I want to turn an old 2012 mini into a media server... but I have no idea how

[jrm27]

Hello all,

I've got an old Mac Mini (2012) sitting downstairs. I've had it connected to an old 4TB hard drive that houses my entire old DVD library that I had backed up there back in the day. I've had iTunes/TV (whatever it is called now) pointing to that hard drive it to build a library that I can access via the "computer" app on my Apple TV upstairs, and through my other apple devices. However, the computer itself is ridiculously slow. I think it's probably in the worst place ever for a wifi signal and I can't run an ethernet cable to it. I think I really need to figure out how to do this right though so I can access my old library reliably and quickly.

I'm currently wiping the mini completely and reinstalling the OS. At this point I think Catalina is as high as I can go. If I wanted to turn this thing into a great media server, do you have any advice? I'm not even sure what I would need to do. I'm assuming bringing the mini upstairs and plugging it into my router would make things faster... but even that leaves me clueless. I used to run Plex way back when it first came out, so maybe that would be fun again. But, I'm pretty in the dark and would appreciate any advice.

Just as a side note, I won't be using this computer to do any sailing on the high seas, torrenting, or need to set up auto downloading of anything. I'll add my own media from time to time as I continue to back up my blu-rays and such.

Any resources I should look at? Amy advice you might give a newbie? Thanks so much!

 

[Jim Lahey]

Plex Media Server is great, but it's started to get a bit bloated over the years. I use it currently but may switch at some stage. Others use Kodi or Jellyfin. If you are familiar with Plex then that may be best. A 2012 mini should be capable enough. Then you just need to install a Plex client app on any device that you want to use to consume the media.

If you choose Plex then you should look at the privacy options and consider disabling the sharing of data pertaining to your local library.

ETA: I recently tried Jellyfin as an experiment but found that it stores its data in hidden folders, which I'm not down with so got rid of it in short order. On the plus side Jellyfin purportedly doesn't leak user data.

 

[jrm27]

Thanks! I'm trying to setup PLEX right now, but I'm having issues with my Mac fluctuating between being online and offline while connected to Wifi. Seems to be a problem I need to figure out before I try and get Plex going. Thanks for the help and the heads up on the privacy settings!

 

[JamesMay82]

Hello all,

I've got an old Mac Mini (2012) sitting downstairs. I've had it connected to an old 4TB hard drive that houses my entire old DVD library that I had backed up there back in the day. I've had iTunes/TV (whatever it is called now) pointing to that hard drive it to build a library that I can access via the "computer" app on my Apple TV upstairs, and through my other apple devices. However, the computer itself is ridiculously slow. I think it's probably in the worst place ever for a wifi signal and I can't run an ethernet cable to it. I think I really need to figure out how to do this right though so I can access my old library reliably and quickly.

I'm currently wiping the mini completely and reinstalling the OS. At this point I think Catalina is as high as I can go. If I wanted to turn this thing into a great media server, do you have any advice? I'm not even sure what I would need to do. I'm assuming bringing the mini upstairs and plugging it into my router would make things faster... but even that leaves me clueless. I used to run Plex way back when it first came out, so maybe that would be fun again. But, I'm pretty in the dark and would appreciate any advice.

Just as a side note, I won't be using this computer to do any sailing on the high seas, torrenting, or need to set up auto downloading of anything. I'll add my own media from time to time as I continue to back up my blu-rays and such.

Any resources I should look at? Amy advice you might give a newbie? Thanks so much!

My Mac’s are in my home office upstairs and my old iMac would play great to office tv over WiFi but would be incredibly slow/temperamental when streaming to our main tv downstairs. I never tried but I always assumed that Ethernet is the only way to fix it.. you can buy a cheap long Ethernet cable to test that theory? That’s what I thought about doing.

 

[phrehdd]

My Mac’s are in my home office upstairs and my old iMac would play great to office tv over WiFi but would be incredibly slow/temperamental when streaming to our main tv downstairs. I never tried but I always assumed that Ethernet is the only way to fix it.. you can buy a cheap long Ethernet cable to test that theory? That’s what I thought about doing.

I would suggest you do a look up of the following

Wifi bridge
Wifi Mesh
Powerline wall adapter.

These may give you a solution for your connectivity without running long ethernet cables.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

I stuck 16TB of SSD space on an old 2012 13" in my office, and created an open ad hoc network, to the horror of the University IT department. I don't run any library software on it, just a shared drive available to all who connect to it via wifi. The students use it as a communal file share to dump & pickup whatever files they want on it & stream whatever music & movies are on it at any time. This is year 5 of it. Somehow no matter where I am in the building, a Mac client seems to buffer enough of anything you try to stream off it to not run aground. I thought about expanding out with nodes all over the university, & just see how far we can spread a free open file sharing network before it grinds to a halt.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

However, the computer itself is ridiculously slow. I think it's probably in the worst place ever for a wifi signal and I can't run an ethernet cable to it. I think I really need to figure out how to do this right though so I can access my old library reliably and quickly.

Switch the boot and software drive to an SSD, that should give you a mighty speed boost. You could in theory do the same for the content, but it would be so expensive that I wont recommend that. But having everything else but the content on an SSD will do wonders for snappyness and serving content on your LAN, as the machine will wake up muuuch faster.

Second of all, it is clear you need to get a reliable LAN.

I'm currently wiping the mini completely and reinstalling the OS. At this point I think Catalina is as high as I can go. If I wanted to turn this thing into a great media server, do you have any advice? I'm not even sure what I would need to do. I'm assuming bringing the mini upstairs and plugging it into my router would make things faster... but even that leaves me clueless. I used to run Plex way back when it first came out, so maybe that would be fun again. But, I'm pretty in the dark and would appreciate any advice.

You could do Plex, Kodi, Jellyfish, if you want control of what is being served to whom, keep a log of what has been played, serve media outside of your LAN, etc. But it also require a bit of maintenance now and then in my experience.

If you simply just want to serve media for everyone in the house, I would recommend you just install Infuse on all units, and point it to your server.

 

[phrehdd]

If you simply just want to serve media for everyone in the house, I would recommend you just install Infuse on all units, and point it to your server.

For my tastes, I prefer your approach to having each connected device have its own playback software. Let the 2012 mini simply be a media storage center. As long as the files are shared properly, it should be a nice solution. In a sense the Mac would be simply NAS.

 

[jrm27]

Thanks for the input everyone! I went ahead and wiped the Mac, and really the only thing on it is Plex. I hooked up my external hard drives and then connected my mini to the router, and it all seems to be running well. It runs best on my television and on my iPhone... not so great on my MacStudio, but I think that is related a bit to my crappy wifi in my office. But, it's nice that Plex has gathered up some streaming channels that I can watch too... we don't have cable at all, so its easier to grab the local weather and news off Plex rather than fiddle with the rabbit ears. Plus, having Plex auto populate subtitles for all my content that I made without subtitles is nice for my old-man hearing.

The only thing I can't do at the moment is connect to my Plex server from outside the home. I'm not sure if I need to figure out port forwarding, or if that's a feature of Plex that I ned to pay for with Plex pass.

I'll take a look at Infuse too. Thanks!