My recent grumbling about NFS and iTunes performance escalated yesterday into a more thorough testing of the wired networking facilities here in my basement, comparing cables, and then finally narrowing it down to the ethernet switch apparently dying slowly but surely. I mean, 50% packet loss or more on the local network is not exactly normal.
Follows a trip to the store to pick up a new one, a 5 port switch to replace the 8 port kind that we had; There is less need for wired networking now that the MacMinis have been switched to wifi as well.
Put in place, everything begins to work sanely again, within expected parameters so to speak.
I’m still considering switching to a different music player (there’s a half-finished entry with more details on that project that I’ll try to wrap up this week) but for the time being iTunes will do the job, again.