Where to create a shared media folder?

Question

I'd like to place all my family's media in one shared folder for everyone to use from any computer. Whether it's a PC or home server.

What is more appropriate:

• Create it in my home folder (/home/lamcro/media/)
• Create a new account called media (/home/media/)
• or just Create a new folder (/media/)

As far as I know, there is no "Shared Folder" in Ubuntu, like in Windows.

I'm just looking for the least cumbersome method, in case I ever want to do a full Linux re-install.

Answer 1

I would recommend creating and using a /srv mount point for "services provided by your system".

Personally, I have the following:

/srv

    /srv/mm         (for "multimedia")
    /srv/mm/music   (all shared music)
    /srv/mm/photos  (all shared photos)
    ...
    ...

I then mount these directories using NFS on all other family computers on the network. I use the same naming convention on each client to keep things simple.

Answer 2

/media: Not such a good idea. You should find an existing folder in that location. This is where Ubuntu auto-mounts any external media. You'll find new folders mysteriously springing up within your share when you plug in some media e.g an external USB drive. You could instead place your files within a folder in /media, e.g /media/Lamcro-Media.

/home/lamcro/media: A so-so choice. Chances of accidental deletion of a folder are high when they are in your home directory. You do not want to lose your photos and home videos due to an accidental click or a command that didn't go as planned.

/home/media: You could do this, if the new user 'media' will own all the files. If not, it'd be just a location, albeit one tied to a user account. I'd avoid this, just because I don't get the logic behind a userid for my media.

My suggestion would be to create a new partition, mount it within /media, e.g. /media/Lamcro-Media and then place your files there. If you ever had to reinstall linux, you would be able to leave this partition untouched, and mount it again on the newly installed system. Failing that, I'd opt for /media/Lamcro-Media as a normal folder, but that's just personal choice.

Going by your question, I'd say the key is to create a new partition to keep all your media. You could then mount it at /media and, if dissatisfied, remount it elsewhere.

Answer 3

I do this exact thing with an external drive. Same basic idea as the new partition without repartitioning. I have never looked into the nuts and bolts but the drive is on when you boot up so shows up for everyone and we use it for any data that is appropriate to share between users.