I plan on connecting a Mac Mini to my Kuro HDTV. It will connect wirelessly to an Airport Extreme Base Station, the latest model. My Mac Pro connects to the base station via ethernet, and we have a couple of Mac laptops in the network. I will use an EyeTV Hybrid for doing DVR on the Mini.

My main question involves storage of media. I have plenty of disk space on the Mac Pro, which currently has my iTunes library, but it would have to be on at all times. So I guess the more logical choices would be to either have a media drive on the Mini or attached to the base station. I'd appreciate comments as to which might be the better approach. I'd prefer the NAS approach, as I don't want to get into opening up the Mini to add memory or drives, but I don't know if streaming high def wirelessly is OK. Also, is there a difference in using a drive attached to an Extreme Base Station versus Time Capsule? Thanks.

What's your plan for the EyeTV archive--on the internal HD of the mini?

And how big is your iTunes library at the moment?

What's your plan for the EyeTV archive--on the internal HD of the mini?

And how big is your iTunes library at the moment?
Well, not knowing much about any of this, my thoughts are: record to the Mini and watch in the TV, then discard after watching. Anything that I want to save long-term would move to the NAS if I did it that way. I don't anticipate there being that much that I'd save.

My iTunes library is only about 10 GB and I don't anticipate it getting any bigger than perhaps 20 GB.

My Photo library is about 175 GB and could get much larger. I would either keep it on the Mac Pro or NAS.

Now, what you're calling NAS at the moment is really either 1) a Time Capsule or 2) a USB drive plugged into an Airport Extreme--one of which you're planning to buy, right?

I'd keep things easy to start--since it's small enough put a copy of your iTunes music on the mini, and keep your EyeTV archive there as well. There should be enough room for that plus your OS and apps. (My music takes up 425 GB at the moment, and I keep 2 other copies of it, one always offsite.) Back when I had a mini in the HT, I kept it on 24/7 and anyone who wanted to share that music library, could. In fact, several in your house could all share from that instance of iTunes at the same time all playing different streams.

Then get either the Time Capsule or an Extreme, really, it's your choice--some of us here use an Extreme (with or without a USB drive connected) and some here use a Time Capsule or two, with their iTunes library residing there. If you already know you want to set up wireless Time Machine backups for all the other laptop users in your house, go Time Capsule. (I've had good luck with an Airport Disk but I don't do Time Machine over the network--I use TM on only one of our 6 Macs, my wife's iMac, and that external is directly connected. I use SuperDuper backups and clones for all our other Macs and important stuff.) If you get a TC, you can experiment with it hosting your iTunes media files.

Right now, my concern is that your photo library is backed up somehow--that's on your Mac Pro--how is it backed up presently? Do you clone your Mac Pro boot drive? If you aren't presently backing that up, make sure there's a partition on your TV for it and/or think about SuperDuper in addition to Time Machine--they're complementary.

This way, since this Mac HT things is somewhat new to you, you can gradually ease into things--you can see whether you want more local storage at your mini or whether you'd prefer keeping things minimal, decide whether to get a fast FW800 external, decide whether to add more "NAS" storage via USB to your TC or AE. Basically, give yourself a chance to grow into your system and see how you and your family will use it. (Me, I always have 6-7 enclosures or devices directly connected to the Macbook in my HT--two enclosures over USB, 5 daisychained over firewire. But then that sort of evolved over the years, when things were more expensive...)

Now, what you're calling NAS at the moment is really either 1) a Time Capsule or 2) a USB drive plugged into an Airport Extreme--one of which you're planning to buy, right?

Yes. I don't know anything about "network attached storage" other than the very general concept. I currently have an early b/g AEBS used for the laptops.

(My music takes up 425 GB at the moment, and I keep 2 other copies of it, one always offsite.)

425 GB?! I can't conceive of that much music!

Right now, my concern is that your photo library is backed up somehow--that's on your Mac Pro--how is it backed up presently?

I backup weekly (well, when I remember!) to an external firewire drive.

Thanks very much for the advice. I think I'll just get the $799 version Mini and see how that works for me, then play around with attaching drives to the Mini and the AEBS.