External hard-drive for itunes.

[Ashapalan]

My 60GB hard drive on my laptop is now out of space because of the large amount of videos on my itunes. My plan is as follows.....

I am going to buy an external hard-drive and move all of my itunes library over to that.

From searching other threads, i have learnt that through the advanced menu in itunes i can make itunes read the library on this external hard drive and then when this drive isn't connected, it will revert to the internal one again.

I plan to delete all videos off my internal drive to free up space

I was just hoping for anyone to confirm that this will work, and if there is any added difficulties to how i plan to do this.

I just don't want to mess up my itunes folder, and of course, don't want to loose anything.

Thanks.

 

[mad jew]

Hmm... I might be wrong (hopefully and most likely) but I don't think iTunes will revert to another library when you disconnect your hard drive. iPhoto does this but I don't think iTunes does. Having said that, you could split your library if you disable iTunes' ability to manage your files. In other words, you'd be able to keep the files wherever you want. I don't recommend this though. It's usually more work than it's worth.

Would you be willing to forgo iTunes' ability to manage your music files?

Of course, I could be completely wrong on all of this.

 

[Ashapalan]

Thanks for the quick response mad Jew!

I do get a bit lost in the way some of the ilife apps store info, (cough, iphoto) and i kinda like the way itunes does everything for me! Hmm, i don't think i'd dare make things too complicated...

 

[mad jew]

Yeah, the problem would be that if you have anything on the external drive that needs to be synchronised with the iPods and the drive is unplugged, you'd get some strange corruptions (well, that's what I find).

Is it easy to keep everything on the external? Considering you let iTunes manage your files and you already know the trick way of moving libraries around, it should be a pretty painless process to get your stuff there.

Of course, a sneaky and slightly messy workaround is to have a separate user account with iTunes set to store some of your files on the internal drive. This way you have access to some of your files even if you don't have your drive. With Fast User Switching, it can be pretty painless going between the two accounts. Nevertheless, it's still a bit messy.

 

[Ashapalan]

My original plan was to put everything on the external hard drive. I was just wondering whether the library on the internal drive would be used if the external wasn't present, or wheter i'd have to switch the source through the preferances everytime i was away from the external

I think the best course of action may be to just get the external and mess around, try and find the best way for me. My music is backed up on my ipod anyhow

Thanks mad jew for your help, i've learn't of a few other possibilities if i can't find a simple/lazy way to do it!

 

[PaRaGoNViCtiM]

I too have considered doing this, but the risks have always overwhelmed me to much to actually do it. My iMac's internal HD is completely full, I have nothing free, so I switched over most of my apps to my external drive, but it hasn't made a huge difference. What I want to do is keep pretty much everything on my external HD, and keep only what is a necessity on the iMac. I have my music collection on my external, but it is still on my internal. I really have to figure out a way to free up some disk space ASAP! Any ideas are welcomed, or if anyone knows a definite way to do what the OP is requesting, let us know!!

 

[iPhil]

Hmm... I might be wrong (hopefully and most likely) but I don't think iTunes will revert to another library when you disconnect your hard drive. iPhoto does this but I don't think iTunes does. Having said that, you could split your library if you disable iTunes' ability to manage your files. In other words, you'd be able to keep the files wherever you want. I don't recommend this though. It's usually more work than it's worth.

Would you be willing to forgo iTunes' ability to manage your music files?

Of course, I could be completely wrong on all of this.

Just did the ejecting my ext. drive with my small iTunes collection and checked the itunes location in Advanced tab in iTunes Pref. (cmd ,) and now its showing internal location, but if you try to play a song you'll get an error .. If you deleted the internal itunes collection except the .xml file

 

[Ashapalan]

Just did the ejecting my ext. drive with my small iTunes collection and checked the itunes location in Advanced tab in iTunes Pref. (cmd ,) and now its showing internal location, but if you try to play a song you'll get an error .. If you deleted the internal itunes collection except the .xml file

Thanks for that, confirms the internal question.

 

[iPhil]

Thanks for that, confirms the internal question.

np.. but my thank you is to the Mad One ..

O Mad, you know whats its for ..

Ash: i was glad to be a guinea pig for ya ..



small edit: the .xml file holds all itunes preferences/info for itunes

 

[Halsey12]

My original plan was to put everything on the external hard drive. I was just wondering whether the library on the internal drive would be used if the external wasn't present, or wheter i'd have to switch the source through the preferances everytime i was away from the external

When my girlfriend had hers set up like that, if iTunes was opened and the external hard drive was not mounted, iTunes would revert the library back to the computer's hard drive. It was a nightmare to figure out! All her purchased music was going to her internal hard drive, and iTunes couldn't find all the other music... ah! A mess! But we cleaned it up.

 

[amholl]

I do this and it works fine. I would (if u have time) Burn all music/videos onto data cds/dvds and then delete them from your library and then put them back after you have changed the advanced menu storage option. It wroks flalessly for me.

 

[chaos86]

I did this, but with a twist. My music folder is on my powerbook's internal, but to get the majority of the videos off of it I make all the movies Artist fields say "Movies" then use an alias in the iTunes Music folder to have the artist folder "Movies" on the external. When I'm on the go I have all my music and podcasts, but the movies get a little exclamation point til I get home and plug in. With the movies the Music folder would be 40gb, but without, its about 10.

 

[mad jew]

chaos86' alias idea is an excellent workaround for keeping a few extra files on the external.

The problem with having two separate drives for the library is that the actual Library data file is very narrow minded and will only look at one drive. Even though iTunes reverts back to the internal drive if it opens and can't find the external, it still doesn't work properly. Of course, this is only if iTunes is set to manage the media files.

small edit: the .xml file holds all itunes preferences/info for itunes

True, although strictly speaking iTunes only looks at the other iTunes Library data file.