LaCie Ethernet Disk and Firefly Media Server
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I purchased a LaCie Ethernet Disk Mini Drive. In short it’s a 500GB Gigabit Ethernet NAS device with a built in media server. It uses Linux as its internal OS and Firefly Media Server to share media files. (music files show up in iTunes under shared libraries and are also accessible via “Front Row” on the Mac)
With virtually unlimited storage for all the mp3 files and the ability to share them among multiple computers, I’ve been ripping my entire CD collection like a madman into iTunes and then copying them along to the NAS. The problem is that apparently, once the Firefly Media Server on the LaCie makes an initial scan of the drive, it has trouble updating the media database. Not it’s internal one, because that appears to know exactly how many media files are on the drive, but the one it uses to share with iTunes.
Meaning that no matter how many files you have on the NAS, or how many times you tell the NAS to rebuild the database, it only will share (via the media server) the files that it found the very first time it scanned the drive.
I’m not a Firefly Media Server expert but I found a great link to people who know much more than I do and a potential fix for this problem.
So… the fix is a link to a file that is supposedly from LaCie Tech support. However, the file is not available from LaCie tech support, (at least I can’t find it anywhere on their website) it’s currently hosted on a file sharing service that is rife with popup’s and other such fun. But, I tried it and it works.
Download the fix. Install the fix via the instructions for installing updates from LaCie. If you can’t find them, (neither could I), you can update the firmware from the “Configuration” tab of the Web Based Admin Utility for the NAS. Once you’ve applied the patch it is important to rebuild the media database from the “media” tab in the admin utility. Go back into iTunes and all your files should appear. Woo-Hoo!
Note: This “fix” apparently causes iTunes to name the shared library “EDmini” as opposed to the network name you configure for the NAS device. Annoying. I wonder what happens if you put two of them on the same network. Hmmm.
May 17th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
A few weeks ago I also bought a “EDmini 320Gb” her in Holland. I didn’t new about the feature to use it as mediaserver but when I tried, I’d liked it very.
I updated the firmware at first use to v1.1.2.1 from here;
http://www.lacie.com/nl/support/drivers/driver.htm?id=10105
After changing the shares and the folder with music the media server did not stream the files anymore to my iTunes on my Mac. That’s how I found some webpages like this. I also found the fix but haven’t tried yet.
Were you running the 1.1.2.1 before using the fix?
Does it still work?
Grtz from Holland,
Geryka
May 17th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Yes, I was running 1.1.2.1 when I applied the fix. And yes, it does work to allow the Lacie Ethernet drive media server to properly index the media files so that iTunes can see them all. I use it on a daily basis and haven’t had any problems with the media server. It sounds to me like it could possibly fix your problem.
The continuing problems I’ve had are…
The name of the edmini device seems to randomly change in iTunes. Also, it changes at different times/places and to different values depending on if you’re running iTunes from a Mac or PC.
Album artwork doesn’t work at all. I love the “album browser” mode in iTunes. It’s basically worthless when browsing the edmini because there is no concept of album artwork to display.
Playlists. Just forget about those. I can play all the edmini music I want but can’t create playlists or add any songs to local playlists. It makes it very difficult to manage the vast amount of music you can store on the media server.