[Peligro911]

Ok here is the deal my iTunes library is growing fast like over 100 gig fast ( movies )
I have 2 apple TV 3 iPhones 3 iPads in my house

My iTunes is on my windows 7 laptop so to stream anything from iTunes aka home sharing I have to make sure my laptop is turned on iTunes open etc.

I already know how to move my library to a external no prob but i would like to have some kind of server that is always on so when I want to access it I don't have to do anything .. A dedicated pc is out of the question

Is there a way to hook my external to a router and setup a nat server or something or would iTunes on my pc still need to be on .. ?

I need something that will support home sharing or something my apple tv can see just like as if my computer and iTunes is open

I am really tech savvy and can setup just about anything I'm just not sure what to get or where to start

Any ideas I would appreciate
Thanks

[3cit]

A lot of new routers have a USB port as well as LAN ports for a external hard drive or for a shared Pinter, the key is to purchase the right hard drive.
You need a hard drive that has the ability to be "always on" most go to sleep, until they are accessed by a pc.
I have a Cisco e3000 and a western digital hard drive and I had to manually change a setting in my hard drive to have it always on, and I had to configure my router to "share" certain folders on the hard drive. Also on my particular router i can set up a media server to stream content however I have found that simply using windows and media player do a better job.
I think you just want the apple tv to be able to always be able to access all the content on the hard drive, so any router with a USB port also should do, so long as you point your apple tv to the correct location!

[Peligro911]

Makes since but will apple tv be able to access and stream it without iTunes ?

[Peligro911]

And I don't think on a apple tv you can point the direction

[kch50428]

Makes since but will apple tv be able to access and stream it without iTunes ?

AppleTVs - the small black ones - need an instance of iTunes running on a computer to work...

Otherwise, any Network Attached Storage should be able to hold your library, and can be home shared as long as an instance of iTunes is running that is connected to the library.

[Fausty82]

AppleTVs - the small black ones - need an instance of iTunes running on a computer to work...

The Apple TV uses the Home Sharing feature that is baked into iTunes, but NOT baked into the media servers and NAS iTunes servers... so as others have stated, you cannot share iTunes content with an AppleTV without an actual instance of iTunes running on a computer.

The older, original AppleTV (the 7" square white device) had either a 40 or 160 GB hard drive for playing media... but they also streamed from iTunes, utilizing the functionality built into iTunes that pre-dates Home Sharing.

I'd love to get my hands on one of the original Apple TV boxes...

[Peligro911]

The Apple TV uses the Home Sharing feature that is baked into iTunes, but NOT baked into the media servers and NAS iTunes servers... so as others have stated, you cannot share iTunes content with an AppleTV without an actual instance of iTunes running on a computer.

The older, original AppleTV (the 7" square white device) had either a 40 or 160 GB hard drive for playing media... but they also streamed from iTunes, utilizing the functionality built into iTunes that pre-dates Home Sharing.

I'd love to get my hands on one of the original Apple TV boxes...

Ya everything you guys have said is what I thought apple needs to make a iTunes library external drive that has all this baked in lol make my life easy lol

Just sucks cuz my iTunes is on my laptop not a pc I can just leave on all time

You can get a apple tv 1 it's all over eBay

But I got a apple tv 2 and 3 already running lol

I would be happy if my own movie library I could match in the cloud just like my music that way they all would show under purchased no iTunes needed just stream from cloud .

[Peligro911]

Or let me plug my external in the back of the apple tv lol at least that would be a solution a pricy one but one none the less

[Fausty82]

Ya everything you guys have said is what I thought apple needs to make a iTunes library external drive that has all this baked in lol make my life easy lol

Just sucks cuz my iTunes is on my laptop not a pc I can just leave on all time

You can get a apple tv 1 it's all over eBay

But I got a apple tv 2 and 3 already running lol

I would be happy if my own movie library I could match in the cloud just like my music that way they all would show under purchased no iTunes needed just stream from cloud .

Tell me about it. The guys at the Apple store run away when they see me coming... I've talked to them many times about the issues with iTunes as it relates to their computers, and the lack of sufficient storage. The Mac Mini can be configured with dual 750GB drive - and that's it. Apple pushes iTunes and Apple TVs and streaming/sharing at us, but then refuses to give us hard drive capacity to store it all...

My work-around has been to store all the media on my NAS (Drobo-FS) and then configure iTunes on my Mac Mini to not copy and not keep it organized. It's a messy, sloppy kludge at best.

And yeah, I've been looking at eBay for the old AppleTVs. I have a setup that allows me to capture hi-def video from and external source, but due to HDCP, it only has component in. The old AppleTV does component out, so I may just pull the trigger on one soon.

[Peligro911]

I get why not to have it copy because you would just copy your stuff from your drive to comp but y not organize what does that do ? Lol