MAC home System Setup

[phua8686]

HI all,

I have just bought a new home and need to setup my MAC hardware all over the house in term of networking and entertainment purpose so i would like to you guys to suggest my idea of purchasing some stuff and networking.

Below are the things i currently have now and planing to purchase additional

Mac mini - for my living hall entertainment with PLEX
Western digital 2TB mybook harddisk with mac for additional space
Time Capsule - Plan to purchase to wifi networking purpose
Air-port express -Plan to buy for second floor connection
Macbook Pro 13' - portable mac to use anywhere of the house
ipad and iphone

Do you think this should be good enough or any additional stuff i can do with it?

 

[r0k]

HI all,

I have just bought a new home and need to setup my MAC hardware all over the house in term of networking and entertainment purpose so i would like to you guys to suggest my idea of purchasing some stuff and networking.

Below are the things i currently have now and planing to purchase additional

Mac mini - for my living hall entertainment with PLEX
Western digital 2TB mybook harddisk with mac for additional space
Time Capsule - Plan to purchase to wifi networking purpose
Air-port express -Plan to buy for second floor connection
Macbook Pro 13' - portable mac to use anywhere of the house
ipad and iphone

Do you think this should be good enough or any additional stuff i can do with it?

I don't recommend Time Capsule. If it ever dies, you have to send your data to Apple for repair and what you get back is wiped. I've gone through that once. What I do now is back up to a USB drive plugged in to my TC. I also use Synology Disk Stations (DS112J is a good choice). The only up side with Time Capsule is it (allegedly) caches software updates so you don't have to re-download them for multiple devices.

I suggest an Airport Extreme instead. Or, if you'd rather manage your network using a standard web browser instead of Airport Utility, consider some of the higher rated routers over at smallnetworkbuilder.

 

[phua8686]

I don't recommend Time Capsule. If it ever dies, you have to send your data to Apple for repair and what you get back is wiped. I've gone through that once. What I do now is back up to a USB drive plugged in to my TC. I also use Synology Disk Stations (DS112J is a good choice). The only up side with Time Capsule is it (allegedly) caches software updates so you don't have to re-download them for multiple devices.

I suggest an Airport Extreme instead. Or, if you'd rather manage your network using a standard web browser instead of Airport Utility, consider some of the higher rated routers over at smallnetworkbuilder.

Hi rok, thanks for the reply,

Would you suggest Synology Disk Stations (DS112J) is a good choice to compile all my entertainment file from videos, music, photo and etc in one area and share it out to other device?

and as you said TC fo backing up for restoration purpose (or instead rather use it all in the DS112J and forgeting about purchasing TC)

thanks for the smallnetworkbuilder i'll go and check it out for networking

and again thanks for the reply, appreciated

 

[r0k]

Hi rok, thanks for the reply,

Would you suggest Synology Disk Stations (DS112J) is a good choice to compile all my entertainment file from videos, music, photo and etc in one area and share it out to other device?

and as you said TC fo backing up for restoration purpose (or instead rather use it all in the DS112J and forgeting about purchasing TC)

thanks for the smallnetworkbuilder i'll go and check it out for networking

and again thanks for the reply, appreciated

I don't recommend a non-Apple device for Time Machine but I don't recommend Time Machine as your only backup. The DS112J decision is affected by a couple of things. One reason I bought it is because I have LG TVs that support DLNA. I can stream movies directly from the DS112J and the darn thing only draws 18 amps while being used. The user interface on those TVs is pretty crappy but once I've got the movie playing I don't care any more. If you intend to stream stuff from iTunes, the DLNA feature of the Synology is one less thing in its favor. There are, however a lot of other issues to consider. DSM 4.0, the OS on the Synology is Linux. It's running on ARM but it's Linux. This means you can host a wordpress or drupal site on your DS. You can get shareware on iOS to stream DLNA content. I mainly stream movies and music but you can also stream photos. We are weaning ourselves off Comcast and right now we can stream Netflix or DLNA to all of our TVs. We don't (yet) own an Apple TV and if we did, the Synology drives might not be as involved in our streaming media.

For files, I drag and drop things to the DS. I prefer two low power DS NAS drives to one NAS drive running RAID.

One caveat about smallnetworkbuilder. They seem a bit biased against Apple gear. I still find their reviews and tutorials useful.

If you are able, I suggest running Cat 5e or Cat 6 to every room so you have gigabit ethernet between all your wired devices, including any streaming media devices. Wifi can be very intermittent and can lead to stuttering movies.

I like the way Apple gear works together so an Airport Extreme (with an optional external USB drive) might be a better choice and a better value than a TC. Before connecting a USB drive to a TC or AE, you must format it HFS+ using Disk Utility. The AE or TC will then recognize and use the drive.

 

[phua8686]

I don't recommend a non-Apple device for Time Machine but I don't recommend Time Machine as your only backup. The DS112J decision is affected by a couple of things. One reason I bought it is because I have LG TVs that support DLNA. I can stream movies directly from the DS112J and the darn thing only draws 18 amps while being used. The user interface on those TVs is pretty crappy but once I've got the movie playing I don't care any more. If you intend to stream stuff from iTunes, the DLNA feature of the Synology is one less thing in its favor. There are, however a lot of other issues to consider. DSM 4.0, the OS on the Synology is Linux. It's running on ARM but it's Linux. This means you can host a wordpress or drupal site on your DS. You can get shareware on iOS to stream DLNA content. I mainly stream movies and music but you can also stream photos. We are weaning ourselves off Comcast and right now we can stream Netflix or DLNA to all of our TVs. We don't (yet) own an Apple TV and if we did, the Synology drives might not be as involved in our streaming media.

For files, I drag and drop things to the DS. I prefer two low power DS NAS drives to one NAS drive running RAID.

One caveat about smallnetworkbuilder. They seem a bit biased against Apple gear. I still find their reviews and tutorials useful.

If you are able, I suggest running Cat 5e or Cat 6 to every room so you have gigabit ethernet between all your wired devices, including any streaming media devices. Wifi can be very intermittent and can lead to stuttering movies.

I like the way Apple gear works together so an Airport Extreme (with an optional external USB drive) might be a better choice and a better value than a TC. Before connecting a USB drive to a TC or AE, you must format it HFS+ using Disk Utility. The AE or TC will then recognize and use the drive.

Thanks for the heads-up, really need to think to through it before purchasing.