Hi guys I’m thinking of buying one of these units but was wondering if someone could answer a couple of questions about it. So, all my iTunes music can be transferred onto the internal HDD, and, as long as I change the folder location on my laptop in iTunes, can i still play music through my Airport Express if I use the Remote app when my laptop is switched off? What’s the best way to transfer data across? I’ve read some people are getting some slow transfer speeds when transferring across a network. Is it best to move everything across via a portable HDD? Also, I was hoping to use it as a backup drive for any other files on my laptop. Is this advisable and can it even be done? Or can I plug my 250gb portable HDD in via USB into the back of the unit and back up my laptop regularly this way? Overall, how’s everyone found it? I’ve looked at a few different media servers / players and this seems to be getting great reviews and reasonably priced. Thanks for taking the time to read!
What app are you referring to? I know that you will be able to access your music, if you transfer and change the location in iTunes, but I’m not sure about how you will play your music if the laptop or computer is off.
That’s a lot of questions :smileyvery-happy: What type of files do you want to play back? I don’t have any experience with Apple hardware and I don’t use iTunes, so if you want to play stuff that you’ve downloaded from iTunes that is copy protected I think you’re locked into Apple TV.
If you have unprotected audio and video files then the LIVE Hub should play them back unless it’s a really exotic format. Once you know what type of files you want to play back you can decide where you want to store them. If you have all of your files on a USB drive you can just plug that into the LIVE Hub USB port. You can also copy the files over to the Live Hub internal hard disk by USB or network. In fact the Hub has a function that will sync from a USB or network location. If you have hundreds of Gbs of files it will take a long time either by USB or network. If you do buy a Hub, I would transfer your files to the internal drive in small batches, so it doesn’t take so long.
The Hub is designed to keep copies of your media files on it’s internal disk, but personally I wouldn’t use it as a backup drive for any important files.
Hope this helps.
I can tell you first hand if you have any Itunes music and it is not DRM free then the hub will not play it. now maybe you can use the hub to access the I tunes library via the sharing on Itunes but at that point you wouldn’t have to move your music files.
Thanks for your response.
I’m not worried about playing my iTunes music through the hub > AV amp…it’s mainly a place to store it so everyone at home with a PC with iTunes and wifi can access and upload music. My airport express is connected via wifi to my router and then my hifi which means I can play my music stored on my laptop through my home hifi. If I store my music on the hub, do you know if my airport express will look for my music in the hub via the router? I’ve seen the My Book Live has a iTunes server. Does the hub also come with this?
Sorry if I’m not coming across clearly!
Thanks
The Live Hub does have an iTunes server built-in, which is turned off my default. So yes you can use the Live Hub as an iTunes server. I’ve never used it so I can’t tell you how well it works. I don’t use my Live Hub as a media server, I use it to play my media from a network drive.
Hope this helps.
You can download the manuals for the Live Hub from here:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=570
That should give you all of the information you need to know.
That’s great.
Thankyou
