iTunes library over network

[173080]

I just ordered a PS Audio Digital Link III DAC for the Mac mini I have plugged into my TV and stereo system.

I am going to be ripping all my CDs to Apple Lossless. This poses a storage problem, there is no way the Mac mini will be able to hold my CD and movie collection. External hard drives plugged directly into the Mac mini are not an option due to the noise they produce.

Storing the media on a another computer and using iTunes sharing is out of the question because I would like everything to work locally.

I currently have a Mac running OS X 10.4 Server in the basement and I could add external hard drives to that machine. My question is, can I make iTunes work over several remote hard drives over the network? I would like it to be transparent to the user, as if all the media was stored locally.

How could I set this up? The data should be spanned over several network drives.

 

[Killyp]

You need to partition the drives as a RAID array, which means they'll appear as a single drive. Mount the drive over the network, and also drag it into your 'Login Items' list in your System Preferences user account area. Then just set up iTunes to use this new 'drive' as the directory.

To be honest though, 320 kbps AAC is practically identical to the CD, I have serious difficulty telling the difference and even the most seasoned listeners/musicians have serious issues telling the difference. Takes up less space than Apple Lossless

 

[173080]

If I set up the drives as a single RAID array, can I easily add more drives as I need them?

I'll do some tests between 320kbps AAC and Apple Lossless once the DAC arrives. I'll be using B&W 800 series speakers and Rotel amps, so I'll see how noticeable the compression is.

 

[173080]

I noticed that I can uncheck the "Keep my music organized" setting in iTunes and I can select a different location for the library and rip my music to the new location while retaining the access to the music in the previous location. It looks like it's keeping a hard link in the library database.

I think I will share each hard drive separately on the server and mount all of them on the Mac mini. I will select the first one as my iTunes library until it fills up, then I'll use the second one and so on. This way I can add as many hard drives as I want while having access to all from a single iTunes library.