base Mini as iTunes server

[cuestakid]

So I have recently switched my Late 2012 Mac Mini to a VMware ESXi server. My primary machine is a 2015 MBP. The mini was essentially my iTunes server (I can't use plex or anything like that as I have a lot of purchased content). It was also used for ripping, encoding and tagging new content. As a result of this change I am in need of a new machine that can perform these duties and I would prefer to make it a Mac. I have looked around at used Minis and if I was to get one of them I would get one closer to what the Mini I have now is and the pricing comes out closer to the current mid or high end machine. I am not really concerned about how long the encoding takes as the content is viewed via my Apple TV and Home Sharing.

My basic question is this-is there any reason not to get the base Mac Mini? I am not concerned about the speed of how long things take since it will be done in an isolated machine that be used for much else.

A NAS solution won't really work because no NAS works with Home Sharing (at least none that I have seen).

 

[tjwilliams25]

It should work fine for your needs. Of course, as you already stated, the ripping and encoding will take a little longer, but if it doesn't bother you, then go ahead! If you're going to be using files from various sources that are in MKVs, I would suggest using iFlicks 2 as it only remuxes the files instead of fully re-encoding them, which saves a lot of time.

 

[cuestakid]

that is what i figured-and yes i am using iFlicks2.

Thanks for you input.

 

[Boyd01]

i've been using a base 2012 Mini as an iTunes server for about two and a half years. Very happy with it. Sometimes things can get a little weird after running for a few month straight, but a reboot always fixes everything (it runs 24/7, never sleeps and the disks don't spin down).

Sometimes I rip DVDs on it, but more often than not I use my i7/8gb/512gb MBA for that because it's a bit faster. I don't see why the current base mini wouldn't also work well for this. I mean, it doesn't take much horsepower to sit there and run iTunes all day.

 

[questioner76]

Agreed it will work fine. I bought a base mini on Craigslist for $300 that I use exactly as you described, encoding and iTunes server for video. Works great. I have a bunch of external hard drives connected to it that I've accumulated over the years and everything is shared via iTunes to all of my Apple TVs. No issues in terms of horsepower. The only annoyance is that i run it headless and keep it inside a cabinet and it often reboots because of updates or gets powered off by outages so I have to restart iTunes probably once a week.

 

[Tech198]

So I have recently switched my Late 2012 Mac Mini to a VMware ESXi server. My primary machine is a 2015 MBP. The mini was essentially my iTunes server (I can't use plex or anything like that as I have a lot of purchased content). It was also used for ripping, encoding and tagging new content. As a result of this change I am in need of a new machine that can perform these duties and I would prefer to make it a Mac. I have looked around at used Minis and if I was to get one of them I would get one closer to what the Mini I have now is and the pricing comes out closer to the current mid or high end machine. I am not really concerned about how long the encoding takes as the content is viewed via my Apple TV and Home Sharing.

My basic question is this-is there any reason not to get the base Mac Mini? I am not concerned about the speed of how long things take since it will be done in an isolated machine that be used for much else.

A NAS solution won't really work because no NAS works with Home Sharing (at least none that I have seen).

I have a basic Mac mini 4Gig with home sharing and works perfect...

Just to serve content only as a server 4 Gig is all u need... no keyboard/display attached, so i use screen sharing on another mac to remote in and do stuff from there.

However, now its basically hardly used since streaming only has taken me over.. I'm still deciding what to do with it.