What is the point of an iTunes server?

On your NAS, create a separet share that is named itunes; and map a drive to it; for instance i: for itunes. Then reconsolidate your itunes library to it, by going to File, Library, Organize.

Short answer. There is no point.

Long answer.

Buy an additional Mac to dedicate to always on home media server duty.

You will be able to access any content from any iOS device and push it to an Apple TV if you wish*

(this needn't be expensive - mine is a white 2008 MacBook with 2GB Ram, a 160GB Hard Drive and no battery installed - I acquired it about 3 years ago for nearly nothing due to the fact that the screen was, and still is, completely smashed)

To set this up, follow the instructions here - http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_set_itunes_home_server

In my case I have attached a couple of external USB drives (2 and 4 TB) which are brimming with Ripped Movies and Music (iOS apps also download automatically and the family can grab them from their itunes library without needing my account password due to having Home Sharing enabled on all Devices).

This system just works and since I abandoned a NAS 3 years ago (flaky at best) I have not had to give the family any further tuition.

My wife even copies Movies and TV shows downloaded to her Mac by simply dragging and dropping them onto 'Automatically add to iTunes' over the network.

*The only strange thing that I have noticed is that if you play a movie using the iOS Video app and try to Airplay that to an Apple TV it will always play video on your device and audio through AppleTV

The solution is, on Apple TV, to navigate to Computers and play the same movie from there.

Doug, thank you for this post! I think it's exactly what I need. I also have a broken MacBook that I can set up as a server. Currently I'm using a NAS and I'm finding that iTunes does not allow you to populate an iPod or an iPhone with music that's on the NAS and not on the local drive. The majority of my music is from CDs and from BandCamp, so it doesn't do the Cloud thing like my iTunes purchases.

I have a laptop and desktop with iTunes on each. If I use a solution like yours, would I be able to use either of them to move music on to my iPod and iPhone? This has been a source of frustration for me for a while.

Thanks again for your post!

Yes.

The MacBook acts as a central store.

Any user can see the shared media in their own iTunes and either listen to it from there OR copy it to their own library to sync with their own devices.

The great thing about this is that it also works for Apps

ie. the media serve is set up with my Apple id (to automatically download apps, music and books)

Any authorised user in my network (I have three authorised users with their own apple id who do not have or need my apple id password) can drag an app (or other item) I have purchased from the master library to their own.

They can then listen to, sync or delete without further interaction or effect on the main library.

They can also do this from each others shared iTunes library

For example. My daughter might buy a song and my wife can see that under home sharing (set up using my apple id), copy it to her own library and sync it with her own devices.

(Nobody bothers, but I'm certain this also works for movies and TV shows except the main machine won't download them automatically when purchased on other devices - my solution to make thes acailabke to all is to control the headless media center via screen sharing and purchase TV shows from there or to open 'automatically add to iTunes' over the network an just drop them in.

When my wife buys a season on her MacBook she just opens an alias to that folder an ddrops the files into it before deleting from her own machine.

Hi Doug - thanks for this very helpful posting. I don't have a spare mac but I do have a spare Windows laptop. Am I right in thinking your solution should work just as well with a Windows machine running iTunes?

Thanks.

Short answer. Yes.

Just as well. I don't know.

I have helped someone configure this with iTunes running on Windows 7.

It worked, but often the library on Windows would not be visible if it had been left for a while.

I think quitting and restarting iTunes was the resolution, there didn't seem to be any setting that would cause the issue but I'm not incredible with Windows networking settings.

Another client with Windows seemed to have no trouble.

Settings I'm unaware of? Configuration? A bug of some kind within Windows or iTunes for Windows?

I'm sure there are certain minor features missing too

Hi,

well there is some use for this. I use my iTunes Server on the Synology NAS to realtime transcode my FLAC audio library on the NAS. It appears in iTunes on the left side like a home share and I am able to play the FLAC files from there. This saved me from always having to transcode all the music files in non Apple supported formats (like FLAC and OGG). The disadvantage is that I seem not to be able to modify any metadata .... but maybe that is a access rights problem in my configuration.

Greetings

Andreas

Hi All,

This is my first post to this forum and I do also have the same question as the OP, with a bit of extra input.

Firstly I'd like to flame all forum posters on every forum who reply with "why would you want to use that" or "that's not correct" before doing their own homework and assuming the OP hasn't done theirs. This is a waste of internet space and the time readers take to read it, and is overall pretty bad netizen form. It makes me suspicious of posters with high numbers, do they actually know that much, or do they just give mindless replies to every post they read? Please don't do it.

I'm also at a loss as to why my ios devices don't connect to my NAS's DAAP share (QNAP TurboNAS in my case.) It would make sense for an apple device to connect to an apple protocol - Apple's bias towards content bought on their own platform is shamelessly blatent imho.

The "good news" I can bring to this thread however is that I use my DAAP share all the time though on my HP laptop, which runs (at time of posting) Fedora Core 18 - for many years the Linux media player Rhythmbox has connected to DAAP shares easily. So things out there use DAAP, just not apple things apparently - go figure.

Cheers,

Mike.

Is anyone successfully mounting a fileshare as their iTunes media directory using iTunes 11 (specifically 11.1). I'm successfully using an AFP share mounted off a Linux box using iTunes 10 which works pretty well. I want to update my iPhone to IOS7 but it requires iTunes 11.1.

I had some difficulties getting the share to work the last major iTunes version upgrade and don't want to cripple my current functionality until I'm confident using a mounted share as a media library will continue to work,

Anyone doing this successfully?

I do not use iTunes much as I only store digital copies of movies in iTunes. I also own a Synology NAS though and have my iTunes library on the NAS. I first created it on a Windows PC and later moved it when i got the NAS.

As previously pointed out though the Synology also has its own music/video/photo library software and an indexing service. This is what its own mobile software apps (DS Audio, DS Photo and DS Video) and its own web interface access. After reading these posts I turned on the "iTunes Server" and immediately in iTunes I had running on 2 pcs at the time (I was trying to sort something else out to do with iTunes and ended up reading these posts) the NAS server popped up under the SHARED items and it displayed all my music in there (remember my actual iTunes library does not contain any music). The iTunes server seems to expose and share all the music in the Synology's media library. The "iTunes Server" claims to transcode the music as well and provides smart playlists.

Also worth noting is that the one pc only had iTunes installed a few minutes previously and I have not pointed the program to the NAs at all, it still points to my local drive's empty iTunes library folder. I have not even logged onto iTunes proper yet. I also did not complete the logon process of the iTunes Server on the NAS.

The "iTunes server" simply makes the regular music library on the NAs available to the iTunes application installations on the rest of the network for playback (I cannot see any of the videos in my actual iTunes library).

Acording to Synolgy's website the purpose is really simple

1. play the music on your NAs in iTunes

2. manage smart playlists.

(see http://www.synology.com/us/support/tutorials/iTunes_Server.php (a little outdated) and http://www.synology.com/dsm/home_home_applications_itunes_server.php?lang=us)

I can't be certain, and perhaps somebody else could fill in the finer points, but I just purchased a new router with the ability to enable an iTunes Server on a USB device. My speculation would be that I could use this connected external USB hard drive that is connected to the router to access my media from just about anything that I have as long as I setup the router properly...ie I could access my iTunes library, and stream content through the internet to my phone to play music etc...

From what I'm gathering, it's not supported by Apple directly, however, so my other question would be if I connect my phones via the second USB port on the router, if it would be able to receive updates from iTunes for new upgrades...

OK:

iTunes Server: The name that Apple have trademarked for a technology allowing you to link networked storage solutions to iTunes.

To use this you need:

1) A Mac or PC running iTunes.

2) A network storage device with iTunes Server technology (a NAS or a USB storage solution on your router).

iTunes will normally use storage (hard disk space) on your Mac or PC to store your photos/music/videos. What iTunes Server allows you to do is to use storage on your network, so your files will be sat on your NAS or on a device connected to your router (see the previous post).

Depending on what you're trying to stream and the capability of the devices and connections, your mileage will vary. I had performance issues when streaming HD video from a cheap Buffalo NAS. I would imagine a USB stick into a router will not get great performance either, but for photos or audio, it should be fine.

Is the name confusing, yes IMHO. They would have been better naming it Apple iTunes Networked Storage, but that's not as snappy. :)

Why could your NAS not work as the all-in-one iTunes server you want? Because Apple would have to test each and every NAS on the market to ensure it worked to standard, for each revision of software. That is why iTunes needs to be running on a Mac or PC on the network as Apple have control over the iTunes platform.

Hope that helps.

Hi Doug,

Just to clarify:

- each member of your family has their own Apple ID.

- But you, as 'administrator' of the central storage 'iTunes server', enable Home Sharing using your Apple ID.

And then, let's say just for the sake of argument, that you don't want the rest of your family knowing your password, or use your Apple ID to make their purchases...

- You go around to each of the devices belonging to your family members and, without changing their personal Apple ID's settings, you enter your Apple ID in their Home Sharing settings ONLY.

Is that right?

Many thanks for your informative post,

colkav

Hi colkav

That's correct.

If you are worried that their device might reveal your password, just check their keychain after you have entered it.

I've never seen any documentation to support this, but in my experience the keychain never records the homesharing password.

If all the other responses discussing NAS and various arcane settings sound painful, it's because they are.

Doug