[X4U] lacie ethernet mini

[Allan Hise]

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005, Eric wrote:

> hi - i have a question about the lacie ethernet mini.
>
> http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10034
>
> specifically, is it possible to store your itunes library on it and
> then use it to stream and access via itunes sharing, in the way that
> you can access itunes from another computer and stream.

I store my iTunes library on a network share. I don't see how this device
owuld be any different.

>
> i'm thinking of purchasing one of these if this is possible, rather
> than, for example, using a firewire drive attached to another networked
> computer to store itunes and then access it via my powerbook.

You really have 2 options. Point one computer to this network shared drive
and setup iTunes to share the music to the other machines. This would use
iTunes sharing mechanism. Meaning your other machine couldn't create
playlists, change ratings, etc.

The other option would be to have each iTunes computer access the music in
its own library. This would let each computer setup its own playlists,
assign ratings, etc. The downside is that iTunes cannot automatically
detect when another computer has added music to the drive. In other
words, you would have to manually add them to each other iTunes library.

It should be possible to put the iTunes library binary & XML files (in
addition to the music files) on the drive and have all computers use that,
but there would be issues associated with two computers trying to write at
the same time. It would either lock out all but the first/owner or
completely screw up everything. (I haven't tried it, thus teh either/or).

Hopefully this all makes sense....