Is a Mac Mini with external storage quick enough to stream to Apple TV?

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Hi there.

I wish to stream DVD's using home sharing on iTunes to my Apple TV. Previously I did it with my mid 2011 iMac but I no longer have that machine.

I recently upgraded my networking in my basement and I want to throw a Mac Mini down there for space limitations to act as the shared library.

I see Mac Mini's on eBay for less than $100 but they are powerPC based. For a short while, I had a Power Mac G5 Tower to do this but I quickly sold it after noticing the OS was 10.3.x and iTunes sharing started in 9 I believe, and itunes 9 needs OSX 10.4 at least I think.

I obviously want to spend as little as possible. I considered getting a newer mac mini with a 1TB storage but for cheaper, I can pick up 2TB external NAS for around 100 or a little more, then spend around 100 or less for a powerPC mac mini with at least OSx 10.4 on it.

I would be streaming to my Apple TV 3rd Gen and possible attempting to run Plex media server on it for my Roku.

I have gigabit ethernet and I'd hard wire the external HD and the mac mini. I have at minimum cat 5e cables. My Apple TV gets it signal from my Apple Airport express (cat 6 connecting it's LAN to the gigabit switch).

So if i get a powerPC mac mini and external NAS, would it run quickly enough? Basically I need the mac mini to always be on, or able to wake up and I am streaming my DVD collection that I ripped and I want the videos to be able to run smoothly.

I'm not sure if RAM on the mini is a real factor or not?

What are some suggestions, would this work? Thanks.
 
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I use my mini with iTunes running all the time for my Apple TV. I have my entire iTunes library on an external drive and there are no issues streaming. I dont even have a monitor hooked up to the mini. I remote to it from my MBP or iPad.

As with any, the more RAM you can shove in, the better. But if you are only streaming, it is less critical.
 
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What type of processor are you running on the mini?

Ideally I would also not even have a monitor hooked up to it. I would just need one for the initial setup to get it on the network. But my intention was to use the "screen sharing" app, that's kinda hidden away in the OS, to tap into the mini to move files around that way. As I don't want to pay $100 for apples RDP software.

But then there's the question, can you use screen sharing to share a screen from a machine running mountain lion to see a leopard machine that's a power PC?

I tried it to get into the tiger OS and it couldn't see it.

EDIT: Oh I see from your listing, you're using a newer mini.
 
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I just use the built in screen sharing, no extra cost. As for being hidden away, connect once, the make an alias to it. That is how mine is set up. And yes, I have a newer one.
 
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Mac mini will work fine

You shouldn't have any issues streaming from a Mac mini to your 3rd Gen Apple TV. If you are buying one used or refurbished, I would try to get as current of model as you can even though the newer models lack a dvd drive.
 

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