[Marius]

Hi all,

In my search on the internet I just can not exactly find the right answer, and the Apple Store salesman referred me to this forum.

I would like to have a permanent MAc Mini in my audio-setup for different tasks, but one of them is to have a permanent iTunes server running in the house, that I can reach from al my networked mac's / pc's. I want to operate  it from a macbook, or iPad or what ever, and store files on an attached My Book through firewire. Since I share my Library on the network I thought it possible to have a iPod with remote.app select music and send it to whatever speaker is connected in the house?

My local Macbook iTunes can download to this MyBook server Hdd?

Optical out into the DAC, hdmi to the TVset.

Set my eyes on the MAcmini with fastest processor and full memory. But not sure about the Harddisk option. Best if I ordered the SDD only? To eleminate noise, both electrical and audible in the room I guess?

Lot of questions, I know, but I would really appreciate your guidance in this matter.

Thanks for that!
Marius

[Atlplasma]

I store my music on externals (firewire and hot swappable). That gives more flexibility and allows you to keep multiple backups.

You could use your mini as a dedicated server, which is how I have mine set up (with a 60 GB SSD and 8 GB of ram). It makes for a very nice unit, especially with Pure Music as the player.

[Atlplasma]

I store my music on externals (firewire and hot swappable). That gives more flexibility and allows you to keep multiple backups. (Almost forgot to mention that I use 1 TB, 5400 rpm drives. These are plenty fast for music and quieter. There are also some restore issues with larger drives.)

You could use your mini as a dedicated server, which is how I have mine set up (with a 60 GB SSD and 8 GB of ram). It makes for a very nice unit, especially with Pure Music as the player.

[Marius]

Hi,

do you dl music only with the Mini, or with another device to and synchronize later?
Do you operate the Headless mini through another Mac, or iPad?

What do you mean when you say there were restore issues with the larger (then 1tb) drives?

Thanks,
Marius

I store my music on externals (firewire and hot swappable). That gives more flexibility and allows you to keep multiple backups.

You could use your mini as a dedicated server, which is how I have mine set up (with a 60 GB SSD and 8 GB of ram). It makes for a very nice unit, especially with Pure Music as the player.

[Atlplasma]

I mainly listen through my stereo setup, but I sometimes stream music to an iMac in my office.

I do operate the mini headless. This is easy to do with screensharing turned on. I also use Remote on my iPad for control.

Some large drive are not recoverable if they fail. Apparently they use a special scheme to sqeeze more data on to the platters. I know this is an issue with 2TB WD drives.

[skunark]

I have the mac mini server that I dead head and mainly use it as a iTunes server.   It's the central point for music, videos and ebooks for all other computers (windows, mac) and devices like the Apple TV and Bryston's BDP.  It's also the house file-server, time-machine server (and client) and online backups are enabled.   I've selected to not have any computers close to my stereo for various reasons: ugly, prefer to avoid wall warts, ugly, HDD noise, ugly, and there is no need to have a mac mini or any computer since I have the BDP.  Did i mention it's ugly?   I do have everything in a cabinet, but it would still be ugly... Obviously there are a thousand ways to do this, this is my preference. 

I normally will just stream the video or music to the other computers and all ATVs point to that iTunes server using the home networking feature.   It's configured to also start iTunes in the case of power-outage, or a reboot.    I also use it to automatically rip CDs with little interaction from me, and I will always review the album art, song titles after each rip.   It's set up to easily update the Bryston BDP after I've uploaded/ripped  more music.   Since the mac mini is configured to be a file server, it's easy to  download songs to it (hdtracks, etc) and again sync that to the BDP and even convert the FLAC to AIFF for the iTunes Server.   I do use screen share to tweak the text after a rip, do the flac to aiff conversion, and force iTunes to save the album art to the actual file.

With iOS5 out it's now become the iPhone/iPad wireless backup location as well.    It seems with each passing year, this eco-system just gets easier, and eager to see if some of the backup duties can also migrate to the cloud.   

[JohnR]

My mini has a... uh, head. I find it more convenient that way. However it's not exactly in the rack, it's around the corner in the kitchen. Remote is by desktop sharing or iphone.

If I was going headless I'd probably set up the library on my desktop and periodically sync it across from there.

[Crimson]

...........and the Apple Store salesman referred me to this forum.

Really? That's nice to know. 

[Marius]

Hi!

Seems you got it the way I want it. Glad to hear it's working fine.

Please could you clarify a bit further:
You rip on the Mini, as in you have an extra cd-drive, or as in the former Mini? (I need to order one, so would need an extra drive, or rip on my Macbook and wire it to the server)

Do I need the server edition for this all to be possible, or would the standard edition suffice. (never touched Max OsX server edition)

Since you use it as a file server too I assume you have some extra HDD attached? the 750gb is hardly sufficient for Music-storage.

What exactly do you mean when you write "It's set up to easily update the Bryston BDP after I've uploaded/ripped  more music" How have you done this?

Thanks! you're helping a lot.

Marius

I have the mac mini server that I dead head and mainly use it as a iTunes server.   It's the central point for music, videos and ebooks for all other computers (windows, mac) and devices like the Apple TV and Bryston's BDP.  It's also the house file-server, time-machine server (and client) and online backups are enabled.   I've selected to not have any computers close to my stereo for various reasons: ugly, prefer to avoid wall warts, ugly, HDD noise, ugly, and there is no need to have a mac mini or any computer since I have the BDP.  Did i mention it's ugly?   I do have everything in a cabinet, but it would still be ugly... Obviously there are a thousand ways to do this, this is my preference. 

I normally will just stream the video or music to the other computers and all ATVs point to that iTunes server using the home networking feature.   It's configured to also start iTunes in the case of power-outage, or a reboot.    I also use it to automatically rip CDs with little interaction from me, and I will always review the album art, song titles after each rip.   It's set up to easily update the Bryston BDP after I've uploaded/ripped  more music.   Since the mac mini is configured to be a file server, it's easy to  download songs to it (hdtracks, etc) and again sync that to the BDP and even convert the FLAC to AIFF for the iTunes Server.   I do use screen share to tweak the text after a rip, do the flac to aiff conversion, and force iTunes to save the album art to the actual file.

With iOS5 out it's now become the iPhone/iPad wireless backup location as well.    It seems with each passing year, this eco-system just gets easier, and eager to see if some of the backup duties can also migrate to the cloud.

[skunark]

Hi!

Seems you got it the way I want it. Glad to hear it's working fine.

Please could you clarify a bit further:
You rip on the Mini, as in you have an extra cd-drive, or as in the former Mini? (I need to order one, so would need an extra drive, or rip on my Macbook and wire it to the server)

Do I need the server edition for this all to be possible, or would the standard edition suffice. (never touched Max OsX server edition)

Since you use it as a file server too I assume you have some extra HDD attached? the 750gb is hardly sufficient for Music-storage.

What exactly do you mean when you write "It's set up to easily update the Bryston BDP after I've uploaded/ripped  more music" How have you done this?

Thanks! you're helping a lot.

Marius

I have the external USB DVD drive to rip, same one that is sold for the Macbook Air.

You do not need the server edition anymore.  I only picked up the server edition because I wanted to run the Time Machine Server, now that you can purchase it cheaply from the App Store, any Mac can become a server.     One could easily use an AirPort Extreme or various NAS boxes to act as a TimeMachine server.

I configured the mac mini server with 2 500 GB drives skipping SSDs since there's no real advantage for my needs, I've have the following drives:
500GB (2nd internal): used as a common file share
2TB (FW): used as a media drive for the iTunes server
3TB (FW): used as a the local time-machine drive and the time-machine server drive.
4TB (USB): It's a first gen drobo drive that rarely is turned on, mostly manually archives original files, but it's too loud to keep on all the time.
: Early next year, i will need to increase the storage for both FW drives

Online backups only snags the data and media drives.  Once iCloud becomes more mature, I will restrict to just backing up the data and music.

As for interfacing with the BDP-1, I use a script to copy the files over.   There's an app in the app store that does this in a GUI fashion that I've pointed out in another thread. http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=99776.msg1016882#msg1016882


To add, the best part about selecting the Mac Mini as a server, it's consumes very power when it's idle.   I'm not sure what it's like with all the external drives attached, but Apple once claimed it was around 10 watts.

[Marius]

Great Skunark, thanks so much for this. Im going to study this and I'll save it for future reference. Just what I needed.

If you've got the script to spare I'd be grateful, but I will certainly look at the Gui App first.

Marius

I have the external USB DVD drive to rip, same one that is sold for the Macbook Air.

You do not need the server edition anymore.  I only picked up the server edition because I wanted to run the Time Machine Server, now that you can purchase it cheaply from the App Store, any Mac can become a server.     One could easily use an AirPort Extreme or various NAS boxes to act as a TimeMachine server.

I configured the mac mini server with 2 500 GB drives skipping SSDs since there's no real advantage for my needs, I've have the following drives:
500GB (2nd internal): used as a common file share
2TB (FW): used as a media drive for the iTunes server
3TB (FW): used as a the local time-machine drive and the time-machine server drive.
4TB (USB): It's a first gen drobo drive that rarely is turned on, mostly manually archives original files, but it's too loud to keep on all the time.
: Early next year, i will need to increase the storage for both FW drives

Only backup only snags the data and media drives.  Once iCloud becomes more mature, I will restrict to just backing up the data and music.

As for interfacing with the BDP-1, I use a script to copy the files over.   There's an app in the app store that does this in a GUI fashion that I've pointed out in another thread. http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=99776.msg1016882#msg1016882

[Marius]

Hi Skunark,

Dropsync caused me some trouble, but those might be related to the power-issues I had with the hdd's. It skipped files intermittedly, so I had to check manually and redo it several times. Deleted it again but since you're very positive about it I'll try it again. In the meantime I had been downloading Synkron http://synkron.sourceforge.net/ which is also a Gui around rsync as I understand it, and free to top that. You have any experience with this? Seems rather nice, and does it's work automatically so it seems.

So you rip/download on your Mac Mini and then copy to the BDP, with is then backed up by Dropsync. Or do you set Dropsync to sync your rip/downloadfolder to the BDP. I like to keep my Mac (book for now, mini for later) as free as possible and after ripping/downloading music files I edit tags/albumart, copy to BDP and backup drive. Then delete from the Mac. Which would be the easiest to automate you think? I saw that Synkron can sync multiple drives, that might be the solution?

Marius

As for interfacing with the BDP-1, I use a script to copy the files over.   There's an app in the app store that does this in a GUI fashion that I've pointed out in another thread. http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=99776.msg1016882#msg1016882

[skunark]

Hi Skunark,

Dropsync caused me some trouble, but those might be related to the power-issues I had with the hdd's. It skipped files intermittedly, so I had to check manually and redo it several times. Deleted it again but since you're very positive about it I'll try it again. In the meantime I had been downloading Synkron http://synkron.sourceforge.net/ which is also a Gui around rsync as I understand it, and free to top that. You have any experience with this? Seems rather nice, and does it's work automatically so it seems.

So you rip/download on your Mac Mini and then copy to the BDP, with is then backed up by Dropsync. Or do you set Dropsync to sync your rip/downloadfolder to the BDP. I like to keep my Mac (book for now, mini for later) as free as possible and after ripping/downloading music files I edit tags/albumart, copy to BDP and backup drive. Then delete from the Mac. Which would be the easiest to automate you think? I saw that Synkron can sync multiple drives, that might be the solution?

Marius

Synkron might be the better approach since it's free!      I will try it out tonight.

I just use a script that uses RSYNC to copy the iTunes and HiRez directory from the mac mini to the BDP.  I also use that script to do non-BDP related activities, it was simple to add the BDP to it.   The script is nothing more than a "rsync -avz /path/to/source /path/to/destination", but it's tweaked to focus on AIFF and FLAC files.   My view is that if you want to use a script, you need to know how to write the script, and all the area's around using a shell, etc.  Which is why I've recommending folks use the Gui, it does the same thing and it's a difference of check-boxes vs command line switches. 

DropSync and various other products will use a RSYNC under the hood, if there's a failure, it should be as simple as re-running the script, as it should be generate a checksum on each file to make sure it copies over the new changes and also to confirm that it was properly copied.      It can also be configured to do more or less checks as you see fit, checksum only, timestamp only, delete at destination, etc, which i'm sure varies by each application.   If the BDP drive is formatted as FAT32, you might see if there is an option related to that.  You normally have to enable a "fuzzy" option to deal with the file name restrictions and time stamp issues with FAT32 file-systems.   

[Marius]

Ok great. please report back, looking forward to that

your mini to bdp procedure is clear. do you back it up automatically too? and your files stay on the mini? I would have thought that won't last for long, especially with the hires files coming in lately....

Marius

Synkron might be the better approach since it's free!      I will try it out tonight.

I just use a script that uses RSYNC to copy the iTunes and HiRez directory from the mac mini to the BDP.  I also use that script to do non-BDP related activities, it was simple to add the BDP to it.   The script is nothing more than a "rsync -avz /path/to/source /path/to/destination", but it's tweaked to focus on AIFF and FLAC files.   My view is that if you want to use a script, you need to know how to write the script, and all the area's around using a shell, etc.  Which is why I've recommending folks use the Gui, it does the same thing and it's a difference of check-boxes vs command line switches. 

DropSync and various other products will use a RSYNC under the hood, if there's a failure, it should be as simple as re-running the script, as it should be generate a checksum on each file to make sure it copies over the new changes and also to confirm that it was properly copied.      It can also be configured to do more or less checks as you see fit, checksum only, timestamp only, delete at destination, etc, which i'm sure varies by each application.   If the BDP drive is formatted as FAT32, you might see if there is an option related to that.  You normally have to enable a "fuzzy" option to deal with the file name restrictions and time stamp issues with FAT32 file-systems.

[skunark]

Ok great. please report back, looking forward to that

your mini to bdp procedure is clear. do you back it up automatically too? and your files stay on the mini? I would have thought that won't last for long, especially with the hires files coming in lately....

Marius

All files do stay on the mac mini.   In other words, the Mac Mini is the single source for all of my media content, it's the only point where I back up media.      The BDP, iPhone, Laptops might have a local copy or a select copy of the media, but it's not important to backup nor is it considered to be a backup.   At most they only have a partial copy of the media files and in some cases a degrade file like with a lower bit rate file on the iPhone.

The OS, data and media drives will be backed up by both Time Machine and Backblaze (online backups).  Both are snapshot style backups and I can do a full recovery from the Time Machine backups.   Any downloaded files they get backed up to a DVD if there's not a way to re-download the file.  (i.e. HD tracks)     For every media file, i have at least the original CD or a DVD as a primary backup.   Backblaze is only running to cover theft or fire type damage, it's cheap enough to enable, but painful to restore from an online vendor.  It's essentially $5/month insurance policy for my media.

Jim

[Crimson]

I have 5 machines backblazed. Like you said, insurance. (They do offer the option, as you're probably aware, of hard drive restore discs shipped to your door in case of catastrophic failure).

[skunark]

I have 5 machines backblazed. Like you said, insurance. (They do offer the option, as you're probably aware, of hard drive restore discs shipped to your door in case of catastrophic failure).

The USB Drive option is like $200 for 1TB of data for backblaze, not completely unreasonable, but I would need a few drives to fully recover.   I would probably do the painful route and restore over the internet starting with a few nine inch nails and johnny cash albums to get me through the theft or fire.

[skunark]

Ok great. please report back, looking forward to that

your mini to bdp procedure is clear. do you back it up automatically too? and your files stay on the mini? I would have thought that won't last for long, especially with the hires files coming in lately....

Marius

Synkron did the trick, it has a weird app behavior while running but seems to have all the key features one would want if using a script.   I can select just the iTunes folder, blacklist the ALAC, MP3s, DRM files, Video files and just sync the music.  Using a multi-sync feature I can also select the HiRez folder to snag that as well in a single step.   

[Marius]

it did here to. Selecting the appropriate sources took a while though. But maybe that's because it was the first run. Sykronizing went rather smoothly.

copying 660 gb from the TC to the new WB passport right now. 6 hours left....cant I speed that up somehow? pfff.




Marius

Synkron did the trick, it has a weird app behavior while running but seems to have all the key features one would want if using a script.   I can select just the iTunes folder, blacklist the ALAC, MP3s, DRM files, Video files and just sync the music.  Using a multi-sync feature I can also select the HiRez folder to snag that as well in a single step.

[skunark]

The first sync is always be slow but the next sync will only be new or changed files.   You only need to take that hit once.