[Tomahawk]

Audiomixer:

I have a new 2014 Mac Mini, running Yosemite 10.10.2 (as of yesterday), and an older 2009 Mac Mini, which has variously been running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, Mavericks 10.9, and Yosemite 10.10.1.

Yosemite 10.10.1 was giving the 2009 Mac Mini fits (lots of freezes while booting), so I did a clean install to 10.6.8.

My external HDDs are connected to the 2014 Mini. I can't connect to the new Mini from the old Mini through XBMC, but I can access the shares via SMB by going Finder->Go->Connect to Server.

When the old Mac Mini was running Yosemite 10.10.1, the connected servers would disconnect (eject) at random.

Under 10.6.8, the connected servers don't disconnect, but they simply "freeze" after a certain period of inactivity, forcing me to restart the machine. I can't eject them, but I can still see them on my desktop.

Blarghhhhh.

[Audiomixer]

This may be a dumb question, but why don't you just forget the 2009 mini and just run the 2014 one for server and home theater?
I read this morning that performance of the 2009 mini on yosemite serverly lags behind even Mavericks (which, other than snow leopard is the only opsys that remembers connected network drives, at least for me).
I've got 2 minis here and a MacBook Pro running yosemite. I might try a few things tomorrow.

Have you tried this?
Go to system preferences: File Sharing: where you see the list of currently shared items click the plus button and select the external drive click add (this will add the drive as a shared volume). Set your permissions, click options and select if it is an AFP, or SMB etc type share and your are all ready to go.

[Tomahawk]

Hey Audiomixer.

The 2014 Mini is our main server/HTPC. All our drives are connected directly to it via USB 3.0. It's in the living room, where we do 90% of our viewing.

The trouble is, we keep the 2009 Mini hooked up to the TV in our bedroom. This is where I'm trying to get XBMC networked, so we can watch trash TV in bed from time to time.

All said, I haven't yet tried mounting my drives on the 2009 Mac Mini since updating my 2014 Mini to 10.10.2 Yosemite. Perhaps they'll be more stable. Of course, I also have to decide which OS to put on the 2009 Mini. The older machine definitely did not agree with Yosemite 10.10.1 -- nasty crashes/freezes. I think I'll install Mavericks 10.9.5.

Regarding adding the drives in File Sharing: Yes, I've done that. No luck. Honestly, if the drives would just stay mounted on the 2009 Mini after going Finder->Go->Connect to Server, I would have no issues with not being able to connect them the traditional way in XBMC. It's just that the drives disconnect at random (or freeze) when mounted this way.

I'd love to hear if you're able to network two Yosemite Minis. Keep me posted.

[Audiomixer]

Cool, the only opsys I can keep network drives mounted on is snow leopard and mavericks on my mini 2010.