting iTunes").

I suggest connecting the NAS/server to the network via ethernet and not USB, the speeds over Ethernet will be much better. And look into building your own server. It does not take much power to run one and you could even use an old computer you have laying around. A little research on the subject and some time and you can have one up and running pretty quickly. The most expensive part about the server is actually the drives.

Backing up all that stuff wirelessly is going to take a while and will not be fast, by any means.






Like i said above, with a server you can move all that stuff off of your iMac and leave the task of housing the music to the server. You just have to point iTunes and the other programs to the correct spots. For drive i would get the standard 7200 RPM drives and buy them yourself.


If you have question about the setup i run for iTunes let me know.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I like the idea of the DROBO, because it is so simple, and to be honest, I really don't understand RAID, and from what I do understand it seems like a pain in the a$$ to increase the size of the array. The DROBO is nice because it can be painlessly upgraded. I'll take you up on that offer if I need help when I get the DROBO, which hopefully be sooner rather then later, because to be frank, my back up solution is an accident waiting to happen.

EDIT: Just read your post about the green drives, so pretty much it is a tossup on which speed you get right. IF that's the case, I'll just get a 7200 RPM drive so I know what speed I'm getting.

Don
 
Dmac77 said:
Thanks! I like the idea of the DROBO, because it is so simple, and to be honest, I really don't understand RAID, and from what I do understand it seems like a pain in the a$$ to increase the size of the array. The DROBO is nice because it can be painlessly upgraded. I'll take you up on that offer if I need help when I get the DROBO, which hopefully be sooner rather then later, because to be frank, my back up solution is an accident waiting to happen.

EDIT: Just read your post about the green drives, so pretty much it is a tossup on which speed you get right. IF that's the case, I'll just get a 7200 RPM drive so I know what speed I'm getting.

Don
Click to expand...

Correct, it is a tossup.

As per your concern about RAID. That is the main reason i use a product called unRaid. It allows me to mix and match drive sizes, types (IDE or SATA) and expand whenever i need to. do some reading here on it and see if it might be something your interested in. The setup was not really hard at all and this solution allows me to expand to larger drive sizes as the capacities increase. Another good thing is that UnRaid is not a traditional raid. It does not stripe data across the drives like Raid 5. You can lose one drive and recover all your data. If you lose more then one you will only lose the data on those disks not the data on the rest. Unlike the DROBO or Raid 5, if you lose more then one disk ALL your data is gone.

There is a wiki link via the unRaid site that can explain the ins and outs and if you have any questions feel free to ask me or on there site.
 
prostuff1 said:
Correct, it is a tossup.

As per your concern about RAID. That is the main reason i use a product called unRaid. It allows me to mix and match drive sizes, types (IDE or SATA) and expand whenever i need to. do some reading here on it and see if it might be something your interested in. The setup was not really hard at all and this solution allows me to expand to larger drive sizes as the capacities increase. Another good thing is that UnRaid is not a traditional raid. It does not stripe data across the drives like Raid 5. You can lose one drive and recover all your data. If you lose more then one you will only lose the data on those disks not the data on the rest. Unlike the DROBO or Raid 5, if you lose more then one disk ALL your data is gone.

There is a wiki link via the unRaid site that can explain the ins and outs and if you have any questions feel free to ask me or on there site.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll read that later tonight. From your posts, I'm intrigued by it. But would I be able to use TM to backup to and unRAID server?

Don
 
You are better off using two separate drives, preferably in different rooms, and using something like chronosync to keep them mirrored in the middle of the night. A RAID is actually more likely to suffer a failure.
 
I have a software RAID5 system consisting of 10x 500GB drives running on a general Linux server and it is solid as a rock. Nothing, not even power surges can harm it and it runs snce 3 years 24x7, however one should be familiar with general unix admin stuff at least for the setup. It exports volumes over GE via NFS and SMB, works like a charm. Grow and resize everything is possible and you can run software directly on it (like slimserver for example), not possible on drobos and simple NAS boxes.

PS: I don't use AppleTVs but Mac Mini's running Frontrow though.
 
netdog said:
You are better off using two separate drives, preferably in different rooms, and using something like chronosync to keep them mirrored in the middle of the night. A RAID is actually more likely to suffer a failure.
Click to expand...
There a RAID and RAID. If you mean some el cheapo RAID controller card with waky firmware, then yes, you are right. But there are better cards and software RAID is even more robust as you can rebuild the array on any hardware again and again (only keeping track of which disk is which).
 
Aanybody knows of a solution that can stream VIDEO to the appletv ? I read up about all NAS boxes etc., but it seems they all are able to stream music, but not video.

I see the solutions of managing a iTunes library with another PC on a NAS, but am not in need of another PC: I basically want to put a big stacks of disks in a closet that can run/stream standalone (ie headless) to my appletv, X360, laptop etc. Preferably linux, so I can put other stuff on it (small webserver, torrentflux etc.), but most importantly it should support (wireless) streaming to my appletv.


Might have missed something, but it seems that for it to work I need to have a mac/pc connected to the library to stream to the appletv, all other things look to be supported out of the box for most solutions.
 
netdog said:
Almost 750GB of music on a 1TB hanging off of a Time Capsule in the closet with the printers. (all but purchased music in Apple Lossless format)

Another 1TB mirroring that drive, updated nightly.

A 1TB off-site at a friend's place that syncs weekly in the middle of the night.

Same setup again for movies. Ripped with Mac The Ripper with an AppleTV library of selected films done with Handbrake from the MTR DVD images.

AppleTV in bedroom and living room connected to HiFi (and TV).

Okay computer speakers in office.

Remote for the iPhone was the missing link. I could control music from each room via the AppleTV, but this is really even better.

Media sorted.
Click to expand...

How do you manage the AppleTV and HiFi in terms of remote? I hate how every button press triggers both devices. I use my Touch to navigate the menu but it doesn't venture into all places I need it to so the remote is still indispensable at the moment.
 
netdog said:
Almost 750GB of music on a 1TB hanging off of a Time Capsule in the closet with the printers. (all but purchased music in Apple Lossless format)

Another 1TB mirroring that drive, updated nightly.

A 1TB off-site at a friend's place that syncs weekly in the middle of the night.

Same setup again for movies. Ripped with Mac The Ripper with an AppleTV library of selected films done with Handbrake from the MTR DVD images.

AppleTV in bedroom and living room connected to HiFi (and TV).

Okay computer speakers in office.

Remote for the iPhone was the missing link. I could control music from each room via the AppleTV, but this is really even better.

Media sorted.
Click to expand...

How are you doing this, on my system the remote will not control anything unless the media is physically on the Apple TV's Internal drive, if it's streamed, when I go to control the Apple TV's Library everything is blank.
 
Scarpad said:
How are you doing this, on my system the remote will not control anything unless the media is physically on the Apple TV's Internal drive, if it's streamed, when I go to control the Apple TV's Library everything is blank.
Click to expand...

You need to change the option in the Apple TV settings in iTunes to show all content, not just synced. It's on the front page.
 
Im glad I found this thread. Its amazing what a search will uncover!!
Im in the process of changing my network. I currently have 1 laptop and a desktop (both PCs). So right now, I have 3 seperate copies of my music library, 1 on the desktop, 1 on the laptop and one on a MyBook 250gb USB HDD that I use as my backup. So periodically I have to recopy all the libraries together to make sure we are all running the same crap... (I know there is a better way to do this but Im not sure how).

Fast forward... when the new MacBook Pros come out Ill be picking one up. At the same time I was thinking about getting the Time Capsule as a backup option.

So my question is....
Could I simply get a larger USB HDD and hook it up to the Time Capsule and use the USB HDD as my media storage device? So every PC and my new MBP can access the same library of music and videos? Then use the TC to backup the USB HDD as well as back up the 2 PCs and my new MBP?
Do I need to worry about drive speeds and disk spinning down if I use a USB HDD as the network drive for iTunes?

Also, Im confused how this works in iTunes, what do I tell iTunes if the files arent stored locally? Meaning, do I need to copy the database file to each PC or will that be done for me when I import the files? Do I even import the files or do I copy them? Im confused!!

Ive read through this whole thread and see a lot of talk about shared libraries but some of the server solutions are a little overkill for my situation. I think 500gb will be plenty for me, but I like the USB solution cause if I ever go over 500gb, I can get another USB and then split the media. One USB HDD for music and one for movies. So I could get the 1tb Time Capsule to make sure I have plenty of backup room.
Am I not thinking about this the right way?
Please help me, Im a novice!!
 
prostuff1 said:
Correct, it is a tossup.

As per your concern about RAID. That is the main reason i use a product called unRaid. It allows me to mix and match drive sizes, types (IDE or SATA) and expand whenever i need to. do some reading here on it and see if it might be something your interested in. The setup was not really hard at all and this solution allows me to expand to larger drive sizes as the capacities increase. Another good thing is that UnRaid is not a traditional raid. It does not stripe data across the drives like Raid 5. You can lose one drive and recover all your data. If you lose more then one you will only lose the data on those disks not the data on the rest. Unlike the DROBO or Raid 5, if you lose more then one disk ALL your data is gone.

There is a wiki link via the unRaid site that can explain the ins and outs and if you have any questions feel free to ask me or on there site.
Click to expand...

any idea if you can buy these unRaid servers in the UK?
 
.mark. said:
any idea if you can buy these unRaid servers in the UK?
Click to expand...

I am honestly not sure. The server components are easy enough to put together yourself. The components are just basic computer parts. The main part of the whole thing is the unRaid OS. Do some reading around on there site and ask some questions on there forums and they should be able to help you out.
 
Hi..

I'm new to this :apple:tv lark. I have to say this thread has helped.

I've currently got 60gb G3 Imac a G4 Powerbook coming in at 80 gb and a MacBook with 100 gb. recently added 160 gb :apple:tv.

Thanks to this thread I have decided to get a new imac with enough Ram to add (600) films to via Handbrake & Mac the Ripper. Probably a 20 inch with 320 gb and 4 gb of RAM.

I will also buy a Drobo which looks amazing and something that will be able to grow with my film collection.

Will it be ok to add itunes to the drobo and stream all films music & tv down to ATV with iMac doing the work ripping the films then copying over to the drobo?

Thanks for the help.
 
This is my current setup
I am hoping to add an Apple TV to the mix eventually (once they can do 1080p for my 106in TV) I also need to add another 500gb drive to the mix because my current one is split as a shared Time Machine drive and shared iTunes server. I need to get a 1tb one from Costco and use that for iTunes and the smaller for Time Machine or vice versa. The reason for the Airport Express is that my Airport Extreme's signal is too weak to stream iTunes music. I have found a brilliant way for multiple people to use the same iTunes library--make a copy of the iTunes Library file for each computer with a different name and update it daily by creating a new copy/
 

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Quick Question?

How do I set up Itunes to find movies on my External Hard Drive So that I can play the movies that are on my HDD?
 
fivepoint said:
For those of you who are running Time Machine through an Airport Extreme, have you ever had this problem? Is it a problem?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

It's not a problem, it's normal. I get it every time. The idea is that, generally speaking, after your initial backup, all incremental backups from that point forward shouldn't take long enough for you to really notice it there. Only during the initial backup would it remain long enough to truly be a nuisance, especially if performing time machine functions over the AEBS/Time Capsule. Don't worry about it.
 
prostuff1 said:
I am honestly not sure. The server components are easy enough to put together yourself. The components are just basic computer parts. The main part of the whole thing is the unRaid OS. Do some reading around on there site and ask some questions on there forums and they should be able to help you out.
Click to expand...
Don't bother with the unRaid OS, just build your computer with lot of SATA drives in it (on simple Promise SATA channes, no need for expensive hardware-RAID cards which are only additional point of failure) and the install ubunto and configure as software RAID5. You don't need anything else.
 
newappleboy said:
It's not a problem, it's normal. I get it every time. The idea is that, generally speaking, after your initial backup, all incremental backups from that point forward shouldn't take long enough for you to really notice it there. Only during the initial backup would it remain long enough to truly be a nuisance, especially if performing time machine functions over the AEBS/Time Capsule. Don't worry about it.
Click to expand...

Thanks newappleboy, I really appreciate it!
 
I have been trying the following set up for the past few days with no success... please someone tell me what I'm doing wrong.

I have a Macbook laptop streaming to my Apple TV and a 1TB Western Digital Hard Drive connected to my Time Capsule.
I use the Time Capsule as a back-up drive, and decided to use the WD Hard Drive as my media drive, with my iTunes library, and ripped DVDs (since I have hundreds of them and all they do is occupy space in my living room).

However, the transition process has been very problematic. My Time Capsule seems to loose connectivity to my laptop pretty often, and my iTunes crashes almost everytime I try to play a song (which is coming from the WD External Drive)... I hardly can even see the contents inside of the WD Hard Drive, since it often shows as Unmounted after a long time trying to load the drive in Finder. Sometimes it works, most times it doesn't.

I haven't even tried yet to stream anything to my Apple TV, since I can't even get it to work well with iTunes.

I tried setting the External HD as a shared folder, change my settings in the Airport Utility, and nothing... I think Time Capsule is the problem, but I can't figure out what's wrong.

What am I doing wrong?? How can I get this to work?? Anyone???
 
paulinhadrp said:
I have been trying the following set up for the past few days with no success... please someone tell me what I'm doing wrong.

I have a Macbook laptop streaming to my Apple TV and a 1TB Western Digital Hard Drive connected to my Time Capsule.
I use the Time Capsule as a back-up drive, and decided to use the WD Hard Drive as my media drive, with my iTunes library, and ripped DVDs (since I have hundreds of them and all they do is occupy space in my living room).

However, the transition process has been very problematic. My Time Capsule seems to loose connectivity to my laptop pretty often, and my iTunes crashes almost everytime I try to play a song (which is coming from the WD External Drive)... I hardly can even see the contents inside of the WD Hard Drive, since it often shows as Unmounted after a long time trying to load the drive in Finder. Sometimes it works, most times it doesn't.

I haven't even tried yet to stream anything to my Apple TV, since I can't even get it to work well with iTunes.

I tried setting the External HD as a shared folder, change my settings in the Airport Utility, and nothing... I think Time Capsule is the problem, but I can't figure out what's wrong.

What am I doing wrong?? How can I get this to work?? Anyone???
Click to expand...

I can almost guarantee I know the problem. What format is the Western Digital drive in?
 
I've been converting my DVD collection for about 2 months now and couldn't be happier with the setup I chose. I do still have about 150 DVD's to go, but this is what I have so far.

I am using an older Mac Mini with a Drobo attached. Just recently had to add an additional 1TB drive to the Drobo which exhaustingly took almost 3 minutes to install and the Drobo to recognize the storage space.

The Mac Mini is connected via ethernet to a Time Machine which then serves the 3 aTVs (2 wireless N, 1 ethernet), I do not notice the difference in connection speeds. All have a slight lag to get the movie going, but once it is running there have never been a problem.

I use the Linksys router connected to the cable modem to handle all G speed traffic in the house and only my Macbook Pro and my wife's Macbook use the Time Machine for backup.

I really like the use of the Mac Mini, because it can sit on the shelf without monitor, etc connected out of the way in my home office, but could easily be put anywhere. I use screen sharing to connect and manage the iTunes library as well as the shared iPhoto library.
 

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