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Can anyone recommend a wireless storage solution for iTunes?

D

dh2005

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 25, 2010
907
0
Hello,

The title says it all, really: I currently have my iTunes library (circa 250GB) stored on an external USB hard drive - my MBP's internal storage is a small SSD - and I want to switch to a wireless solution.

I had assumed that the Time Capsule would be a good choice, but an Apple Genius (no less) told me that the TC was not ideal for the purpose, and that I should look to other manufacturers. I don't wanna go balls-out and buy a wireless NAS - that would be overkill - so I'm thinking about wireless hard drives. Is anyone using a wireless drive for this purpose that they'd recommend?

Thanks,




DH.
 
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Thanks for the link. I'll look at it now.

He said to me that it could be used for that purpose, but that it was a pain to set-up, and that it caused all sorts of problems if you had photographs stored on your internal drive. I took him at his word - assuming, quite reasonably, that he would know what he was talking about - and didn't ask any further questions.
 
dh2005 said:
Thanks for the link. I'll look at it now.

He said to me that it could be used for that purpose, but that it was a pain to set-up, and that it caused all sorts of problems if you had photographs stored on your internal drive. I took him at his word - assuming, quite reasonably, that he would know what he was talking about - and didn't ask any further questions.
Click to expand...

There are tons of wired and wireless external storage products, but no matter which one you choose it would be setup with iTunes exactly like in the link I provided. I'm not sure what the Genius was thinking. :confused:
 
Pffff. No idea, mate.

Still, glad I asked! Does anyone else have anything to add?
 
dh2005 said:
Pffff. No idea, mate.

Still, glad I asked! Does anyone else have anything to add?
Click to expand...

A Nas would be a cheaper option then a TC for sharing your music plus you have the option of added functionality. I know your not mad on the idea but I would really think about it
 
Hm. Okay, then. If I were to consider a NAS, which would you recommend?
 
I had a similar idea earlier this month. Needed a NAS solution. In the end I bought a 2nd Generation Airport Extreme off eBay for £40, a 1TB External Hard Drive for £64 and a USB powered hub for £14.

I connected the airport to the hub and then plugged the Hard drive in, plugged a second 500GB hard drive that I already had in as well. Use the smaller drive for time capsule back ups and the bigger one for media and iTunes. Works well for my needs for a relatively small investment, just £118 all in.
 
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MrManwelo said:
I had a similar idea earlier this month. Needed a NAS solution. In the end I bought a 2nd Generation Airport Extreme off eBay for £40, a 1TB External Hard Drive for £64 and a USB powered hub for £14.

I connected the airport to the hub and then plugged the Hard drive in, plugged a second 500GB hard drive that I already had in as well. Use the smaller drive for time machine back ups and the bigger one for media and iTunes. Works well for my needs for a relatively small investment, just £118 all in.
Click to expand...

That would work for serving up the iTunes library, but Airport Extreme with an external drive is not supported for Time Machine. I am not clear form OP's original post if that was a requirement or not.
 
Weaselboy said:
That would work for serving up the iTunes library, but Airport Extreme with an external drive is not supported for Time Machine. I am not clear form OP's original post if that was a requirement or not.
Click to expand...

I suppose, if it were possible, I might as well aim to do both.

Looking on Amazon, I see lots of different hits for "Synology NAS". I'm finding it difficult to ascertain what I want! At the moment my ambitions are pretty small - 1 bay, and a 1TB drive would be more than enough - but perhaps I should look into the future a little. I intend to buy another Mac before the end of the year - could a single NAS be used to make Time Machine backups for both computers?
 
dh2005 said:
I suppose, if it were possible, I might as well aim to do both.

Looking on Amazon, I see lots of different hits for "Synology NAS". I'm finding it difficult to ascertain what I want! At the moment my ambitions are pretty small - 1 bay, and a 1TB drive would be more than enough - but perhaps I should look into the future a little. I intend to buy another Mac before the end of the year - could a single NAS be used to make Time Machine backups for both computers?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can run Time Machine and serve up media files on either a Time Capsule or a Time Machine compatible NAS. You can also backup with Time Machine and multiple computers to either device.

While some of the NAS devices do have nice features, I am always hesitant to recommend them for less advanced users. Primarily because each time a new OS version comes out we see compatibility issues crop up with NAS devices. It does always get fixed by the NAS vendor, but there is that window where you have no backup. We just saw this with Mountain Lion and user posts about NAS devices not working properly until a NAS patch was released.

To be fair, I have no idea if this is Apple's fault or the NAS vendors fault, but it is an issue nonetheless.

From comparing products at the Synology web site it looks like you would want the DS112 or DS112j. They have a chart where you can compare features.
 
Thanks for all the advice. I appreciate it.

Let me know whether this is an ignorant suggestion - I really don't know much about this subject - but could I connect a wired NAS to my wireless broadband router, then use that for the same purpose? Or do wireless routers not work like that?
 
dh2005 said:
Thanks for all the advice. I appreciate it.

Let me know whether this is an ignorant suggestion - I really don't know much about this subject - but could I connect a wired NAS to my wireless broadband router, then use that for the same purpose? Or do wireless routers not work like that?
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That would work fine also. Actually is you connect a NAS or external USB drive to your wireless router and looked at them from your Macbook using both wired ethernet or wit-fi, from the Macbook perspective you could not tell the difference as far as how it appeared or operated (other than network access speed of course).
 
Weaselboy said:
That would work fine also. Actually is you connect a NAS or external USB drive to your wireless router and looked at them from your Macbook using both wired ethernet or wit-fi, from the Macbook perspective you could not tell the difference as far as how it appeared or operated (other than network access speed of course).
Click to expand...

Hm. That sounds appealing. For one thing, it would mean that the drive would be in the living room, rather than on my increasingly crowded desk.

Alas, the router doesn't have a USB port, so I can't use the drive that I've been using already.
 
Does it have to use iTunes? All of my music is stored in the cloud now with google music. It's free and I can access it on all my machines/mobile devices/at work etc.
 
Wise people , lemme ask this , I am also thinking of getting a Synology Nas like 212j and connect it to my Cisco E1200 wifi router. Is that router good enough for this purpose or I need a better one?

I also have most of my music uploaded to Google Music so have only less than half actually sitting on my hard drive. That also because I have a limited data plan for iPhone so I don`t usually stream music when driving and listen to music synced with iTunes.
 
xp0z3d said:
Wise people , lemme ask this , I am also thinking of getting a Synology Nas like 212j and connect it to my Cisco E1200 wifi router. Is that router good enough for this purpose or I need a better one?

I also have most of my music uploaded to Google Music so have only less than half actually sitting on my hard drive. That also because I have a limited data plan for iPhone so I don`t usually stream music when driving and listen to music synced with iTunes.
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Yes its fine. If you want gigabit over LAN then you need to make sure the NAS and Router are both Gigabit, other than that, yes it is fine.
 
Orlandoech.com said:
Yes its fine. If you want gigabit over LAN then you need to make sure the NAS and Router are both Gigabit, other than that, yes it is fine.
Click to expand...

I think that NAS from Synology is 10/100/1000 meaning its Gigabit , right?

And having NAS and Router Gigabit would be advantageous in what sense? I know they would support better speeds but Macbook and other peripherals would still be at same speeds , no?
 
xp0z3d said:
I think that NAS from Synology is 10/100/1000 meaning its Gigabit , right?

And having NAS and Router Gigabit would be advantageous in what sense? I know they would support better speeds but Macbook and other peripherals would still be at same speeds , no?
Click to expand...

It would be beneficial when transferring files over the LAN when connected via ethernet. You cannot do gigabit over wireless without an AC Gigabit WiFi Router and an AC Gigabit Wireless Adapter, currently I havent seen any AC adapters, just a few AC Routers such as the Netgear R6300, which is what I have.
 
Orlandoech.com said:
It would be beneficial when transferring files over the LAN when connected via ethernet. You cannot do gigabit over wireless without an AC Gigabit WiFi Router and an AC Gigabit Wireless Adapter, currently I havent seen any AC adapters, just a few AC Routers such as the Netgear R6300, which is what I have.
Click to expand...

so far backup from mac , streaming media from nas etc would be okay with a E1200 router with 10/100
 
I bought a LaCie LaPlug from Amazon for $79, and plugged an external hard drive into it with all my music. It's now serving all the music I put on it as a shared iTunes library. Seems to work just fine. I'm also doing a time machine backup to it, which is saved as a sparse bundle file (aka dmg).

Although I have it plugged into the ethernet port of my Airport Extreme, it includes 802.11g wifi so that you can access it wirelessly. I haven't needed that feature yet.

I also haven't tried it with videos yet, which our iMac running iTunes and home sharing offers.
 
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