5. Storage
My large-capacity, low-power servers are in the basement, and using iTunes I can pick, choose or randomly play selections on my stereo from any of the computers in the house.
The picture below shows some of my Network Attached Storage devices, on my basement storage shelf. On the top shelf you can see an 8-port switch. On the bottom, from left to right, you can see an external USB 2.0 drive, a Kuro Box, a Trendnet TS-U200, an NSLU2, another external drive, a Synology DS-101, and a Maxtor Shared Storage unit. When everything is up and running, this gives me around 700 gigabytes of storage, all on this little shelf!
Storage Central in my Basement
Of course, my setup is not without its problems. One lingering issue I've not had the time to address is library synchronization. In addition to the music library on my server, I keep a library on my laptop for use when I'm away from the house. When I add new music to this library, either through an iTunes purchase or through ripping a new CD, I have to manually synchronize the two directory trees. Ideally, these trees should be allowed to differ because I don't need to keep some of the music on my laptop. This synchronization can be addressed through various means; it's just one more thing I haven't had a chance to take care of yet.
The other issue I have with my current setup is complexity. I'm comfortable with the system, but I'm not the only one in the house. My wife still finds it easier to use the CD player attached to the stereo, and it's hard to argue with that. Playing a single CD is just a matter of opening up the door of the CD player, inserting the disk and turning on the stereo. If all you want is to play a single CD, the "old" way is still a lot quicker - I don't have a good solution for making "my" setup that easy!
iBook music control in the Family Room
As we just saw, music was fairly easy to set up; video is more complex, however. In my next article, I'll describe the networked video components in my system and how, in addition to music, I stream video and pictures from network servers to my entertainment center.