Summary
iTunes appears to have a formidable weakness. It does not appear to be possible to store a subset of one's collection on a Mac, just as one routinely does on an iOS device.
Details
We normally treat an iPod, an iPad, and an iPhone as a slave device, by that I mean that we declare a Mac a master device, store our complete iTunes library on the Mac, and sync the iOS (slave) device using some given criteria.
I would like to do exactly the same process between two Macs. I would like to declare one Mac/OS X the master device and store the complete iTunes collection on it. I would then declare a second (third, etc) Mac/OS X the slave and sync with the master device.
As you can guess, the idea is that one OS X (the "slave" in this context) will be your work machine with its disk dedicated to serious stuff (and/or comes with fast/limited storage), while the other OS X (the "master") will be your media machine with large (disk-based) storage.
Can one sync iTunes between two OS X machines? How?
Update: This question is similar, but the rsync option is not suitable. The point is not to store a duplicate, but a small subset of the full collection. It seems a solution is not possible with stock utilities at this time, at least not until the competing ecosystem offers a viable solution to the same problem, but don't hold your breath.
Best Answer
I have a setup in which my entire iTunes library (not just my media folder) is housed on an external hard drive. This allows it to be portable - I take it between computers, open iTunes, and it'll 'update' the database so it can pull from it. All data and settings in mine transfer over.
The drive makes it easier when managing a very large music library with a multitude of playlists and also want to update your phone from multiple computers/eases replacement of an existing computer. This might be able to achieve the same result you're looking for, and will also address the concerns over space. I was able to pick up a 1TB external USB 3.0 drive for ~$100.