Help get my MacMini functioning properly as a Music and File Server

[agiletiger]

A couple of years ago, I bought a MacMini in order to serve as a music and file server. I put all of our CD's and music onto its HD as mostly ALAC or AIFF files. I also would like to use the MacMini as a replacement for iCloud - backing up my Macbook Pro, all our iPhones and iPads; and a place where I can save and access files when I am away from home.

I am not able to access my music on a regular basis because iTunes keeps on crashing. Updates for both the OS and iTunes haven't helped this. I also noticed that most people here do not use iTunes in this way. I thought that the simplicity of keeping everything Apple would allow my wife and I to easily access our music library either via the Remote app or Music app on any of our iOS devices.

What can I do to get access to my music on a reliable basis and with ease that we would expect from being fully invested in the Apple ecosystem? Is there a solution other than iTunes we should be looking at that will be easy to use and be able to read all the Apple lossless files that I have on the computer?

I haven't been able to get any file/backup server functionality going at all so any guidance on that would be a bonus too.

Thanks!

 

[Hapo]

?

 

[Snoopy]

Roon

 

[Old Listener]

A couple of years ago, I bought a MacMini in order to serve as a music and file server. I put all of our CD's and music onto its HD as mostly ALAC or AIFF files. I also would like to use the MacMini as a replacement for iCloud - backing up my Macbook Pro, all our iPhones and iPads; and a place where I can save and access files when I am away from home.

I am not able to access my music on a regular basis because iTunes keeps on crashing. Updates for both the OS and iTunes haven't helped this. I also noticed that most people here do not use iTunes in this way. I thought that the simplicity of keeping everything Apple would allow my wife and I to easily access our music library either via the Remote app or Music app on any of our iOS devices.

What can I do to get access to my music on a reliable basis and with ease that we would expect from being fully invested in the Apple ecosystem? Is there a solution other than iTunes we should be looking at that will be easy to use and be able to read all the Apple lossless files that I have on the computer?

I haven't been able to get any file/backup server functionality going at all so any guidance on that would be a bonus too.

Thanks!

Google is your friend.

I typed "backup iPhone to Mac" and got this link

Backup iPhone on iOS user guide

I typed "backup macbook pro to Mac mini" and got several useful results including this link

Transfer your data to your new Mac mini on the apple support site

I use the JRiver music center software to play music from my Mac mini. There are several ways provided by JRiver to control JRiver on my Mac from an Android device or an iPhone or iPad.

 

[IPunchCholla]

First, the crashing issue is not normal and would be the first problem to fix. Best thing to do to start troubleshooting is to backup everything and do a completely clean install. Make a new user. Reinstall essential programs via clean installs and move data back. Do not restore anything from the previous OS.

I don’t remember iTunes crashing in the 15+ years I’ve been using it as my main streaming source on Macs. Music on the other hand can be buggy, but the massive lossless catalog and integration with my iTunes catalog makes it worth it.

If that solves that problem, I would get a good backup solution. iCloud and local are not really enough. iCloud because it is syncing for most things and only backup for mobile devices, and local because you also need off-site. I recommend a 3,2,1 rule for all valuable information. 3 copies of my info, 2 local, 1 remote. I use Backblaze for my offsite backup.

Music/iTunes then works great as a streaming service and locally hosted storage for in house listening via airplay.

 

[JeffS7444]

A couple of years ago, I bought a MacMini in order to serve as a music and file server. I put all of our CD's and music onto its HD as mostly ALAC or AIFF files. I also would like to use the MacMini as a replacement for iCloud - backing up my Macbook Pro, all our iPhones and iPads; and a place where I can save and access files when I am away from home.

I am not able to access my music on a regular basis because iTunes keeps on crashing. Updates for both the OS and iTunes haven't helped this. I also noticed that most people here do not use iTunes in this way. I thought that the simplicity of keeping everything Apple would allow my wife and I to easily access our music library either via the Remote app or Music app on any of our iOS devices.

What can I do to get access to my music on a reliable basis and with ease that we would expect from being fully invested in the Apple ecosystem? Is there a solution other than iTunes we should be looking at that will be easy to use and be able to read all the Apple lossless files that I have on the computer?

I haven't been able to get any file/backup server functionality going at all so any guidance on that would be a bonus too.

Sharing music: Try inquiring on a Mac forum, because although I've set up this sort of thing in the past, I don't know if iTunes Shared Libraries are still a thing?

Time Machine: What you are trying to do is set up your Mini as a Time Machine Server. Although dated 2018, this may still be applicable:
https://512pixels.net/2018/08/how-to-set-up-time-machine-server/
However, the last time I tried, Time Machine didn't work with servers located on different subnets (more on that in a second)

You may sometimes encounter issues where home machines plugged directly into ethernet can't communicate with wifi-connected machines and vice versa because they are on different subnets. Sometimes that can be remedied by adjusting network routing configurations.

Remotely accessing your files: I'd stick with iCloud, because your fees are paying for someone else to worry about keeping security up to date. QNAP (and probably Drobo and Synology too) NAS devices can be configured for remote access, but there's a subscription cloud component involved, because someone needs to maintain a secure tunnel into your home network in order for it to work.