[Halfloaf]

Hi all,

Having just bought a second hand Mac Pro 2010 for Maya and ArchiCAD, I'd like to share some files / locations between my Macbook Pro and Mac Pro without having to rely on icloud or other online sharing services. Here Is what I'd like to achieve, but first a bit about my network...

I don't want to use iCloud as my internet speed is dreadful, I live in a rural village in the UK...So max upload speed is 0.2mbps.

Both machines, plus my wifes's MBp are connected wirelessly to a BT homehub (router) which provides internet access. The only current way I can see her machine is via Airdrop, although that is only about 50% successful for some reason. There are no physical hard connections between the machines and IP's are assigned by the DNS service in the router. (happy to change this though)

What I'd like....

iTunes - Store all my media on the Mac Pro as it takes massive drives. My Mac Pro has auto login enabled so that anybody who wants to listen to some music / watch a movie can just turn on the machines and access the iTunes Library.

Documents - I'd like to be able to access and save to my Documents and Downloads on my MP. My MBp will be used mostly for browsing but I'd also like to access text files and save Textures / files to the MP when it's on.

I would like to share calendars, address books, notes and mail between the machines as well!! My main mail account is Pop3, do I need to go imap and set it so that mail is deleted from the server after say 6 days? That way both machines can see the mail? I do keep local copies of e-mails...I may have to use icloud for calendars, notes and address book. I don't trust icloud with my mail thank you.

iphoto - Can I point iphoto to a remote library?

Note - I don't intend to leave the MP on the whole day like a server, only when I'm at home, which is the evening and weekends. Oh, all the machines run 10.10.5 Yosemite

Thanks much. There is probably some simple solution to this (don't say dropbox, icloud etc) but I'm not network savvy.

Jacques

[Mike Wuerthele]

Originally Posted by Halfloaf 

iTunes - Store all my media on the Mac Pro as it takes massive drives. My Mac Pro has auto login enabled so that anybody who wants to listen to some music / watch a movie can just turn on the machines and access the iTunes Library.

Yeah, that's trivial. Also, there's an "Automatically add to iTunes" folder in your iTunes library. If you set that up as a shared folder, users across your local network can drag their stuff, and it'll get added to the "master" library.

Files put in this folder override iTunes settings for music location. So, items copied here will automatically be sorted in the iTunes library folder.

Documents - I'd like to be able to access and save to my Documents and Downloads on my MP. My MBp will be used mostly for browsing but I'd also like to access text files and save Textures / files to the MP when it's on.

Fine. Shared folders.

I would like to share calendars, address books, notes and mail between the machines as well!! My main mail account is Pop3, do I need to go imap and set it so that mail is deleted from the server after say 6 days? That way both machines can see the mail? I do keep local copies of e-mails...I may have to use icloud for calendars, notes and address book. I don't trust icloud with my mail thank you.

In my experience, iCloud's most reliable feature is Mail. I don't do this, and use Mail with both my iCloud mail and assorted gmail accounts, so I'll leave your use case to somebody more knowledgeable than I on that kind of thing.

I'd think that if the mail is deleted from the server after six days, then you may be missing out on being SURE that every computer has your mail. I'd think you'd want to retain incoming mail on the server until you specifically delete it, though.

iphoto - Can I point iphoto to a remote library?

Yes, but you probably don't want to.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2435?locale=en_US

Note - I don't intend to leave the MP on the whole day like a server, only when I'm at home, which is the evening and weekends.

Easily configured automatically in the Power settings item. You can set startup and shutdown times.