iTunes on External HD

[Grover088]

I recently purchased new MBA. Obviously I couldn't store 100+GB's of music on 128GB SSD, so I purchased a 1TB WD My Passport. I transferred my iTunes folder from my old MacBook to the WD drive and made that the iTunes library for my new MBA. Everything works fine when the WD is plugged in, but I cannot even open iTunes if its not plugged in. I really want to get iTunes match, so I can stream music if I don't have my WD with me. (+ benefits of iPhone and iPad streaming) I am wondering how I can do this if I need the external HD with me to even open my iTunes?

Also, I want to use iTunes match to get all album art, and higher quality on some of my old music files. So my question is... once I use iTunes match, are the files converted locally? i.e. album art high quality even if I let it expire after a year?

Thanks in advance

[AppleDApp]

You probably moved the itunes.itl file to the external drive as well. that has to stay on the internal drive. the file is fairly small 100MB at most.

I used this guide. Make sure you read through it all before you proceed to the steps.

As for iTunes Match, I have read that you will lose the artwork and higher quality music files once you stop paying for the service.

[Grover088]

Originally Posted by AppleDApp

You probably moved the itunes.itl file to the external drive as well. that has to stay on the internal drive. the file is fairly small 100MB at most.

I used this guide. Make sure you read through it all before you proceed to the steps.

As for iTunes Match, I have read that you will lose the artwork and higher quality music files once you stop paying for the service.

Thanks, that article was very informative. I didn't realize that the library and the actual files were separate. So not I just have the media files on my external, everything else is on my internal.

How is it possible that they would upgrade the files and then take that away, unless it somehow creates a new library? I would really like to know more about iCloud before I go for it.

[AppleDApp]

Originally Posted by Grover088

Thanks, that article was very informative. I didn't realize that the library and the actual files were separate. So not I just have the media files on my external, everything else is on my internal.

How is it possible that they would upgrade the files and then take that away, unless it somehow creates a new library? I would really like to know more about iCloud before I go for it.

I'm not sure I recall reading something about iTunes first scanning your library to see which songs were there. I guess the higher quality song is only streamed so when you click song1 on your computer, the version you have maybe 256KPBS but apple will play it's version of the same song at 320KBPS.

This is all speculation I am not sure.