| Media Help | |
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Fullmetal D'Kana - Jedi Instructor  |
I posted this on several other forums looking for a solution but I figured I would try here as well:
I am looking for a solution to keep my music synchronized between all of my computers. I have: - 1 HP Desktop (AMD chipset, Windows 7) - 1 HP Laptop (AMD chipset, Windows Vista) - 1 HP Laptop (AMD chipset, Ubuntu linux) - 1 MacBook Pro (Intel Chipset, Mac OSX 10.6.4) All of them (minus the linux one) have iTunes 10. I have 3 solutions in mind but each of them have their flaws and I'm hoping someone presents me a 4th alternative. My main goal is to be able to take whichever laptop I wish with me whenever I go on vacation (sometimes I need my mac, sometimes my windows one) and be able to sync my iPhone with it and not worry about not having the same music. Sync'ing an iPhone's data between multiple machines is easy, but its music is determined by the machine most recently synced with. I want it so that if I download music while I'm away I can sync my iPhone with it and then easily have that music on all of my other computers when I get back (doesn't have to be an immediate propagation, it could require that I be home with all my machines) Here are the three solutions I have come up with on my own (and their associated pros and cons) Cloud Solutions: 1. Use a network drive to store all of my music and just have iTunes point to that drive to find the library. Pros: - Central Storage ensures that all of the machines are seeing the same data. - I only have to manage 1 library. - No matter which machine I sync with, my iPhone will have the same music. - Metadata is shared so things like play counts and such are pushed to each machine. Cons: - Must use NTFS because Windows can read/write NTFS and Mac OS can read NTFS but windows cannot read or write HFS without the use of third party software. - Not easily portable due to the possibility of different drive letters when mapped on different networks - I would have to carry the external with me in addition to anything else I may bring - Would need third party software for the mac to write NTFS. 2. HP Laptop turned into a dedicated music machine. Then iTunes Home Sharing used to play music from the other machines when home. Pros: - I guarantee my iPhone will always have the new music I download - I only have to manage one library Cons: - No ability to "cross"-sync my iPhone - Would need to bring my HP Windows Vista laptop with me when I go away even if I need my mac Non-Cloud Solutions 3. Mirrored Libraries on all machines Pros: - I guarantee my iPhone will always have the new music I download - I can successfully "cross"-sync my iPhone without a worry Cons: - Wasted space equal to (n-1)*S where n = the number of computers I have and S is the total size in bytes of my total collection. - I would have to search for and find an easy solution to create the mirrors because it can be rather time consuming and annoying to do manually and I'm lazy lol. Those are the solutions I have come up with so far. Right now, the first cloud solution is seeming like the best with a few work arounds it could be plausible. _______________  This post was edited by Fullmetal D'Kana on Dec 13 2010 12:06am. |
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| Comments |
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DJ Sith - Jedi Council 
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Set up a samba share on your windows box, and mount it on your various other machines. Point your iTunes Media directories on your various other systems at the share. _______________ My car is made of Nerf. |
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Laziana - Jedi Instructor 
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Quote: NTFS is awesome. Don't be a hater.
well said. besides, a common storage should feature a filesystem that every of your devices in posession have access it it. IMHO, #1 it is. Get a NAS with four 2TB drives, put a nifty RAID 5 or RAID 10 on it (depends on your taste and desire for security/performance vs. diskspace) and have fun. The actual difficult question is: which NAS? There are tons from 200 bucks to 3500 bucks, I have seen many of them in action in all of those categories so I do not even want to start giving a recommendation. cheers, ze lazê _______________ Proud owner of Buster Senatu's 200th & 300th, Muro's 370th, Maher's 2100th, Henkes' 1639th, Johauna's 400th, 666th and 900th, Sho Koon's 2000th and Kain Sol's 600th comment Download Laziana's lightsaber here! Glory to Arstozka! |
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Degor - Padawan 
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What about dropbox? Or perhaps another hosting site? Dropbox adds a folder to your pc too (which is in the location on every pc). You can access it directly from your iphone too. Dunno if this is what your looking for though. Also the free version has only 2GB but you can buy more storage. I guess there are other hosting options too. _______________ May the force be with you. And may the academy stand forever! |
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solitude - Jedi Council 
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NTFS is awesome. Don't be a hater. _______________ Joined 16 October 2004 | Retired 10 April 2005 | Returned 05 June 2008 | Made Staff 27 June 2008 | Made Council 18 January 2009 Padawan To Odan-Wei Belouve | Adopted into the Belouve family | Twin to xAnAtOs | Owner of the 4th Quesi sexy badge  Brother To Roan Belouve, Nomad, Majno, Silkmonkey, Kensei and Jarhok Belouve
Owner Of Virtue's 1000th profile comment, Mr. Doobie's 1000th profile comment, Gradius' 2500th comment, xAnAtOs' 2500th comment, Rosered's 1500th comment, Laziana's 900th comment, Scythus' 500th comment and Echuu's 100th comment |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student 
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The one we have seems to be pretty good. Just plug in USBs and it is set up so that everything is in a single virtual drive. I'm not the one who set it up, though. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Fullmetal D'Kana - Jedi Instructor 
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That just turns a USB drive into a network drive  It is exactly option 1 just a bit cheaper since I already own several USB drives. It carries the major con of different "file locations" when plugged in via USB than when its on the network so its not easily portable. However, I have though of a workaround for that so its looking like that might be my best option _______________
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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This might be a combination of #1 and what Sete said. You get the portability of a USB drive and the ability to share the media over a network. There is one of these where I live that has movies and music, but not this exact model. You will still have the Mac/Windows problem, but hey you can carry around the USB drives easily. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." This comment was edited by Augusta_Mintaka on Dec 13 2010 03:34am. |
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Fullmetal D'Kana - Jedi Instructor
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I had thought about it but it has its limitations such as only one of the machines can have access to the library at any one time. I sometimes have multiple people over each one using a different machine and trying to listen to music while we study. Its the burden of having a computer bank haha _______________
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Setementor - Jedi Master 
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I'm not an expert, but use a USB drive so you can plug it into the computer you're using. |
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