Move itunes library to external HDD on Airport Extreme?

[pullman]

Hello

Is it advisable to move the iTunes library to a harddrive connected to an Airport Extreme?

I am trying to simplify streaming of music and movies to my Apple TV 3 in a different room. The library is currently on a HDD on my Mac Pro (2008, running El Cap) but I need to have the computer on to access the media which is a bit of a pain.

Or is there another solution to achieve streaming without having my Mac Pro on?

Thanks a lot in advance
Philip

 

[Fabian90]

Hello

Is it advisable to move the iTunes library to a harddrive connected to an Airport Extreme?

I am trying to simplify streaming of music and movies to my Apple TV 3 in a different room. The library is currently on a HDD on my Mac Pro (2008, running El Cap) but I need to have the computer on to access the media which is a bit of a pain.

Or is there another solution to achieve streaming without having my Mac Pro on?

Thanks a lot in advance
Philip

The USB port on the Airport Extreme is only USB 2.0, if you have HD movies on there it might be the bottleneck and too slow to stream

 

[pullman]

Thanks Fabian, I hadn't thought about that. I also realise that having the library on an external connected to the AEBS wouldn't really help because the parent computer needs to be on. So I need to find another solution.

The USB port on the Airport Extreme is only USB 2.0, if you have HD movies on there it might be the bottleneck and too slow to stream

 

[chabig]

I purchased a used Mac Mini on craigslist as my media server. I paid $300 for a Late 2014 model. It was dog slow because of the spinning hard drive so I boot and run it off of an external Samsung T5 SSD. I usually remote into it from my MacBook when I need to do something to it, but I also have it connected to my TV with a USB cable for times when I have to actually use the computer.

 

[techwarrior]

I also realise that having the library on an external connected to the AEBS wouldn't really help because the parent computer needs to be on.

With ATV4 and 4K, there are apps like Infuse that can see and play media stored on network shares without requiring iTunes to be running. But, for ATV3, you still need a Mac or PC with iTunes running to stream content.

I don't think USB2 speeds will necessarily cause issues. 4K streaming requires about 20-30Mbps, and USB2 is capable of up to 480Mbps.