Optimal hard drive and itunes settings

Tonestar1

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Right here goes.

At the moment I have all my data on a 2Tb USB hard drive (Only using around 300Gig) which is about to give up the ghost. Lots of clicking, need to plug the usb in around 10 or 20 times before MAC will recognise it. I have also tried my work laptop, same issue so it's not the mac at fault.

I have ordered a 1Tb Netgear Stora NAS drive (2 slots, 1 pre filled with 1Tb drive) on the recommendation of a friend at work who knows about these things. I will probably get a second 1Tb for the other slot and run Raid 1.

1. What is the best way to format the drive before copying my music across? Flaky drive is FAT32.

2. Whats the best method to copy the music across between drives?

3. My itunes music is all on the HD (lossless) in location /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/ Music.fpbf Is this the optimal location? I will also be using the NAS drive for Time Machine.

4. All my music is on the hard drive but the artwork is on the mac itself. Is this the best way to do things? I would think they should they be on the same drive? If so how do I go about doing this?

5. Any other suggestions on itunes settings? I have use perform error correction when importing audio CDs, keep itunes media folder organised,and copy tunes to itunes media folder when adding to library all checked, streaming buffer size is set to medium. Pretty much everything else is unchecked.

The NAS drive will work as an Itunes server apparently although I've been told this can be flaky with macs.

I want to get this done right first time. Sorry I have asked so many questions. Any other tips would be well appreciated. If anyone needs any more information on my setup please dont hesitate to ask.

Thanks in advance.
 

Gozaradio

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Tonestar1:
Right here goes.

At the moment I have all my data on a 2Tb USB hard drive (Only using around 300Gig) which is about to give up the ghost. Lots of clicking, need to plug the usb in around 10 or 20 times before MAC will recognise it. I have also tried my work laptop, same issue so it's not the mac at fault.

I have ordered a 1Tb Netgear Stora NAS drive (2 slots, 1 pre filled with 1Tb drive) on the recommendation of a friend at work who knows about these things. I will probably get a second 1Tb for the other slot and run Raid 1.

1. What is the best way to format the drive before copying my music across? Flaky drive is FAT32.

You probably won't need to format the drive yourself. If it comes with a drive pre-installed, should already be formatted, probably to some linux format. That becomes a moot point to yourself as you are accessing the drive over the network.

2. Whats the best method to copy the music across between drives?

Use iTunes to keep it all simple. With all the drives connected (wired, not wireless) and iTunes running, go into iTunes Preferences and on the 'Advanced' tab, change the location of your music library to a folder on the Stora Make sure you keep the "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" checbox ticked . Then go to the File menu, choose 'Library' and then 'Organize Library'. Then choose to 'Consolidate files'. This will copy your library from old drive to new drive and iTunes will point at the new location for all the music.

3. My itunes music is all on the HD (lossless) in location /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/ Music.fpbf Is this the optimal location? I will also be using the NAS drive for Time Machine.

I Don't use Time Machine so I can't comment. I don't think it really matters where your music is as long as you can access it (however it's generally best not to put it on the same partition as your OS)

4. All my music is on the hard drive but the artwork is on the mac itself. Is this the best way to do things? I would think they should they be on the same drive? If so how do I go about doing this?

There are ways of moving the library location from the default to another place but I don't think it really matters as the artwork is not irretrievable data. If you manully add artwork to tracks, the artwork becomes embedded in the music file itself.

5. Any other suggestions on itunes settings? I have use perform error correction when importing audio CDs, keep itunes media folder organised,and copy tunes to itunes media folder when adding to library all checked, streaming buffer size is set to medium. Pretty much everything else is unchecked.

Sounds good, most of these and other options is down to user preference.

The NAS drive will work as an Itunes server apparently although I've been told this can be flaky with macs.

iTunes server not important to your main Mac running iTunes.


I want to get this done right first time. Sorry I have asked so many questions. Any other tips would be well appreciated. If anyone needs any more information on my setup please dont hesitate to ask.

Thanks in advance.

One last tip I would offer is to set up a login item for your mac to connect to the stora upon login. Otherwise, you will have to open Finder and navigate to the NAS every time before you open iTunes. If you don't, iTunes will not be able to see the NAS and revert to the default 'My Music' iTunes library location meaning any new items will go here and you'll find your library spread between your Mac HDD and your NAS. The way to do this is by going into user accounts in preferences and adding the NAS volume to your login items.
 

pwiles1968

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Gozaradio:

One last tip I would offer is to set up a login item for your mac to connect to the stora upon login. Otherwise, you will have to open Finder and navigate to the NAS every time before you open iTunes. If you don't, iTunes will not be able to see the NAS and revert to the default 'My Music' iTunes library location meaning any new items will go here and you'll find your library spread between your Mac HDD and your NAS. The way to do this is by going into user accounts in preferences and adding the NAS volume to your login items.



Most of your questions have been answered but just a little extra info.

I have had a Stora for a couple of weeks now, and despite some initial annoyances it is working now, I am running a PC and the network login at startup has Never worked, If I want to acess the NAS using //STORA then I need to put in a password, What I have found is to make sure I use the IP addrwss of the Stora when acessing it, This includes the address I use in iTunes, there is a Stora Desctop Application that Logs me in automatically at Startup but for some reason it only allows acess via the IP address, you can try that if the Network password does not work, may be different on a MAC.

I have been advised to use the Music Folder for Music not to make a stand alone one, you can make an iTunes Folder but make sure it is in either MyMusic or FamilyMusic (If more than one user will access the library it needs to be in FamilyMusic) apparently the Linux used on these NAS drives can be a Bit Funny.

The iTunes Server does work on mine but all it does is Show All songs on the drive you can not see album art or use Genius so iTunes is By far the best way to acess the Music.

Not sure how you are going to replay your music if you are going in to a half decent Hi-Fi, I found that having Sound Check swiched on affected the audio quality may have just been the song I was listening to but it sounded better with all the playback settings off.
 

pwiles1968

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Good luck, I suggest having a glass of wine and putting on some chill out music first I have found that anything to do with Networks is a complete Pain in the
emotion-16.gif
.
 

Tonestar1

Moderator
I'm a cisco network tech so hopefully I shouldn't have too many problems on that side of things. But as a far as applications go I'm clueless. In my experience the reverse is true for most application guys......

There will defo be a glass of wine and some chill out tunes involved this weekend wether I get around to setting it up or not :)

Cheers
 

Tonestar1

Moderator
Just to say thanks for the tips gents. Netgear Stora is now set up and working. Well apart from time machine, but thats not of immediate concern.

Had a couple of issues with my macbook seeing the Stora. Resolved by assigning it a static IP near the top of the DHCP address range on my broadband router.

Also the set up CD is absolute rubbish on the MAC. Not sure who designed it but they maybe should have tried it out first. Couldn't get it to work after the first step.. Resolved by logging into the Stora direct from Firefox and setting up from there.

Thanks again.
 

kena

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Dont know if its of interest but you can setup a batch file to power down NAS when your finished listening for the evening. You need to download CURL (WIN/MAC versions avail) then setup a BAT file containing the following

curl -u admin:password -k -d command=poweroff -d shutdown_option=1 -d OPERATION=set -d PAGE=System -d OUTER_TAB=tab_shutdown -d INNER_TAB=none https://10.4.2.1/get_handler

Substitute your userid , Password & IP address then run when wanting to power down
 

Tonestar1

Moderator
JohnDuncan:Fairly sure Time Machine requires you to format to HFS+. Which will require another partition, or formatting the whole thing...

The Stora is supposed to be Time Machine friendly. GUI on the Stora has checkbox to use time machine and a user name and password field. If I find out that's why its not working Netgear will be getting an angry email. I'm sure they are shaking in their boots!
 

robjcooper

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Tonestar1:
JohnDuncan:Fairly sure Time Machine requires you to format to HFS+. Which will require another partition, or formatting the whole thing...

The Stora is supposed to be Time Machine friendly. GUI on the Stora has checkbox to use time machine and a user name and password field. If I find out that's why its not working Netgear will be getting an angry email. I'm sure they are shaking in their boots!

JD is correct: try this link: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427 as it states the following on there:

"The most common format for a Time Machine backup disk is Mac OS Extended format, but Time Machine also supports Mac OS Extended (Case sensitive, Journaled) and XSan formats.

If the disk is partitioned using the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition type, some partitions may not be available for use with Time Machine. The GUID Partition Table (GPT) or Apple Partition Map (APM) partition types are recommended."

There's also an FAQ section regarding Time Machine on Apple support discussions:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1964018

Hope there's something of help in there...oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY JD
 

Tonestar1

Moderator
Thanks. I don't doubt you or JD. I meant surely these Netgear people have the drive formatted correctly if they are advertising it as time machine compatible and have checkboxes, etc to use time machine on the GUI. I will investigate further this evening.
 
A

Anonymous

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The first thing u need to do is check the warranty on that model of harddrive.

For example companies like Samsung or WD often give their HDs a least a 3-year warranty, so u may be able to get it replaced under warranty.
 

Tonestar1

Moderator
At long last. Up and running, Woohoo.

Resolution (after scouring the netgear forums).

Desktop software for mac provided on set-up disk doesn't work. Had to set-up again and configure time machine direct. All operational now.

Findings

If you have a mac and want an easy set up, don't buy a Stora. Mac users were clearly an afterthought. May be good for pcs but possibly the most unintuitive, badly designed and blatantly not fit for purpose piece of software I have ever used. Only thing that compares to it are some of the systems I need to use in work. Yeah it's as bad as that!

Hopefully now it's up and running the tinkering will be over!

Thanks for all the advice.
 

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