Future Mac Owner with network concerns\questions


kizer

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We are looking at getting a Mac for a few reasons that I don't want to address, but I do have questions. ;)

 

1. In my PC I normally just click the run button and type in \\tower\disk1\ and wham I'm connected to my disk share or I click on My computer and click on a mapped drive and I'm connected via a user share. How does it work with a mac seeing that I keep my shares hidden, but exported so its harder to see and not obvious for everybody to walk up and access shares.

 

2. On my PC I use login/passwords does Mac support users just like PC's?

 

3. Apps like iPhoto and Apreture I'm guessing they map to the files on the network and do not need to store them locally?

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We are looking at getting a Mac for a few reasons that I don't want to address, but I do have questions. ;)

 

1. In my PC I normally just click the run button and type in \\tower\disk1\ and wham I'm connected to my disk share or I click on My computer and click on a mapped drive and I'm connected via a user share. How does it work with a mac?

command key + K

 

2. On my PC I use login/passwords does Mac support users just like PC's?

Yes

 

3. Apps like iPhoto and Apreture I'm guessing they map to the files on the network and do not need to store them locally?

Yes it can be set up to so that content is on the network.

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Thanks Pro. I did edit my first question with reguards to accessing \\tower\disk1\ without truely mapping it, but I think you answered it before I clicked the post button.

 

I guess I should of asked one more. Currently I use SMB like everybody else is there going to be a problem with the newer Macs using SMB or did they go to that AFP? I heard there is a work around, but is that only affected with 5+ or does that affect 4.7 as well.

 

Sorry for my ignorance I've never cared or really looked at anything Mac until last night when the wife said. "Hey I'm thinking I want a Mac. Which one do you think we should get?"

 

My only gut concern is to make sure it talks with unRAID. LOL

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Thanks Pro. I did edit my first question with reguards to accessing \\tower\disk1\ without truely mapping it, but I think you answered it before I clicked the post button.

 

I guess I should of asked one more. Currently I use SMB like everybody else is there going to be a problem with the newer Macs using SMB or did they go to that AFP? I heard there is a work around, but is that only affected with 5+ or does that affect 4.7 as well.

 

Sorry for my ignorance I've never cared or really looked at anything Mac until last night when the wife said. "Hey I'm thinking I want a Mac. Which one do you think we should get?"

 

My only gut concern is to make sure it talks with unRAID. LOL

You won't have any issue making it work with unRAID.  SMB will also work just fine on OS X 10.7

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After hitting cmd + K, you'll need to enter your link like this smb://tower/disk1 instead of \\tower\disk1.  If you don't prefix it with smb it will try to use the afp protocol.  After entering your path, you can click the + key and add the server path to the list of favorites (the list is located in the same window where you enter the path).  I find this particularly useful with my hidden folders since the mac doesn't show them while browsing a disk.  An example I use is smb://tower/cache/.apps

 

Also, because I'm a little OCD and can't stand all of the .DS_Store files that get left behind when using a mac to browse the folders, I have the package installed via unmenu that deletes them on a set schedule.

 

 

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Can you view disk shares without adding them?

Meaning in windows I just type \\tower\disk1\ and I can access it without actually having it show up because its hidden. However I can still access and change files.

 

Yes, you can still access hidden and private shares.  You just need to make sure Finder is the active window (it will say Finder in the top left menu bar if it is active) and then hit cmd +k and type the share in as mentioned above (using smb:// instead of \\).

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I must admit the Mac world feels very weird.

 

I picked up the 27inch iMac and man it looks awesome, but I feel like I'm using a Russian Machine with Spanish Subtitles telling me how to use it. LOL

 

Thank god for the internet and google to look for things. ;) Installed one kiddy app "Dora the Explorer" Told me I didn't have permissions to run the app as admin and ended up doing a "sudo chmod -R 777" to the file and wham it worked again. LOL Who would of known I would have to use linux commands to fix it.

 

Luckly I used my Network login/password that matches unRAID so everything seems to be working well together.

What I don't like are all these .store files every where, but I'm sure its either needed or I'll eventually get rid of them.

What I thought was amazing was how fast iPhoto loads up my images. I'm guessing its because I'm running diskcache.

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Just remember, most tasks on a Mac don't require much thinking. If you have to Google something simple, chances are you're overlooking something completely obvious.

 

If you're running as an admin, generally only installing an App or modifying system files should require a username and password. Most apps that don't have an installer can be opened without requiring a password. It is great that OS X is a full unix certified OS though  ;)

 

.DS_Store files are there to store window settings, and are annoying in a dual platform environment.

 

Keychain will store any username password for a server connection, just remember to tick the "Remember password" checkbox.

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The only reason I googled on thing was I couldn't install something and ended up having to drop into terminal to fix he permissions. Kind of bizarre that I had to do it but that's what other users said they had to do.

 

For me a mac is a different animal, but I'm willing to learn because I like all animals. ;)

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The only reason I googled on thing was I couldn't install something and ended up having to drop into terminal to fix he permissions. Kind of bizarre that I had to do it but that's what other users said they had to do.

 

For me a mac is a different animal, but I'm willing to learn because I like all animals. ;)

 

Fair enough! I meant no offense btw  :)

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Oh no offense taken. ;) You could of called me an idiot LOL... I'm feeling like one trying to untrain myself from the PC way to the Mac way. Of course its not my primary machine, but more or less my iPhoto machine.

 

I have a question for you Mac guys. I've got 6000+ photos as of right now. Heck probably a couple more 1000 after I actually sort through a bunch more. As of right now all my photos live on unRAID. Doing some reading there are a lot of others that say I shouldn't keep them on unRAID because you loose the ability to GPS tag, rename and other things if kept remotely, but will display in iPhoto.

 

I don't mind keeping my photos in iPhoto as long as I suppose TimeMachine can back them up, which I need to setup still and if needed I can export the images for whatever purposes I decide. I'm just afraid to have multiple copies of photos and some how get them mixed up.

 

Any suggestions for photo archiving and manipulation?

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Yeah I'm storing them on unRAID, but from what I can read or I should say gleemed. It looks like when you manipulate them or change the GPS locations it doesn't save back to unRAID, but does locally.

 

I'm only saying this because I rotated a few images and changed a few locations using places and I noticed it didn't change the rotation on unRAID nor changed the last modified date. Not a super big deal, but if I'm going to go through all the effort to fix the GPS locations and other things I want to make sure they are being saved. I might have to follow your path and use TimeMachine backups......

 

Anyways its only day 2 so I'm sure I'll eventually figure things out. ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Welp Opted to store my iPhoto database directly on the Mac and I'm using TimeMachine which somebody was kind enough to throw up a Package for and it appears to work perfectly.

 

So far I guess I'm just using User Shares meaning I have some drives I can write to and some I can't because the user I'm using only has read on some and I would normally use Disk Shares to get around that. I'll look into that someday, but for now the Mac has its thing it does and my Windows machine has its thing it does. ;)

 

For me this is working perfectly and unRAID has been running flawlessly. Thanks for the help guys.

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