Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Itunes with multiple hard drives

D

Dont42Panic

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 23, 2008
27
0
Jeffersonville, IN
Ok so I am kind of new with using a Mac and I haven't seen a thread answering my question exactly, so I am going to throw this out there and see if anyone can help.

I currently am storing all of my itunes files (songs and movies mostly) on my internal hard drive. Since I bought an Apple TV I have begun ripping my dvds to itunes and streaming. This is killing my hard drive space. What I'd like to do is setup an external hard drive dedicated to music and another external hard drive dedicated to movies and have access to both hard drives through itunes.

Is this possible, if so how do I set it up? And is there a handy dandy easy way in itunes to transfer the files currently on my internal to the external hard drives, again if so how do I set it up? If this has been answered on another thread feel free to point me in the right direction and I'll go there.
 
Well, I hope you know exactly where you have put your ripped video files, so I'm going to assume you know.

You can either do this via USB directly to the computer or to an Airport Extreme Base Station. I have a MBP, so I do the AEBS thing. But for just plugging a USB hard drive in, create some sort of folder organization method. I have TV Shows, Movies, and Music Videos. I just throw all the movies in the Movies folder. I create a LOT of subfolders in TV Shows. I go with the TV show names to start with (Seinfeld), then add subfolders in those (Seinfeld - Season 1). I always use "Season 1" instead of "Season One" for organization/alphabetical purposes.

So basically throw your videos into the right folders this way. You need to make sure to put them on your USB hard drive and then delete them from your internal hard drive. If these are already in your iTunes Library, you'll have to tell iTunes where the file is next time you try to play it. After that, it knows.

New files are much easier. Put the video in the appropriate folder on the external HDD, then select "Add to Library..." from the File menu. Select the video(s) and it adds them to the right section. iTunes treats all videos as movies by default. You either have to reconfigure your TV shows in the "Get Info" box or use software like MetaX to do it (recommended b/c that actually does it on the files instead of in iTunes' brain).

You can then go nuts with playlists and folders. You can set iTunes up to watch entire seasons of TV shows continuously this way. It's too bad AppleTV doesn't have this yet (no, damn annoying!). Hope this helps.
 
Ok I think that does make sense. I do know where all my videos are and thankfully they are in one place in a folder marked movies, so hopefully that won't be any trouble.

Couple quick questions though. When you say "tell Itunes where the file is the next time you play it", is it just going to pop up a box asking for the new path? If so do you know any way to automate the process? I've got like 90 movies, so wouldn't be to horrible to go in and just redo the paths, but if there is a quicker way I'd certainly do it.

Second and I believe you pretty much answered it, but just confirming. I do use MetaX for my movies, so after I move them all the tags will still be there since it was done to the file, correct?

Thanks for your help.
 
I currently have my itunes library on an external HDD. If you let itunes organize your files i believe if you change the location of your library in the advanced tab of your preferences to a folder on your external HDD. Once this is done there is the option to consolidate your library in the advanced menu in itunes. What i believe this does is copy everything to that itunes folder on your external HDD but also amends the locations in itunes etc. instead of having to manually do it. Hope this helps.

P.S. not 100% you have to have itunes organize your library, the consolidate may work without this option ticked.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back