Ethernet HDD Mac PC

[craigconfire]

Not really sure where to start this topic, but this seemed a good place
to start.

Like many of us out there, I have tons GB's of music, video, and
pictures stored and backed-up. Well, after doing some research and some
hard decision making I bought an 300GB; should be enough for a while,
ethernet external hard drive to store everything. Got a Western Digital
that is both WIN/MAC compatible of course.

Here are my questions:
1. What kind of issues will I run into? Some days I am 100% on my iMac
and sometimes 100% on my ole Dell. NEVER at the same time mind you.
Both run iTunes and I am sure I will have both acecssing my music
folder on the shared drive. Again, NOT at the same time.
2. Putting pictures on the shared drive will hopfully give me easy
access from my iMac with iPhoto. I am tired of burning CDs, using my
flash media, etc. to transfer to my Mac. Will there be any issues here?
3. I plan to back up all my videos from iTunes to the shared drive.
Will there be any problem with iTunes on a Mac and iTunes on a PC
accessing the same files?

Clearly, I do not mean they will be accessing at the same time!!! I can
see how that would really f'things up. Thanks for the help and advice.

 

[John McGaw]

Not really sure where to start this topic, but this seemed a good place
to start.

Like many of us out there, I have tons GB's of music, video, and
pictures stored and backed-up. Well, after doing some research and some
hard decision making I bought an 300GB; should be enough for a while,
ethernet external hard drive to store everything. Got a Western Digital
that is both WIN/MAC compatible of course.

Here are my questions:
1. What kind of issues will I run into? Some days I am 100% on my iMac
and sometimes 100% on my ole Dell. NEVER at the same time mind you.
Both run iTunes and I am sure I will have both acecssing my music
folder on the shared drive. Again, NOT at the same time.
2. Putting pictures on the shared drive will hopfully give me easy
access from my iMac with iPhoto. I am tired of burning CDs, using my
flash media, etc. to transfer to my Mac. Will there be any issues here?
3. I plan to back up all my videos from iTunes to the shared drive.
Will there be any problem with iTunes on a Mac and iTunes on a PC
accessing the same files?

Clearly, I do not mean they will be accessing at the same time!!! I can
see how that would really f'things up. Thanks for the help and advice.

What, exactly, is this "ethernet external hard drive to store
everything"? Sounds suspiciously like a NAS drive and if it is then
there should be no conflicts about the storage format. The drive will
save in _its_ format which is likely to be that of an embedded Linux
system. Over the network the computers accessing the data will ensure
that what shows up at their end will be readable. This doesn't guarantee
that the files will necessarily be usable: if a file format is
proprietary and no software exists on one of the computers to work with
it the data read will be useless but it should still be read. Pictures
and such should work fine on either system -- proprietary Apple music
files may not fare so well but I can't say for sure since I avoid Apple
exactly because they are so fond of the concept of proprietary. I don't
know if Apple made the file formats of iTunes compatible across
platforms. It would seem counterintuitive for them not to but that
doesn't mean much.

FWIW I use a Netgear SC101 ($82) for network backup. I've equipped it
with two 400gB Seagate drives (~$150 each) in a mirrored RAID
configuration. The price was right but it wouldn't work for your setup
since the software they use is specifically NOT Apple or Linux
compatible but it does work a treat on a Win network.

 

[craigconfire]

Just thinking out loud now... What if I created seperate folders, one
for the mac to use and one for the pc to use. For instance, today I am
running iTunes on my pc and I set it up to use the folder with mp3s for
the pc. And, at another time I am running my mac with iTunes accessing
a different Mac folder with mp3s.

Does that make any sense? I would think this way the two machines do
not cross paths.

20GB of mp3's = 1 folder (20GB mp3 for mac) and 2nd folder (20GB mp3
for pc)

Granted the music is all the same and I am using 40gb of space to do
the same thing, but would this prevent issues or errors?

 

[John McGaw]

Just thinking out loud now... What if I created seperate folders, one
for the mac to use and one for the pc to use. For instance, today I am
running iTunes on my pc and I set it up to use the folder with mp3s for
the pc. And, at another time I am running my mac with iTunes accessing
a different Mac folder with mp3s.

Does that make any sense? I would think this way the two machines do
not cross paths.

20GB of mp3's = 1 folder (20GB mp3 for mac) and 2nd folder (20GB mp3
for pc)

Granted the music is all the same and I am using 40gb of space to do
the same thing, but would this prevent issues or errors?

I didn't, so far as I know, say there would be issues or errors. I
simply do not know how the two systems handle their proprietary media
files. I might well be that the programmers did it right and both
systems are compatible. If, as you write, both sets of files are really
standard plain vanilla MP3s then either system should play them just
fine. It is Apple's proprietary DRM-ed AAC format that would seem
problematic.

 

[kony]

Just thinking out loud now... What if I created seperate folders, one
for the mac to use and one for the pc to use. For instance, today I am
running iTunes on my pc and I set it up to use the folder with mp3s for
the pc. And, at another time I am running my mac with iTunes accessing
a different Mac folder with mp3s.

Does that make any sense? I would think this way the two machines do
not cross paths.

20GB of mp3's = 1 folder (20GB mp3 for mac) and 2nd folder (20GB mp3
for pc)

Granted the music is all the same and I am using 40gb of space to do
the same thing, but would this prevent issues or errors?

What issues and errors?

There shouldn't be any problem having both systems pulling
the same files from the same folders, simultaneously...
except the issue of HDD speed and lan bandwidth which for
MP3, isn't going to be a problem for a mere two clients.

 

[kony]

What issues and errors?

There shouldn't be any problem having both systems pulling
the same files from the same folders, simultaneously...
except the issue of HDD speed and lan bandwidth which for
MP3, isn't going to be a problem for a mere two clients.

This excludes any issues of whether your software has DRMed
itself to the point where it is crippled and expects local
files and licenses instead of being able to access over a
network share like PCs have been able to do all along.