Sharing my iTunes Library with my PC and my Mac

Question

I have both a PC (running Windows 7) and a MacBook Pro (running Snow Leopard). I want to share my iTunes library between them. I have tried this before in the past by putting the library on a NAS and linking both the Mac and the PC to the same folder. Unfortunately, this means that only one machine can access the files. Also, every time each of the machines opens the library, it changes the XML file for the current machine (for some reason, not sure why).

I now have a new NAS and it has iTunes sharing available. Because I have an iPhone, I would like to sync it with both machines. Will the shared iTunes library functionality on my NAS be able to sync from the NAS to the iPhone?

I would like a simple solution to solve this issue. I don't want to have 2 separate libraries as it can be a pain having to keep updating each one. Also, I don't want 100GB (and rising) on both machines.

Answer 1

Having iTunes on Windows and Mac, pointing to your music library on a NAS – this is the situation I am in right now.

I started from the Mac side and just pointed my iTunes media to the NAS (in iTunes preferences > advanced) then did a consolidate (iTunes file > organize libary > consolidate) to get some much needed elbow room on my iMac. Next, I took my work PC with Win XP and mounted the NAS as a networked drive. After installing iTunes on the XP box, I have turned on Home Sharing (you need to have an Apple ID to do so – which I have to download podcasts and such). It's working like a charm right now. I will be checking to see if I can turn off my iMac while on my PC – that will be the full test.

I believe that once you have formatted your iPod/iPhone for one system type, the other system type is incompatible since the formatting the memory in the iPod/iPhone is OS specific. For instance, I use my Mac as my main machine so sync my music/podcasts with it thus my iPod is set up for Mac updates. I have turned off the iPod/iPhone update on my XP so I can charge the iPhone while working on my XP system and it won't attempt to reformat and sync again I prefer this setup anyway.