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Using a netbook for home sharing?

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RyanPlugs

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 25, 2010
15
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I've been struggling with a viable solution to my problem for weeks. My MacBook Pro is running out of space, I have an external HD but don't want it attached to the mac. I've thought of buying a mac mini but can't justify the price for what is essentially a media server.
I have an old Asus eeepc 901 netbook that I never use. If I attached my external HD to it and used that as the main iTunes library for the house, will I be able to use this to feed my apple tv and MBP? Is there any disadvantages with using home sharing as opposed to having the library local ?
 
roidy

roidy

macrumors 65816
Dec 30, 2008
1,027
22
Nottingham, UK
I used an Acer Aspire one netbook (single core atom cpu, 1GB) for several months as a server, I had it stuffed in a spare room along with my NAS running WinXP and a copy of iTunes, serving up media to my ATV 1G. It worked perfectly.

Is there any disadvantages with using home sharing as opposed to having the library local ?
Click to expand...

Makes no difference because you're already using home sharing to connect the MBP to your ATV anyway (assuming it's a 2G and not a 1G?).

External HD -> MBP -> (home sharing) -> ATV
External HD -> Netbook -> (home sharing) -> ATV
 
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R

rebby

macrumors 6502
Nov 19, 2008
311
1
MN
I use an old Dell in the basement as a media server. It's pretty basic; 2.6GHz PIV, 4GB of ram (only upgrade that I bothered with), and 80GB PATA drive. It already had an on-board 1Gbit Intel NIC so I used that to connect to a 1TB share on my Solaris NAS for my iTunes library. It's worked great. The best part is that the Dell was an old throw away so I have a few spares in the basement. I made a ghost image of the local harddrive so this machine is effectively disposable. Since my iTunes library already resides on my NAS, it's included in my regular NAS backups as well. I also do the vast majority of my management and configuration of this system from my Mac via RDC, very slick.

It's sure worth trying the EeePC. It just might do the trick for you. Like you, I'd prefer to use a Mini for this but really don't want to spend the money if I don't have to.
 
s15119

s15119

macrumors 68000
Nov 20, 2010
1,856
1,714
I had a similar problem. I solved by attaching my external hard drive to my Airport wiresless router. Frees my MBP from the drive and makes all accessable to my ATV.
 
R

RyanPlugs

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 25, 2010
15
0
roidy said:
Makes no difference because you're already using home sharing to connect the MBP to your ATV anyway (assuming it's a 2G and not a 1G?).

External HD -> MBP -> (home sharing) -> ATV
External HD -> Netbook -> (home sharing) -> ATV
Click to expand...

What I mean is, if still like to use my MacBook pro to play music (in the kitchen for example.) with having the library shared from the netbook, will I lose anything over having it locally, such as artwork, play counts or the ability to manage iPhones and iPads?
 
roidy

roidy

macrumors 65816
Dec 30, 2008
1,027
22
Nottingham, UK
I use an ATV 1G so I've never had to deal with home sharing. But I don't see why it would make a difference, artwork and play counts should work, don't know about iPhone/iPad intergration through.

If you've already got the netbook lying around then just try it and see. You don't have to mess with your main library, just create a small library on the netbook (a couple of movies and a dozen or so music files) and test it out to make sure everything works like you want.
 
roidy

roidy

macrumors 65816
Dec 30, 2008
1,027
22
Nottingham, UK
rebby said:
I use an old Dell in the basement as a media server. It's pretty basic; 2.6GHz PIV, 4GB of ram (only upgrade that I bothered with), and 80GB PATA drive. It already had an on-board 1Gbit Intel NIC so I used that to connect to a 1TB share on my Solaris NAS for my iTunes library. It's worked great. The best part is that the Dell was an old throw away so I have a few spares in the basement. I made a ghost image of the local harddrive so this machine is effectively disposable. Since my iTunes library already resides on my NAS, it's included in my regular NAS backups as well. I also do the vast majority of my management and configuration of this system from my Mac via RDC, very slick.

It's sure worth trying the EeePC. It just might do the trick for you. Like you, I'd prefer to use a Mini for this but really don't want to spend the money if I don't have to.
Click to expand...

Similar kind of setup to what I was using, only I was using a crappy netbook. Most people think you need a powerful system to run a server but infact a single core Atom cpu and 1Gb of memory worked fine for me. All you're runing is the OS and iTunes, and the system doesn't even need to be powerful enough to play the files, only serve them out to other devices.
 
P

Primejimbo

macrumors 68040
Aug 10, 2008
3,295
131
Around
We just got our ATV and I really like it. We were talking about storage as our library grows. I'm thinking about getting a refurbished Mac Mini for storing movies and then it can be backed up on my Time Capsule also.
We still have time yet because we do have room on our hard drives on our Macbooks, but in a year we'll need more room.
Yes a Mac Mini isn't the cheapest route, but i want an easy way so my wife or daughter can use it without any issues.
 
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