Mac mini as an itunes "server"

[acrahm]

I am planning on getting a computer to use as my itunes "hub" the sole purpose of this machine will be to store my 2gb+of music/video etc and be able to access it wirelessly with my MBP, Imac and ATV. right now i have an old G4 that i was planning on using, but i am having issues with it so i am thinking of just going the mini route.

how big of a difference will the CPU make if its say a 1.83?

any other specs i should consider?

 

[OldCorpse]

I am planning on getting a computer to use as my itunes "hub" the sole purpose of this machine will be to store my 2gb+of music/video etc and be able to access it wirelessly with my MBP, Imac and ATV. right now i have an old G4 that i was planning on using, but i am having issues with it so i am thinking of just going the mini route.

how big of a difference will the CPU make if its say a 1.83?

any other specs i should consider?

That's how I use my G4 mac mini - 1.5GHz (PPC), 1GB RAM, 100GB HDD.

My setup. The mini with specs described above. To that, I have connected 2 2TB MyBook WD enclosures - 4TB. Each MyBook is raided (mirror), so the total space is 1TB on each enclosure, for a total of 2TB. I keep all my music files on one MyBook, which gives me 1TB mirrored, so if one drive goes bad, I don't lose all the music. The other mirrored MyBook, also 1TB, has music files I've downloaded through bittorrent, that I have not as yet had a chance to listen to - as I gradually do so, the music that makes it, gets transferred to my music MyBook... so far each MyBook is about 60% full. I keep the iTunes library on my mini, and it accesses the files on the music MyBook through firewire. The mini in turn is hooked up to the AUX in my stereo, and plays through the big speakers - with very good quality (I only use lossless codecs). I can access the mini from my iBook (wirelessly) through JollysFastVNC, and do whatever I want with iTunes etc. on the mini - all from the screen on my iBook.

I leave the mini and the MyBook drives running 24/7. The only slight downside is that the MyBook drives power down, and when I want to fire up iTunes, it takes about 10-15 seconds the first time before the MyBook drives kick in out of the sleep mode, but no problems with performance. I've had this set up since April of this year, and have not had any problems. Oh, and I'm still running OS X 10.4.11 on the mini, because it is super stable - I never had one crash - a super stable combination PPC G4 and Tiger. I'm also running the latest iTunes. Everything is rock solid, and performs very well as a music server.

The only other thing I use the mini for is bittorrent, which I have running most days and most hours.

 

[googdot]

That's how I use my G4 mac mini - 1.5GHz (PPC), 1GB RAM, 100GB HDD.

My setup. The mini with specs described above. To that, I have connected 2 2TB MyBook WD enclosures - 4TB. Each MyBook is raided (mirror), so the total space is 1TB on each enclosure, for a total of 2TB. I keep all my music files on one MyBook, which gives me 1TB mirrored, so if one drive goes bad, I don't lose all the music. The other mirrored MyBook, also 1TB, has music files I've downloaded through bittorrent, that I have not as yet had a chance to listen to - as I gradually do so, the music that makes it, gets transferred to my music MyBook... so far each MyBook is about 60% full. I keep the iTunes library on my mini, and it accesses the files on the music MyBook through firewire. The mini in turn is hooked up to the AUX in my stereo, and plays through the big speakers - with very good quality (I only use lossless codecs). I can access the mini from my iBook (wirelessly) through JollysFastVNC, and do whatever I want with iTunes etc. on the mini - all from the screen on my iBook.

I leave the mini and the MyBook drives running 24/7. The only slight downside is that the MyBook drives power down, and when I want to fire up iTunes, it takes about 10-15 seconds the first time before the MyBook drives kick in out of the sleep mode, but no problems with performance. I've had this set up since April of this year, and have not had any problems. Oh, and I'm still running OS X 10.4.11 on the mini, because it is super stable - I never had one crash - a super stable combination PPC G4 and Tiger. I'm also running the latest iTunes. Everything is rock solid, and performs very well as a music server.

The only other thing I use the mini for is bittorrent, which I have running most days and most hours.

I also have a G4 1.5GHz mini running headless with an almost identical setup to this. As with OldCorpse, I keep mine running 24/7 and have had this going for a few years now - works great with no issues whatsoever.

 

[acrahm]

sweet!! i now know my idea will work great and i dont need a faster mini, thanks!

 

[gkarris]

I use a PC I bought closeout for $199 about 4 years ago. It's just a lowely Sempron and it still works great.

All it has to do is serve the files, so any Intel Mini would do (or maybe even the PPC ones for that matter).

I didn't go with a Mini because I was waiting for the Intel version to come out before buying one... 😉

Have fun with your Mini server! I'm glad Apple still has them! Now a Server Version!

(Remember all the discussion about Apple discontinuing them? 😱)