The media center stores all media files (audio, video, images) on the attached hard disk, provides a database for organizing these files according to their content (iTunes) and uses the iTunes the content to the connected media streaming clients|

The Mac Mini is connected via Ethernet cable to the WiFi Router, in order to provide maximum throughput. During normal operation there is no further accessory, i.e. monitor, keyboard, mouse attached to the Mac Mini, since all remote administration is done via “Screen Sharing” from another computer. The Mac Mini is running Mac OS X Lion and the latest iTunes version which is configured to start on boot-up.

The attached 2 GB USB hard drive is formatted with the native HFS+ filesystem and is used to store all media files.