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photos & music on external HD

M

MSM Hobbes

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 25, 2006
375
0
NE Hoosierana
I've a MB and iMac [Intel versions], both running 10.4.11, and both have five different accounts [woman, 2 critters, me, and then me/admin]. Within ~4 of these 10 accounts, have collection of music in iTunes and photos in iPhoto. Desire is to put all music together and all photos together, on the external HD [Buffalo 500 GB FW+USB], moving all these from the two computers, freeing up internal HD space. So, there will be no music or photos [besides newly acquired] on the MB and iMac HD's themselves - just access all from the Buffalo. I've formatted 450GB into HFS+ [Mac OS extended - journaled], and then balance into MS-DOS, just in case ever wanted something there from my work Dell laptop.

Questions:
1. how best to move the songs to the external HD, from/with iTunes?
2. how best to move the photos to the external HD, from/with iPhoto?
3. what is best/safest/fastest means to then access the music?
4. what is best/safest/fastest means to then access the images?
5. can just move the iTunes and iPhoto folder themselves onto the ext. HD, and then access via holding down "option" when opening the application?
6. but if 5 is possible, what about all the images and songs in the other accounts? I don't want multiple iTunes and iPhoto on the ext. HD! ;) So, is it possible then to just move the images themselves from these other accounts, into the iTunes/iPhoto app that I've moved to the HD first?

7. I will want to have backups of all music and photos onto another Buffalo HD, which will be in a safe. Yes, just a tad anal about this protection - but figured for the relatively low cost [~$135 each] for the external HD's, this is funds well spent to protect these images and songs. How would be best to update this, if done every 2-4 weeks or so? What application would be best?

btw, both iTunes and iPhoto are latest rendition via Tiger.

Thanks much! Sorry for the length of this post - just desire to make sure get it all right, do not want to lose any of the 10's of thousands of photos that have, for example...

ps: I've read about apps such as iPhoto Buddy and iPhoto Library Manager - anyone here actually use these, have any pros/cons to mention?
 
Move the media files from the itunes library (music subfodler) and iPhoto library (drag from the all photos window) over to the buffalo (perhaps just make a media folder with music and photos subfolders). you can assign access priveledges to this media folder via the "get info" command.

on the user accounts, I'd say to deselect the option in iTunes and iPhoto to "copy files to the library" and them reimport the files from the buffalo. you will have only 1 copy of the media (on the bufalo), with the files aliased and accessible by multiple users simulantouslty via their iTunes/iPhoto. even if a user deletes a file through iPhoto or iTunes. the original will not be altered.
 
I was always under the impression that iTunes and especially iPhoto didn't like sharing a single folder as it screws around with the database files. Although that may be if both computers are accessing at the same time...

For iTunes at least, it might be worth having all of your music on the network but importing it manually into iTunes so the database file still sits on each computer's local disk.

I can't remember where I read this but I think it may have been around the time of the introduction of Airdisk....
 
Thanks much for the replies - will look at these in more detail in a bit, right now gotta do some traveling due to work for next few days. One other thing that I didn't mention in that long intro post - will keep the Buffalo Ext HD attached to the iMac, which is 'attached' to the i'net via Airport Extreme signals; will then access [try to anyhow] photos/songs via the MB, which also gets feed from the AE. Of course, can always if need just attach the Buff to the MB via FW when necessary. Anyhow, again, appreciate the help. :cool:
 
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