Photos on a home network for iOS/Macs

[InfiniteLoopy]

Hello all,

Happy New Year,

I'm interested in having one of my photo libraries hosted on a network drive so that it can be accessed seamlessly from iOS devices and multiple Macs on the same local network.

I was thinking of connecting a drive to my Airport Extreme and use that as the photo repository, I have a few questions, however:

- Is there a noticeable speed difference whether the drive is connected via the Airport's USB2 or via ethernet? I suppose there is...

- Ideally, the iOS devices would access the library through iPhoto (iOS version) or the Photos app, I'm unsure whether this is possible though. If this is not possible, I was thinking of maybe running an Automator script to export all photos (and new ones as they are added) into JPEGs so that they could be accessed with an app like Filebrowser. Alternatively, maybe PhotoSync would do the trick? Any ideas?

- Can anyone recommend a good drive (cheap, silent, HD upgradable and can also work as an iTunes server)?

- Also, I have one photo library that is in the iPhoto '09 format and I can't open it in Aperture as it needs to be upgraded to iPhoto 11 beforehand. As I only want to use Aperture, is there no way around this except buying iPhoto 11?

Thanks,

[blueroom]

For an iTunes server you'll need something running Windows or OSX (Mac Minis are popular)

Else a really nice solution for sharing files, photos, music, etc... You might consider a NAS (Synology is excellent)

[InfiniteLoopy]

Thanks,
I was thinking of a NAS, but I want to be sure it works with the photos beforehand...