Hey all,
This is my set up:
24" aluminum iMac
Mac Mini
Apple Base Station (the new square one)
Future 500GB external hard drive
The other 3 guys in my apartment and the 3 girls across the hall, all on the same wireless network are all on Windows XP SP2 machines.
What I want to do is be able to have the mini with the external have all our music, pictures and movies, as well as documents so that any of us can get to them from any of the computers. I would like the music and movies to stream if possible so that they don't need to download them to watch them. Can I do this by just having the files in folders, or should I use iTunes? If I use iTunes on the mac mini, how would anyone else add files to it, and how then would we share pics and other files like documents?
As for the external, I'm thinking of getting the ministack v3 (http://www.newertech.com/products/ministackv3.php) for a couple of reasons. I like that the mini just sits on top of it and it turns on and off with the mini(the mini will more than likely be on all the time anyways, but still a good feature). I am wondering though, since it has FW800 and my new iMac has FW800, could I get a cable and plug it into each, and then have the two macs linked up? I don't like that they're literally inches apart, and yet over the wireless network it takes ages to transfer gigs worth of movies and files.
From the site, there is also the ministack NAS. Would that work for us, in plugging it into the base station? Would it be a better option the the ministack v3? I'd really prefer the hard drive hooked up with the mini, as I use it the most to watch movies in my room and would prefer to have the actual files instead of streaming them myself.
Also, would it be hard once everything is set up to create a folder on my roommates desktops that they could simply drag files onto and have them load onto the server?
Thanks for the help!
This is my set up:
24" aluminum iMac
Mac Mini
Apple Base Station (the new square one)
Future 500GB external hard drive
The other 3 guys in my apartment and the 3 girls across the hall, all on the same wireless network are all on Windows XP SP2 machines.
What I want to do is be able to have the mini with the external have all our music, pictures and movies, as well as documents so that any of us can get to them from any of the computers. I would like the music and movies to stream if possible so that they don't need to download them to watch them. Can I do this by just having the files in folders, or should I use iTunes? If I use iTunes on the mac mini, how would anyone else add files to it, and how then would we share pics and other files like documents?
As for the external, I'm thinking of getting the ministack v3 (http://www.newertech.com/products/ministackv3.php) for a couple of reasons. I like that the mini just sits on top of it and it turns on and off with the mini(the mini will more than likely be on all the time anyways, but still a good feature). I am wondering though, since it has FW800 and my new iMac has FW800, could I get a cable and plug it into each, and then have the two macs linked up? I don't like that they're literally inches apart, and yet over the wireless network it takes ages to transfer gigs worth of movies and files.
From the site, there is also the ministack NAS. Would that work for us, in plugging it into the base station? Would it be a better option the the ministack v3? I'd really prefer the hard drive hooked up with the mini, as I use it the most to watch movies in my room and would prefer to have the actual files instead of streaming them myself.
Also, would it be hard once everything is set up to create a folder on my roommates desktops that they could simply drag files onto and have them load onto the server?
Thanks for the help!