AirportExstr + USB HDD's in combi with locale storage and AirportExpr

Okay,

I have lots of music, and i switched from a desktop to a laptop.
I own an Airport Extreme, Express, MBp, @me and an iPhone which are important for this question.

My problem starts with my local storage. I simply do not have enough storage on my MBp... So we need a solution for that problem.

I decided I didn't need all my "files" always wherever I go. So I am going to build a home store solution.

I was thinking of the following:
- Airport Extreme with USB HUB, icm with 4x 1 or 2 TB's disk's. (performance is not important.. I need Storage)
- Airport Expres icm with Receiver for living room music.

Now, we have the home problem solved. If I would ONLY be at home with my laptop I would have no problem. I could add all the USB music to my iTunes, and it would find it with no problem. My iPhone would sync it..

The problem is that iTunes will import the files on the USB storage, but when I am not at home, it will be flipping over missing songs. I don't have any local files in post example.

So that means that I will have to add some music to my laptop. My favorites for example. I don't see that as a problem...

But then I would have to add those songs twice to my iTunes library. I could make a playlist of the double added local files. Or I could make a second library... I don't think my iPhone (which is fully/automatically Me/iCloud enabled/synced...) would like this...

But this doesn't sound right... not really Apple "it just works"

So any ideas are welcome..
Keep in mind I don't want to spend more then 100$ on this problem..

reebzor said:

If having your music with you on the go is important to you, put that stuff on an iPod or get a bigger harddrive for you macbook pro. You can fit up to a 1TB drive in there, or 2 drives if you take the superdrive out.

You can also just mount your network storage from the Internet and stream all of your iTunes content, but that would require your macbook pro to be connected to the Internet to access your music.

Click to expand...

Yep thats exactly what I thought... but again.. "That doesn't just work"

I need my CD drive... only for burning windows discs
I do need performance on my MBp , so putting in slow high capacity disks is not the perfect solution... it is one tho.

I want to play my music on my pc.. its connected with AirportExpress at work. I do not want my music ONLY on my phone or pod.

Open port for file hosting... nah, rather not. It's not the most safe way... No I really need some favorite music on my MBp.. And that is no problem.

satcomer said:

Try changing the your Airport Express to use only one encryption type as explained in this hint.

Click to expand...

Yes no problem.. .I can do lots more to secure it.. but I am kind of looking for a more natural way of working. I know Apple thinks in global users.. So there are not many global users who have lots and lots of music... Apple customers seems to have a max of 10 GB of music... and even that is a lot (I mean legal/normal home users.. no torrent en newsgroup en DJ users)

So my problem doesn't really exist in Apple's view...

But still , I was hoping for a more natural way to tackle this problem... Maybe there was something I missed, but after a night of search... not really!

Tho only 2 solid solutions are opening ports of my router to port my HDD's.. or expanding local HDD capacity.

I dont really like both of them. Still looking around tho.


btw, 1tb is far below what I need... Total storage including everything is around 4 TB, and music that I want to take along is about 600GB. I currently have a 7200rpm 750GB disk in my MBp... performance enough in my case, and enough room for the favorite songs.

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Ow I just found out that a HDD that is connected to my Airport Extreme .. is always capable of connecting direct to my macbook. So if I need to DJ a party where I don't have a clue of what music to take along.. I will be able to take my HDD's along, and have ALL my music with me.

Nice.