Sleep when using Mac Mini as Media Center and NAS

[martinolesen]

Hi All,

Just found this excellent forum and hoped you could help me with this question.

I am a long time PC user but have recently been fascinated by Airplay and the Mac Mini.
For some time now I have been looking at a new setup for my home media - especially music - and I believe that 2xAirport Express connected to two sets of powered speakers and a USB printer along with a Mac Mini connected to my HDTV as the central unit could do the trick.

As we have two Windows laptops I would like to setup the Mac Mini to not only act as a Media Center, but also as Media Server/NAS where I would setup the two laptops to sync both their music files and their documents etc. to and from using a good synchronization program like maybe Good Sync or Syncables (recommendations welcome, doesn't have to be free)

Although I would like comments and recommendations on that my real question is about sleep when the Mac Mini acts as a NAS. We are not heavy users in any way so I would want the Mac Mini to wake and sleep as the network requires, without me having to manually interfere. That means, when it is pinged from the network to wake so files can sync or when I want to remote control the music on it with for example my IPhone, it should just wake without problems. After a short while of doing nothing it should go to sleep again. Will this work?

To connect everything I was looking to install Plex and Airfoil on the Mac Mini, Airfoil on the Windows Laptops, Plex on my IPhone and maybe Doubletwist and Plex on my Android phone to control the setup.

Any thoughts, experiences, recommendations?

[martinolesen]

Btw. if sleep doesn't work then I wonder if anyone can tell me what the power consumption of a new Mac Mini (2,4 Ghz, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD) is when it is completely idle and if there is anything I can do to make sure it is as low as possible?