Digital music syncing across multiple computers

May 12, 2009 8:13 AM

Help me manage multiple versions of my digital music collection across several computers. Geeky details inside.

I'm trying to keep my digital music collections synced across a number of computers. I have:

- a Macbook (running Leopard using iTunes)
- an Ubuntu desktop (running 9.04 and using either amarok or banshee)
- a standalone raid-5 backup machine (running OpenSolaris 11)

I'm looking to keep not just the music files synced, but also metadata and playlists, if possible. I will be adding music from the iTunes store to the Macbook. If necessary, I can force myself to only add music to the Macbook and then propogate the changes to the other machines (rather than, e.g., ripping CDs on the desktop).

What's the best way to do this?

posted by philosophygeek to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

I run songbird as a daap client (itunes can't do daap+playlists) and firefly media server (mt-daapd) as the daap server. The features page for firefly says it supports user-created playlists, which would mean the playlists get stored on the server.
posted by devnull at 8:34 AM on May 12, 2009

Do you need identical libraries on each device, or could one device host the collection, then share it to the other computers?

For the former, look into software that auto-syncs the folders when they're connected. Good media software will detect changes and add files appropriately.

For the latter, keep the collection on one central network location and tap into it from the other two machines. iTunes lets you set your library location, though I'm not sure if that location can be a network share on another computer.
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 8:53 AM on May 12, 2009

2nd vote for firefly. It works for the iTunes and Songbird users in my house (my wife and I).
posted by purephase at 9:19 AM on May 12, 2009

There's always rsync and openssh.

I've suggested this to many, many mefites for syncing purposes. It's tried and true technology, secure, scriptable, flexible, runs on every OS, etc.

Setup a cron script on your OSX box to RSync with the linux box. Same for the backup server, but less frequently.

If you want "insta-sync" capabilities, you could write a daemon to monitor a directory for changes. I think that's a bit unnecessary though. Just write a script to sync everything, set it up to run in cron as needed, and run it manually if you need to refresh a particular box.

I'd be happy to point you in the right direction (no, I won't write the script for you ;)
posted by teabag at 10:38 AM on May 12, 2009

Response by poster: Let me try to clarify the question a little. I'm not just interested in syncing the files, but also the databases that hold playlists, etc. I don't know if there's an automated way to have changes in, e.g., an iTunes library, reflected in an amarok/banshee library (or vice versa). What I'm trying to avoid is simply rsyncing the files but then having to rebuild the library, playlists, etc. on the target machine.
posted by philosophygeek at 11:40 AM on May 12, 2009

If you want syncing, you must usually avoid iTunes, period. If you only have one Mac, you can wing it by only ever adding music on the Mac, syncing those directories, and playing from them under Linux. SongBird sounds great!
posted by jeffburdges at 4:09 PM on May 12, 2009