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What to do with unused 2011 Mac Mini

When y'all recommend iTunes Server, are you talking about specific software? I am about to setup an old Mini as a caching and file server and possibly domain server for group policy - would rope in iTunes if helpful (although if I keep an Apple Music sub you sort of get that in the cloud).
 
My Mini just runs iTunes 24/7 with homesharing enabled and a library of about 4000 songs, 600 movies and 600 TV show. That's what I consider an "iTunes Server"

An Apple Music subscription would not give me access to movies and TV shows, especially many obscure ones I have ripped from DVD or downloaded from places like archive.org. And I don't think Apple Music would give me access to the hundreds of hours of similarly obscure music in my library.

But probably... if you have to ask... you don't need it, it's not for everyone. My son in law says he has almost exclusively switched to Apple Music, although we always have fun listening to the obscure music and watching the rare movies when they visit. ;)
 
Boyd01 said:
My Mini just runs iTunes 24/7 with homesharing enabled and a library of about 4000 songs, 600 movies and 600 TV show. That's what I consider an "iTunes Server"

An Apple Music subscription would not give me access to movies and TV shows, especially many obscure ones I have ripped from DVD or downloaded from places like archive.org. And I don't think Apple Music would give me access to the hundreds of hours of similarly obscure music in my library.

But probably... if you have to ask... you don't need it, it's not for everyone. My son in law says he has almost exclusively switched to Apple Music, although we always have fun listening to the obscure music and watching the rare movies when they visit. ;)
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Thanks! I am by no means a lover of the new rental culture, including cloud services, but iTunes in the Cloud storing my obscure MP3s is the only tempting thing about AM. I wish Home Sharing was a litlte more robust (as in your iPhone could connect to it via VPN from anywhere).
 
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Boyd01 said:
I have never done this, but think it can be done with "Back to my Mac" (not sure if this works with iOS though) https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204618

They have removed this feature from Mojave however.
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Yeah, the loss of BTMM was the first time I have though "the old Apple is gone". A seamless implementation of an IPSec tunnel using standards. It was amazing. Worked on Time Capsules too. Sigh.
 
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If you have a large movie library, you could have the mini transcode to h.265/hevc. It'll be slow, but at least it'll be chugging away without impacting your daily life.
 
bdphifer said:
Is there a problem using a 2011 as a headless server now that there aren't going to be updates? Want to set one up, and am trying to decide to go with the 2011 or 2012.

Thanks!
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It will still get security updates for at least another year, but if I were you I would go with a 2012 unless you already have one sitting around.
 
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