I have a small home network consisting of a PC with a number of drives that is used as my Gaming/iTunes/Application and general purpose storage machine. I have a second PC which sits alongside that is used as somewhat of a bitza, both of which are plugged directly into my router via cable. I also have a HP multi purpose printer plugged into my router and then a plug network thingy that allows me to use a cable in my lounge. These all work fine and added to this I have 4 laptops (work, wife, shared and old thing) PS/3, Wii and Xbox 360 and a MacBook.
Now my challenge is one of media sharing. I don't really want to leave my server computer on all the time as it's both power hungry and noisy. I do have MS WHS but I have never bothered to install it on the server which currently runs W7 and I am considering a NAS device, which I am expecting would be much simpler and probably give me both quietness and less power consumption.
So what I want to do is this:
1) Put all of my iTunes music onto the NAS device. Then I want to be able to have iTunes installed on 2 or 3 different machines (desktop, laptop, Mac) but I would like, if possible, to have 1 version allowing me to plug my iPhone into any of the 3 machines and still have the same set of music, podcasts etc. So I want it to be the same experience, with the same musci whichever machine I plug my iPhone into.
2) I want to store all my DVD's on the NAS device in native format, ie a straight burn to hard disk but would like to access them via the PS3 or XBox, as media extenders.
3) Back them up at intervals I decide to the hard drives in my server.
I'd be grateful for some advice on NAS devices, disks and what I should look out for when buying such a device and what the limitations are likely to be and if 1 is totally possible. I have seen the iTunes network function, where it seems you can share a single library between various copies of iTunes on the same network, but not sure how this works, so any pointers much appreciated.
Budget is what it takes really. I don't want a business level solution, but if its a few hundred quid then I am fine with this, I suspect 2-4TB will be required.
Thanks
Housey
Now my challenge is one of media sharing. I don't really want to leave my server computer on all the time as it's both power hungry and noisy. I do have MS WHS but I have never bothered to install it on the server which currently runs W7 and I am considering a NAS device, which I am expecting would be much simpler and probably give me both quietness and less power consumption.
So what I want to do is this:
1) Put all of my iTunes music onto the NAS device. Then I want to be able to have iTunes installed on 2 or 3 different machines (desktop, laptop, Mac) but I would like, if possible, to have 1 version allowing me to plug my iPhone into any of the 3 machines and still have the same set of music, podcasts etc. So I want it to be the same experience, with the same musci whichever machine I plug my iPhone into.
2) I want to store all my DVD's on the NAS device in native format, ie a straight burn to hard disk but would like to access them via the PS3 or XBox, as media extenders.
3) Back them up at intervals I decide to the hard drives in my server.
I'd be grateful for some advice on NAS devices, disks and what I should look out for when buying such a device and what the limitations are likely to be and if 1 is totally possible. I have seen the iTunes network function, where it seems you can share a single library between various copies of iTunes on the same network, but not sure how this works, so any pointers much appreciated.
Budget is what it takes really. I don't want a business level solution, but if its a few hundred quid then I am fine with this, I suspect 2-4TB will be required.
Thanks
Housey
