Whirlpool

Is it possible to put one iPhoto and one iTunes Library on an external hard disk attached to a Mac Mini or a AirPort Extreme and have all of our accounts pointing to it as their default location? This includes a MacBook Pro as well as a Mac Mini.

In this way the girlfriend and I have can share one iTunes and one iPhoto Library over multiple machines and multiple accounts.

If it is possible what would be the best way of doing it?

Take a look at this
www.tuaw.com/2007/03/02/...ver-airport-disk

NEXUS-6 Roy Batty writes...

If it is possible what would be the best way of doing it?

I'll tell you how I have set my iTunes library up & see if that works for you.
I moved the entire library on my main machine, call it 'a', to an external firewire drive.
When I then started up iTunes it couldn't find the library & asked me to locate it, I just pointed it to the drive.
I already had 'a' set to share the library.
When I fire up iTunes on the other machines, call them 'b' & 'c', they automatically list the shared library as they're set to look for shared music. (note - that you can do this without it being on an external drive too)
The problem you will have is that unless the drive is a network drive you can't access it directly from another machine so therefore you can't (to my knowledge) tell machine 'b' & 'c' that the library is on the external drive attached to machine 'a'.
Even if you mount 'a' on the desktop of 'b' & 'c' the external drive attached to 'a' won't show up (even when you drill down). You may be able to change this, I'm sure someone will let you know.
I'm finding that I can with no drama (read - lag) watch movies etc on the other machines via Airport Express.

NEXUS-6 Roy Batty writes...

If it is possible what would be the best way of doing it?

There are a few ways, and none of them is perfect. iTunes and iPhoto handle things differently. Options:

1. Both have a "share" option in the preferences. This is the safest way because iTunes and iPhoto are designed for it, but it means one of your machines becomes the "master" and must always be switched on so the other can use the library. This option doesn't require an external hard disk.

2. For iTunes, you can change the location of your library in preferences, but this is only for the music files themselves, not the index and album covers. You need to manually synchronise those. There are a few attempts at scripting this synchronisation out on the 'net.

3. For iPhoto, you can use multiple libraries on local or network drives through something like iPhotoBuddy or iPhoto Library Manager (the latter seems to work better). This works pretty well and allows you to work on collections locally then move them across to your network drive when you're ready. You can also switch library location through iPhoto itself, but this is a bit clunky.

4. For both iTunes and iPhoto, you can move your Pictures and Music folders across to the shared drive and define an alias on your local drive that points to the shared drive. This avoids the need for explicit synchronisation, but makes the applications a bit brittle. If the network goes down, you can corrupt your libraries. You also face problems if both of you are updating the library at the same time.

I have both my iTunes and iPhoto libraries on an external drive.

iTunes and iPhoto just point to that location for both the users on my machine. The only downside is that if there is one person logged on who has the library open, the other person cant do anything with it, which isnt really a big deal for our sakes.

I just find it easier, if i add music or photo's then the missus can see the results straight away when she logs on, and we both have different digital camera's, so also when she downloads the pics from her camera, i can see them in the library next time I use it.

I really hope that this becomes a much easier process in Leopard

lionboy writes...

I really hope that this becomes a much easier process in Leopard

I agree - I have my iTunes library on a shared USB HDD and I have three Macs using it but it's a real PITA - there can only be one user at a time otherwise there are read/write/access problems and a strong likelyhood of database corruption...
The easiest way around this is for all computers to use local iTunes libraries and enable sharing on the main iTunes computer/library - that way only one computer has control/write permissions for the iTunes database.

With a bit of luck Leopard will fix this.

mdgm writes...

Take a look at this
www.tuaw.com/2007/03/02/...ver-airport-disk

Not sure that's all necessasry these days - a few versions of iTunes back they allowed iTunes to use optional different libraries by holding down the option key as you start up iTunes and then navigating to the new iTunes folder, which can be anywhere on your network...

angryofmayfair writes...

I agree - I have my iTunes library on a shared USB HDD and I have three Macs using it but it's a real PITA - there can only be one user at a time otherwise there are read/write/access problems and a strong likelyhood of database corruption..

Is the External Hard Drive attached to a particular machine or is it attached to an Airport Extreme?

NEXUS-6 Roy Batty writes...

Is the External Hard Drive attached to a particular machine or is it attached to an Airport Extreme?

It's attached to my MacMini which I use as a HTPC, it's on 24/7 and I am thinking that I will just leave iTunes running on it permanaently then my other Macs will always be able to see it's library via iTunes sharing.
The only problem then is that the only adding of new music etc can only be done on the Mini.
Remote Desktop helps - at least I don't have to power up the plasma each time I need to work on the Mini...