Moving from desktop to laptop

[Vader]

I just purchased a refurb MBPr, and I'm going to have a little trouble migrating to using it as my main machine. It's got a 256gb ssd. My Hackintosh has a 60gb boot drive (ssd) and all my media (just iPhoto and iTunes data) on an internal 1TB drive. The actual library file for iTunes resides on the ssd, but points to the 1TB drive for the actual content. I also currently have a 2009 mac mini serving up plex for movies. I plan on getting rid of the tower, and I don't want to have to be tethered to get at any of my media.

I want to figure out the best solution here. I considered getting a NAS, but from what I've read, that can cause issues with iPhoto (or not work at all due to not having an HFS+ filesystem). I looked into a Time Capsule (or Airport Extreme with attached storage), but I found that may not be very fast for regular file manipulation, just good for Time Machine backups. So I finally remembered my Mac Mini which is already working as a server (not running server OS though).

So what is my best bet here? I'm not really looking for the cheapest solution (although it might be best if the mini route is the best one), just the easiest to use (complicated setup is ok). I am looking for anyone in a similar situation that has maybe figured out a good solution.

From my research thus far, it is looking like my best bet would be to attach a second large hdd to the mini as a shared drive and store my iTunes and iPhoto library there. It would not be a problem to install Mac OS Server on it if that would be a better option. I am not trying to serve anything to multiple computers or even users. I have one iPhone that I would be syncing, ideally to the macbook, but I can do wireless syncing and have it sync to the mini as well.

I'm not really worried about backups as I don't have any problem plugging in a drive to backup the laptop and the mini or other server-type solution has/will have a backup solution in place.

Edit: I did find this thread, which seems to be pretty similar to what I want, except I think my use is simpler (only one user).

Second Edit: Maybe this should be in the sever subforum (I guess it kinda depends on if that is the suggested way to go about this or not)

 

[smellalot]

The Mac Mini is actually the best device for your purpose. I have two drives attached to mine. One is a portable 2.5" 1 TB drive for my Aperture, iTunes and other files. I can access it wirelessly and if I leave the house I simply pull the drive off the Mac Mini and take it with me. All you need to do is activate file sharing for the whole drive. It's attached via USB.
The second drive is for my Plex library and backups. I use Time Machine to make backups of the Mac Mini and the 1 TB drive. Also I make wireless backups of my MacBook to that drive.

The only 'downside' with this setup is that I need to click on the drive in the Finder sidebar every time an application like iTunes needs access to it, otherwise it will not find the drive.

In my opinion this is the most flexible and cost effective way over any NAS and TimeCapsule.
Oh, almost forgot: the Mini goes to sleep and wakes without issues.

 

[Vader]

Thank you!
My mini is already always on and never sleeps. The clicking the drive every time (and I assume needing to eject it) might be a killer for me. I'm guessing I could write a script to auto mount the drive whenever I join the wifi network or something. I remember that losing connection to a network drive (on my 2007 macbook) could cause finder to hang and require a reboot to fix it. I don't want to have to worry about that.

This post from lolyq in this thread makes me wonder if I can do much greater things since I could use the mini as a server. Specifically the local/network login and syncing.

...You definitely can if you configure your network accounts to be mobile. This means that a local copy of your home directory is created on your MBA or any other Mac where you login. So you can take it from your network, log in, work as usual, and then as soon as you get in your network again it will sync with your server automatically in the background. Customizing an account to be mobile is really easy in ML, you just launch users&groups in the systems preference after your first log in on any of the clients and you will see the mobile settings button there. If you want to customize even more, you can download the workgroup manager for ML and customize anything for each user...

 

[smellalot]

Thank you!
My mini is already always on and never sleeps. The clicking the drive every time (and I assume needing to eject it) might be a killer for me. I'm guessing I could write a script to auto mount the drive whenever I join the wifi network or something. I remember that losing connection to a network drive (on my 2007 macbook) could cause finder to hang and require a reboot to fix it. I don't want to have to worry about that.

This post from lolyq in this thread makes me wonder if I can do much greater things since I could use the mini as a server. Specifically the local/network login and syncing.

I suppose you could. But I believe the only time you'll need this is when you want to login to the same account on different machines. So far you haven't mentioned any interest of doing that.
Actually when I think about it this could maybe solve the problem of having to click on the drive in Finder (like I do). But I have never used network accounts so I can't help you there. But if you want to try I believe you'll need a tutorial like this:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/ap...ple-os-x-server-how-to-set-up-open-directory/

Would be great to hear how it works out for you!

 

[Vader]

Thanks for the link. Like you said, I'm not planning on using multiple machines with same account, or even multiple machines, so the server (while fun to tinker with I'm sure) might not be what I need. I'll try out with just the shared folder and if I find that doesnt work for me, I'll look into the server or other options. My macbook is supposed to arrive tomorrow!