Connecting a macbook pro with a mini mac

Is it possible to connect a macbook pro with a mini mac so that i will be able to access both the harddrive files on it and any external harddrives that i have attached too it? So that i can then add files from say my macbook pro onto one of the external harddrives or the internal one of the mini mac and also be able to access/stream files from the mini macs harddrives onto my macbook.

Thanks for any help in advance!

Welcome to the Forum. One way that should work Ok is connect the Mini to the MBP with Firewire and connect a keyboard to the Mini. Start the Mini and then hold the T key for about 30 secs, then start the MBP and hold the Option Key this should give you the option of which HD to boot off - either will do unless the mini is a PPC - then once it has booted up you will have both HD icons on desktop. With more info re your hardware better answers are possible.

Or, assuming that both your Macs are connected to the router, you can turn on file sharing and be able to use Finder.

Sorry i wasn't very clear on what i really wanted i'll try better to explain it.

I want to use the mini mac as sort of a media centre/file server. I want to have my mini mac connected to my TV and use something like plex or another program to watch movies and stuff on it. I want to store all my music and movies/tv shows onto my mini mac. I will also attach an external harddrives to the mini mac. My main question is will i be able too access all of the information on the mini mac/external harddrives attached to the mini mac on my macbook? Will i be able to store/transfer information to and from the mini mac and it's external drives? E.g. Store all my music on and external drive attached to my mini mac and then access it on my macbook.

I hope that was a little bit clearer.

Current specs

MacBook Pro - 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 4GB 1067 Mhz DDR3 Running Mac OS X 10.6.3

The mini mac i was interested in getting to do this is

2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB memory
320GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
Mac OS X Snow Leopard


If you have any suggestions or completely different ideas for what i wish to achieve then please any help would be splendid.

Thanks in advance!

What you are trying to do should work fine. You have to enable file sharing for the mac mini - System Preferences -> Sharing -> File Sharing You'll also probably want to enable screen sharing so you can VNC or use the built in screen sharing to control the mini.

I've found that if you try to play DVD quality VOBs over wireless - even with N the playback is choppy so if you really want to use it as a media server you'll want to use handbrake to encode to Apple Universal. Those encoded movies seem to play fine over wireless. Otherwise if you really want to watch VOBs then you'll need to wire into your network.

Other than that everything should show up in finder and you should be able to double click on whatever media you want. For ITunes I just use library sharing instead of trying to get to individual files - but for movies I just watch them as files. My media setup is with a laptop PC - but I also have a mac mini that I store some stuff on and it works fine.

If I may piggy-back this thread, I would like to ask why two Mac computers will not interconnect via ethernet, through a switch (hub).
Situation:
G5 iMac, OS Tiger
Intel Macbook, OS Tiger
TP-Link 1005D switch

The Macbook 'sees' the iMac, but not vice-versa.

Without trying to suggest answers, I suspect ...
1. the problem lies in the fact that the user doesn't know the root password for the Macbook he bought, with OEM Tiger on it. He logs on as Friend.
2. to network the two computers, one has to log on as Guest, which is fine for very limited privileges (as I understand it), but with Dropbox the only access function. That's not a lot of use when one computer cannot 'see' what is on the other.

The user has full access to the G5 iMac.

The user wishes only to transfer files between the two computers. The ethernet switch is obviously working, verified by the fact that internet access is available from both computers, via the switch.

I think that explains the situation, more information if required, please ask.

The firewire interface option will be tried at a later date, but networking would be the ideal preference.

Thanks ..... hugh