MAC home video/photo server for Christmas present for my wife

New member, first post.

My wife has been asking me to figure out a way to store all of our Home videos and Photos to one place digitally so that we can watch them when we wanted to. She has wanted this for Christmas which is quickly approaching. Is this feasible, and what to you guys/gals recommend?

I have Mac laptops, Apple TV, and Samsung TV that has an ALLShare app that will handle NAS. I have tried using Itunes to import a home video of the kids and it doubled the size of the file, which I though was strange.

Someone told me that I need a big harddrive setup i.e. Drobo/QNAP setup and will need a server either MacMini/iMac/Mac Pro. Economical is nice but I am willing to pay for what is best!

So to summarize, looking for a way if possible to take all home videos, pics, music, Catalog them, and be able to watch them on the TV when wanted.

Thanks in advance! Eric

I have a Samsung TV with AllShare as well and I primarily use it to stream videos from my NAS. I haven't tried photos, but I imagine that works as well.

AllShare is Samsung's name for DLNA (as far as I know), so any NAS that is DLNA-compliant will be usable by the TV.

Rather than going with the Drobo/server route, I would recommend the NAS which is essentially the two things combined into one convenient package.

I have a ReadyNAS that works pretty well, the Synology NAS' are getting very nice reviews lately and if I were to do it again, I'd probably go the Synology route.

The NAS' come in multi-disk variety, so depending on your budget and perceived storage needs you can decide how many bays you want. I have the 4-bay unit capable of handling up to 1.5TB in each bay. My NAS is 5+ years old, and the newer units will handle much larger drives and have cooler features..