Media Storage Solution?

So I made the switch earlier this year to Mac. I've been a Windows user since 1994, and making the switch 12 years later I'm turning into a big fan of Apple. I now own a Mac Mini (not Core Duo) a 20Gig iPod, a 60Gig Video iPod and a sparkling new black Macbook. I'm also the proud owner of about 45 Gigs (and growing) of assorted songs and movies, (as I'm slowly converting my DVD collection to iPod format with Handbrake).
My current setup: I've got my Mac Mini almost maxed out on storage, my 20Gig iPod working as a disk, as well as an old 60Gig disk from my old desktop that I've reformatted to Mac and use for storage as well. Given that I'd like to keep all the media uniform as well as accessible from both my MacBook and my Mini, what is the best way to go about doing this? Essentially, I'd like to take my iTunes folder, put it on a large 'network' drive of some sort, and not have to sweat running out of space on either computer, and still have the media files available from either computer. (eventually I'd like to transition to having this all conveniently available on my entertainment system)
I'm sure there is a solution out there somewhere- I saw a 400 Gig USB drive available today at Yobadashi Camera for $178 (20,800 Yen- I live in Japan) and almost bought it on impulse just for this solution, but I figured I would ask the experts and see what the best way would be to go about cracking this nut.
I've read about making a 'network drive' in other posts, and it seems that may be the answer- the tough part for me is going to be actually executing. Knowing which Hardware will work best.
Also- in regards to my network- I currently have a Linksys Wireless Router that provides Internet only to both of my computers. I don't have them networked currently- because I don't quite have the expertise to do that yet. But I'm sure I can figure it out with a little direction. I'd also consider buying an Airport Express or Extreme (don't really know the difference) if that will help- but I wanted to find out where I should start. Thanks for reading.
Hal Wilkerson
Kanto Plain, Japan
Mac Mini, MacBook 13.3" Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Hello and welcome to Mac!
Rather than USB you should consider Firewire, it is faster and you have the option of booting from Firewire disk(s) too. Small Firewire HDs are powered from the FW bus, meaning you don't need a powered external disk. In your case, capacity of portable-sized 2 1/2 inch HDs might be a limitation.
You can definitely put your data on an external HD, I use rsync to back up several different userfolders. There are ways to put your iTunes library on an external disk, but unless you can ensure it is always accessible it may not be a good idea. Search MacOSXHints.com for details on how to do it, and don't forget to search the forums too!
You can even put your entire userfolder on an external disk, it is essentially the same procedure as making your userfolder a dedicated partition. I always keep my userfolder on a dedicated partition, it has saved my butt a number of times. You do this with the Netinfo manager application.
I would not recommend the Airport Extreme for a user such as yourself. Its features are limited and updates are only done through a dedicated application. You are much better off with your Linksys, however I might recommend some better firmware such as Sveasoft, which drastically extends the capabilities of a compatible router.
Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Similar Messages

Best solution for media storage

Hi Everyone,
I am looking for suggestions/how-to on the best setup for media storage. We have two editors (and two computers - Mac Pro PowerPC and iMac Intel). We are currently using an internal 500 GB slot on the Mac Pro along with 1 additional external 1.5 TB drive. Then, on our iMac we use a 1.5 TB external drive. We use, for external drives, LaCie.
Here's our problem. We are running out of space. So, what is the best solution for media storage? Should we get a small rack for our external drives from LaCie and daisy chain them? Or, should we get a server? The only problem I have with a server is connection speed...we, most of the time, have a slow connection at our college.
p.s. here is a link to LaCie's website listing a rack...and we have the d2 drives. So, do you daisy chain them or plug each one in individually?
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10172
Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions are greatly appreciated!!
Thanks in advance.
zanm
Message was edited by: zanfardinom

Hi Everyone!
Thank you all for your suggestions. I agree...Drobo looks great, but I am finding more and more bad news when it comes to editing. It looks like a great solution for archiving. I received another solution with great reviews from one of my colleagues contacts. They work for a big company.
Hope this helps...something else to add to the mix.
*Our edit suite storage solution is a Facilis Terrablock 24EX unit. (http://www.facilis2.com/24ex.html) It has 18TB of space and is connected on 4GB Fibre channel to both suites. On top of that we have an Apple X-Serve running Final Cut Server that sorts and catalogs all the video we put in so network users (Mac and PC) can search and look at media from their workstations. We just put this in a few months ago. Before that we had a Rorke Data Galaxy HDX with 6TB of space on a 2GB Fibre Channel connection. ( http://www.rorke.com/av/galaxy-hdx.cfm ) It’s now a backup storage unit. Both systems have excellent performance though, we upgraded mostly for space and the server software.*
Again, thank you all for your help. I will research all suggestions.

What's the best storage solution for a large iLife? RAID? NAS?

I'm looking for an affordable RAID storage solution for my Time Machine, iTunes Library, iMovie videos, and iPhoto Library. To this point I've been doing a hodgepodge of external hard drives without the saftey of redundancy and I've finaly been bitten with HD failures. So I'm trying to determine what would be the best recommendation for my scenario. Small Home Office for my wife's business (just her), and me with all our media. I currentlty have a mid-2010 Mac Mini (no Thunderbolt), she has an aging 2007 iMac and 2006 MacBook Pro (funny that they're all about the same benchmark speed). We have an AppleTV (original), iPad2 and two iPhone 4S's.
1st Question: Is it better to get a RAID and connect it to my Airport Extreme Base Station USB port as a shared disk? OR to connect it directly to my Mac Mini and share through Home Sharing? OR Should I go with a NAS RAID?
2nd Question: Simple is Better. Should I go with a Mac Mini Server and connect drives to it? (convert my Mac Mini into a server) or Should I just get one of those nice all-in-one 4-bay RAID drive solutions that I can expand with?
Requirements:
1. Expandable and Upgradeable. I don't want something limited to 2TB drives, but as drives get bigger and cheaper I want to easily throw one in w/o concerns.
2. Simple integration with Time Machine and my iLife: iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto. If iTune's Home Sharing feature is currently the best way of using my media across multiple devices then why mess with it? I see "DLNA certified" storage on some devices and wonder if that would just add another layer of complexity I don't need. One more piece to make compatible.
3. Inexpensive. I totally believe in the "You Get What You Pay For" concept. But I also realize sometimes I'm buying marketing, not product. I imagine that to start, I'm going to want a diskless system (because of $$$) to throw all my drives into, and then upgrade bigger drives as my data and funds grow.
4. Security. I don't know if its practical, but I like the idea of being able to pop two drives out and put them in my safe and then pop them back in once a week for the backup/mirroring. I like this idea because I'm concerned that onsite backup is not always the safest. Unfortunately those cloud based services aren't designed for Terabytes of raw family video, or an entire media library that isn't wholey from the iTunes Store. I can't be the only one facing this challenge. Surely there's an affordable way to keep a safe backup for the average Joe. But what is it?
5. Not WD. I've had bad experiences with Western Digital drives, and I loathe their consumer packaged backup software that comes preloaded on their external drives. They are what I meant when I say you get what you pay for. Prettily packed garbage.
6. Relatively Fast. I have put all my media on an external drive before (back when it fit on one drive) and there's noticeable spool-up hang time. Thunderbolt's nice and all, but so new that its not easily available across devices, nor is it cheap. eSata is not really an option. I love Firewire but I'm getting the feeling that Apple has made it the red-headed step-child of connections. USB 3.0 looks decent, but like eSata, Apple doesn't recognize it exists. Where does that leave us? Considering this dilemma I really liked Seagate's GoFlex external drives because it meant I could always buy a new base and still be compatible. But that only works with single drives. And as impressive as Seagate is, we can't expect them to consistently double drive sizes every two years like they have been -cool as that may be.
So help me out without getting too technical. What's the best setup? Is it Drobo? Thecus? ReadyNAS? Seagate's BlackArmor? Or something else entirely?
All comments are appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I am currently using WD 2TB Thunderbolt hard drive for my iTunes, which i love and is works great. i am connected directly to my Mac Book Pro. I am running low on Memory and thinking of buying a bigger Hard drive. My question is should I buy 6TB thunderbolt HD or 6TB NAS drive to work solely for iTunes. I have home sharing enabled for my Apple TV
I also have my time capsule connected just as back up only.

Best storage solution for collaborative editing between two editors

Hello!
I was wondering what would be a recommended hardware storage solution for collaboratively editing Final Cut Pro X Libraries. Our current process revolves us copying all the video footage onto a portable drive and copying it over to each others machine. This is a time consuming process and the process gets broken up if one of us isn't in the office. We are working only with 1080p (and less) footage and both machines are MacBook Pro's (both have Thunderbolt connections).
I've dug around the internet and found network solutions (setting up another machine as a server w/ the storage drive there) but that setup seems like a lot of work.
Is there another way to do it with a single shared drive, no additional computer setups that would allow us to edit videos concurrently? I'm not looking for a scalable solution, just something to allow us to edit from the same pool of footage at the same time.
Thanks,
Aaron

If you want to edit concurrently, you are looking for a networked solution: either a drive on a server, like you mentioned, or a NAS (a drive connected directly to the network) or a SAN (storage area network, which is a more sophisticated, professional setup - that would likely be overkill in this case).
In any case, you need a fast network - at the very least gigabit ethernet. There exist NAS options for a decent price.
In this kind of setup, you would save all your media in the NAS, work on your libraries locally, and use "external media" - so the media would stay in the designated places in the NAS, and the libraries point to it. Libraries will be fairly small, and you could pass them around.
In any case, you would share the media concurrently, NOT the libraries.

I want to use my airport time capsule as a network attached storage solution, is this possible or do I need to connect a separate hard drive?

I want to use my airport time capsule as a network attached storage solution, is this possible or do I need to connect it to a separate hard drive?

The Time Capsule is by default a network hard drive, but it has no "brains" of it's own. So, it cannot function as a stand alone media server if that is what you are asking.
If you are also using the Time Capsule hard drive for Time Machine backups of your Mac(s), then there may be struggle for available space on the drive since it is not possible to partition the Time Capsule drive in a traditional manner.
If space is getting tight on the Time Capsule, it might be a good idea to connect a drive to the USB port on the Time Capsule and use that drive for your network storage needs.

Shared storage solution

Hi people (specially Tom and Jerry, I mean Jim and Jerry)
My bussines is growing and I am adding computers to edit in a colaborative way in order to meet tv deadlines. My biggest pain is to organize all the media so that all machines can work continuously (for instance if I capture 90% in one machine and 10% in another, then one will finish work before the other while the other still has tons to do.) So knowing what to capture in wich machine is imposible and impredictable, and this is when I come to think of a shared storage solution. I already know about xsan and all its benefits, but right now I cant afford it. Still, for dv and maybe 3 or 4 workstatons, I think something much cheaper may suffice. I was thinking of buying a g4, fit as many drives in it as I can (4 or 5 maybe), add raid cards, maybe an external power supply for the drives, and fiberchannel cards and a switch. This is where I take opinions.
Also, I dont know if just networking the machines as in a regular ethernet network would be the way to do it or I would need to use a server os x or something. I know nothing about the software side of this.
So I think this post already opens a lot of questions to start with, and I will be very happy to read your suggestions.
Thanks in advance
Pepo

Thanks David. I didnt find much here, only that gigabit is not all that reliable (wich I already tought) and that fiberchannel is the way to go. I agree with you that time is the main value and so It would be best to buy a turnkey, but right now I dont have the money and still need a solution. I really would not hesitate to buy an xsan, as it would really increase productivity and I would be able to sleep at night knowing my media is safe ( I really fear domestic raids when working on deadlines). For now I will investigate the posibility of seting up a system like the one I mentioned but using fiber instead of ethernet. Once I build this will post my results, and I am still open to suggestions.
Pepo

Isilon storage solution experiences?

We are a small community access facility with growing web streaming needs. We are currently running up to 5 individual CS 5x or 6x systems on Windows 7pro boxes, all core i7 $2k-ish builds; more like gamer PCs than higher NLE systems. Currently all active project\media storage is local on each system. Each system having 1.5 to 3 TB of dedicated media storage space.
We are being pitched some isilon storage solutions in the near future. I was hoping to get feedback from any users with experiences with such. I had always assumed that any reliable networked storage solution was way out of our price range. I also see a lot of posts in the user forums from people having issues using assets over a network.
I downloaded the white papers on Isilon's 1FS 6.5 Adobe CS 6 solution and, at a cursory glance without knowing prices, it seems like it might be cumbersome to manage.
Any practical knowledge or stories out there? Suggestions for network storage for in-edit projects that might suite a small fish facility?

John, the Adobe Premiere Pro QA team and Adobe Anywhere engineering team both have Isilon clusters they use to validate Premiere workflows on network attached storage. A number of there issues you point out are now are adressed by either running Adobe Premiere or following the recommendations in the white paper wfmc pointed out. In a nutshell, keep project and all directory settings local, but keep your media on NAS and you elminate the issues associated with multiple users accessing project metadata or updating each other's media indexes. If you're looking for true multi-user collaboration on the same project metadata, you'll need to look to Adobe Anywhere or MXFserver.
1.John T Smith,
Nov 8, 2012 5:26 PM in reply to wfmc staffer
Report
The best you can do now (see below) is use a file server to keep a master of your video files, and copy files to/from the master over to individual computer for editing... which does, of course, require some kind of file check out/in software so only one person has any given file at a time
No current version of Premiere works properly over a network
-you may NOT "map" your My Documents folder to a network drive
-you MUST give all users administrator accounts to use Premiere
-you MAY also need to... http://forums.adobe.com/thread/969395
-http://forums.adobe.com/thread/771151
-http://forums.adobe.com/thread/851602
-a work around, of sorts http://forums.adobe.com/thread/957523
-and not on a "domain" http://forums.adobe.com/thread/858977
-also PreEl see #5 http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1017199
-more PreEl problem http://forums.adobe.com/thread/975117
Someday, you will actually be able to USE files stored on a server
Adobe Anywhere http://forums.adobe.com/message/4682127
-Announced September 2012 for "future versions" of Premiere Pro
-NO information on pricing or availability date

Best storage solution for FCP HDV projects?

What is the best storage solution for Final Cut Pro HDV projects (i.e. internal or external drives, SCSI, external firewire drives, etc.)?

Don't forget you can also use the "Send to Tape" command to send your footage back to miniDV HDV tape. This isn't the ultimate solution, but is a good way to cheaply "backup" large projects to inexpensive tape without killing your drive storage with every project.
Here's a new feature request for Media Manager... Forget that. I'll start a new post for it.

Internal Media Storage faulty

I have an issue that i hope someone can assist with. My BB Torch 9800 keeps telling me that my Built in media storage is not accesable and has errors. I try to repair but it cant. Please help.

Why can't you? What happens when you make that attempt. what error occurs?
1. If any post helps you please click the below the post(s) that helped you.
2. Please resolve your thread by marking the post "Solution?" which solved it for you!
3. Install free BlackBerry Protect today for backups of contacts and data.
4. Guide to Unlocking your BlackBerry & Unlock Codes
Join our BBM Channels (Beta)
BlackBerry Support Forums Channel
PIN: C0001B7B4 Display/Scan Bar Code
Knowledge Base Updates
PIN: C0005A9AA Display/Scan Bar Code

I have the G Drive 1 TB (GEN4 1TB) external drive purchased in 2010. I need to connect to my new MacBook Pro. I'm using the external drive for media storage of my video editing projects. Will a 800fw to thunderbolt adapter cable work?

I have the G Drive 1 TB (GEN4 1TB) external drive purchased in 2010. I need to connect to my new MacBook Pro. I'm using the external drive for media storage of my video editing projects. Will a 800fw to thunderbolt adapter cable work? I understand that using a USB port connection is not fast enough for video editing. I read somewhere the G Drives don't connect well to MacBook Pro.
thanks
larry

I doubt this can be relocated or moved so you might want to just repost in the macbook pro area.
MacBook Pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions
Can you afford a new Thunderbolt case and cable? any case with FW800 is going to be slow 72MB/sec and less, and any new 1TB drive is capable of 75MB/s minimum up to 125MB/sec.
Thunderbolt storage can of course when setup properly reach 100's of MB higher using multiple drives.
Use what you have for a system backup or for secondary backup storage.
you might be able to take the drive - most cases allow you to open and swap drives - and use this:
G-Technology 1TB G-DRIVE mini High-Speed Portable Hard Drive
or this:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/HB137VC/A/g-technology-4tb-g-raid-professional -high-performance-dual-drive-hard-drive?fnode=5f

Best storage solution for central itunes library?

I'd like to create a 4 Gb central library, running itunes permantenly on a headless Mac Mini. The library will contain all music and videos and should be available to an Apple TV, PC and Iphones (remote).
I am not sure about what kind of storage solution to buy. I want a second disk for backups, ideally also for storage of system backups of my PC and iphones. Should I buy and install a NAS and connect via Ethernet or are two firewire or usb 3.0 external hdds connected to the Mac Mini a better solution? I want to avoid issues with corrupt itunes libraries, missing files, connection issues with home sharing, etc. And are external hdds built to run 24//24 in terms of life span, energy consumption and heating?
Thank you.

Derekeys wrote:
I believe there is a way to have my itunes library on an external, but can the iMac read the external and stream to Apple TV with quality?
No problems at all.
Get an external USB drive.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to the external drive.
Hold Option, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder on the external.
That is all you need to do.
You can do this with on the laptop and and later use the same iTunes library on another computer just by connecting the external, holding Option, selecintg Choose library... and selecting the iTunes folder on the external.

Time Capsule as Itunes Media Storage

I'm thinking about buying a Time capsule, but I want to know if that's what I really need.
1) My main problem is that I can't use my MacBook to hear music, watch movies or sync my Iphone 4 through my apartment 'cause my Library is in an External hard disk that needs electric power to function, so every time that I need to buy/hear music, watch a movie from my MacBook I have to be connected to my External HD. So, if I buy a TC can I sync/stream wirelessly my devices?
2) Also I have an Apple TV and much of the times I buy music/movies/videos from there. If I connect the Apple TV to the TC, My library stills in just one folder in the TC?
3) The TC is always on? or it starts up when a device is trying to connect to it?
Thank you very much in advance...

Please check out the following article to get one author's opinion on using the Time Capsule as a Media Storage device: theAppleBlog: Using Time Capsule as a Media Drive

Oracle hardware and storage solution configuration questions

Hi all,
I am configuring hardware and the storage solution for a project and am hoping to have some questions answered about using Oracle as the storage solution.
The current setup will have 2 Dell NX3100 NAS gateways each with dual quad core processors, 24GB of RAM, 12x2TB data disks, and running Windows Storage Server 2008 64bit as the OS.
Will also have direct attached storage of 2 Dell PowerVault MD1200 disk arrays, each disk array with 12 x 2Terabyte SAS disk drives giving a total of 36TB of storage space for each NAS Gateway.
Based on this information, is there any problem with two Oracle Standard Edition installation (1 per NAS) holding up to 36TB of data (mostly high res images) in this hardware configuration?
Does Oracle have a built in solution for replicating data between the 2 NAS heads and down to the disk arrays? Where the application sever will write to one of the NAS+disk arrays and then that data is written from the first NAS to the 2nd NAS+disk array? Currently I've used DoubleTake in other projects but am wondering if Oracle has something similar that is built in.
Finally, will Backup Exec Oracle agent work with this configuration for backing up the data to a Dell PowerVault ML6020 Tape backup device?
Thanks in advance for any insight.

Hi,
Does Oracle have a built in solution for replicating data between the 2 NAS heads and down to the disk arrays? Where the application sever will write to one of the NAS+disk arrays and then that data is written from the first NAS to the 2nd NAS+disk array? Currently I've used DoubleTake in other projects but am wondering if Oracle has something similar that is built in.NAS - I still doubt during the network issues (In case of RAC - all nodes would get afftected), I would not suggest certainly for this. Let the other experts reply back.
- Pavan Kumar N

Single best external storage solution for Mac Pro & MacBook Pro ...?

Hello,
I'm still waiting for the Mac Pro delivery I have around me something like four external hard drives from different vendors and different sizes and all containing important data ... it is really a mess, cables, lack of redundancy, etc.
I wanted to replace all these once and for all by a single elegant long-lasting and reliable solution to combine with my new Mac Pro and MacBook Pro. The best I could find was OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 8.0TB containing four internal HDD in double RAID with multiple possible setups: RAID 0 and RAID 1, RAID 10 configurations:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEQX2T8.0S/
Looks like an excellent choice for the only one external storage solution! does anyone has experience with this model? are there better contenders?
Many thanks in advance,
Best regards,
Giovanni

Giovanni,
I have the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 (6 TB) external HD array in a Raid 5 configuration (as received from OWC). I have found it to be excellent when connected to my Mac Pro using a PCI SATA card and the SATA output on the Elite-AL Pro Qx2. The speed of the system under Raid 5 easily supports all but uncompressed high definition video, and the system came with Prosoft's Data Backup software which does an excellent job of backing up other external drives installed on my Mac Pro.
I highly recommend the Qx2 and think you will find it is a good single source solution to providing you with reliable and safe storage for your data. With Raid 5 if one of the HD's in the Qx2 fails, you simply remove it and allow the system to rebuild the data when you insert a new HD. Thus unless two HD's fail simultaneously (high unlikely) you are protected against data loss. Note also that your Mac Pro does not have to be left on while the Qx2 is rebuilding.
Tom

In Built Media Storage Problems

Hi there,
Just now out of the blue i received a message "uncaught exception net.rim.vm.Stack Overflow Error" and have now lost everything on my inbuilt media storage. I took my battery out and received a message "built in media storage not accessible due to detective errors. Do you wish to repair now?" I pressed YES and then it gave a message "If lost clusters are found during repairs, do you want to save them?" and I pressed YES again. It tried to repair but failed. I have lost all my photos and music. Is there a way of getting them back? I also have a new 8 gig memory which i have now changed everything to save onto. Please help

Hi Carmen,
Have you recenlty taken backup of your device including in built media storage, if yes then you may restroe your data from there otherwise it would be difficult to recover the lost data.
Further try to boot your handheld by battery pull, while device is powered ON & re-insert battery after a min, then check..!!
Good luck...!!

Media Storage Solution?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for