Created
September 3, 2012 11:51
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My music setup, any ideas?
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| Mac Mini Server > iTunes Library One | |
| Macbook Pro > iTunes Library Two | |
| Each library is a separate iTunes library file/folder entirely, BUT...all of the media files themselves are stored on a shared external drive, which we'll call /Volumes/Music. It's connected to the Mac Mini, which reads it directly, and the Macbook Pro reads it as a network drive. | |
| Finally, the entire library is published to iTunes Cloud, with iTunes Match enabled. | |
| So, here's the issue: if I add a new album to Library One: | |
| * The album is in Library One | |
| * The audio files are on /Volumes/Music (which is an iTunes managed media folder) | |
| * The album is pushed to iTunes Cloud | |
| Eventually, after synching with iTunes Cloud, the album appears in Library Two, but as an undownloaded "cloud only" album. I can hit the "Download" button, but this is effectively a waste of time as the media is already available on the shared network drive. If I do hit Download, the album will now be available in Library Two, but there will be duplicate files on /Volumes/Music (iTunes Cloud doesn't overwrite the existing files when downloading) and it's just a waste of bandwidth. | |
| What's a better way of handling this? |
Author
Author
Perhaps a better solution would be to lose the second library on my MBP entirely, and just access the remote library using Home Sharing.
Author
Downside of not having a version of the library on my MBP is it is now much more awkward for me to sync music to my iDevices.
Here's how I handle shared iTunes:
1 - I use a readyNAS as my drive (although that's irrelevant to the overall layout)
2 - I have 1 Master library, that is my mac mini server
3 - I set up Home Sharing on both
4 - Anything I want to add to the library I copy up to the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder
5 - I have iCloud set up on all of the machines
It's not perfect because Home sharing is more of a pain than just natively using the library.
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Additionally, it is better for iTunes Library One to be the master in this setup as a) the server is always available and b) I often use iTunes Remote on my iPhone to control this library and play it over either the attached speakers or an Airplay speaker.