Dual SSD/HDD on Mid 2010 macbook pro

[Bbafett]

Question. Planning on getting a Crucial MX100 256 GB ssd and put my old hdd into the superbay drive. I do intend on doing a clean install of yosemite from a bootable usb. Then I will reinstall itunes and all other programs.

My question is how do I get Itunes to find all my media files on the old hdd without having to manually add each one? I want the media to stay on the hdd.

Can someone walk me through this?

 

[powerslave65]

When opening itunes click and hold option key and it will ask to choose a library or create a new one. Click choose, find it, and done.

 

[Bbafett]

When opening itunes click and hold option key and it will ask to choose a library or create a new one. Click choose, find it, and done.

I have the new ssd in an external case setting it up. Installation of hardware into laptop will be done tonight.

Will doing this above move the library file over to the ssd for the speed benefit and still keep the media files? I was reading that putting the library file on ssd will make iTunes run faster while still keeping pictures and media on hdd

Can you explain how to do this if it isn't just holding the option key on opening iPhoto and iTunes? Thx.

 

[namethisfile]

Hi,

I'll take a crack at this. I am assuming your iTunes Library is in your old HDD, which was also your OS drive? If that is so, I would move/copy the music files in the iTunes folder to a temporary drive. Either a big enough USB stick or external drive. Otherwise, you will have 2 OS's running. You'll need to reformat the HDD, anyway.

Where iTunes app is installed is usually where your OS is installed. In this case, your new SSD.

This is what I would do, if you were me:

1) Copy the entire "iTunes" folder under "Music" in OS X to a big enough USB stick, or, external drive

2) Copy any other personal files from your old HDD that you don't want deleted forever

3) reformat HDD; via Disk Utility (I guess you can do this now or later before installing OS X; or afterwards; your pick)

4) Install SSD and HDD into your laptop

5) Install OS X into the SSD; (this is also the time before installing OS X to format the HDD if you choose disk utility from the menu)

6) Install/update your apps; (I guess you can also format that HDD at this time, if, you haven't done so)

7) copy/drag the "iTunes" folder you copied into your HDD in the optical bay (you definitely need to format that HDD before doing this step; google how to format HDD in OS X if you don't know)

8) as powerslave mentioned, open iTunes by clicking it and holding the Option Key, wherein, it will ask you to choose a Library or create a new one. Click Choose Library, find the iTunes library you had just copied and you're done.

 

[teezy]

EDIT: didn't realize i had the thread display newest>oldest, so i completely overlooked namethisfile's response. disregard mine! haha.

Question. Planning on getting a Crucial MX100 256 GB ssd and put my old hdd into the superbay drive. I do intend on doing a clean install of yosemite from a bootable usb. Then I will reinstall itunes and all other programs.

My question is how do I get Itunes to find all my media files on the old hdd without having to manually add each one? I want the media to stay on the hdd.

Can someone walk me through this?

'Sup! I have a Crucial MX100 512gb in my MBP (9,2; mid-2012) along with the stock Toshiba 750gb HDD. The SSD is in the main bay and the HDD is in an optidrive caddy.
I had EVERYTHING (like my media and apps) on my HDD and backed them up to a 1tb seagate backup desktop drive (whatever its "actually" called lol). Following this, I wiped my HDD clean and installed Mavericks (back then, 10.9 was the latest, anyway) along with a recovery partition on it. Not only is this drive a failsafe for, God forbid, anything happens to the SSD while I'm nowhere near my external drives, but it is also a scratch disk for when I'm editing video and whatnot.

Installed the SSD to my mbp, installed a fresh copy of Mavericks on it as well, and simply copied over my media from the external drive. And that was that. Although my iPhoto Library and 90% of my videos are saved onto the external drive, as I have hundreds of gigs of video and photo libraries lol. Upgraded to a 2tb external drive as of this christmas, thanks to my girlfriend. So now I use the 1tb as a time machine drive.

Anyway –*what you could do when you actually perform the mod, is manually open the library file FROM your HDD, since you plan on leaving all of that on that particular drive. This way, iTunes will use that file and every bit of metadata connected to it as THE library for your setup.

 

[Bbafett]

Hi,

I'll take a crack at this. I am assuming your iTunes Library is in your old HDD, which was also your OS drive? If that is so, I would move/copy the music files in the iTunes folder to a temporary drive. Either a big enough USB stick or external drive. Otherwise, you will have 2 OS's running. You'll need to reformat the HDD, anyway.

Where iTunes app is installed is usually where your OS is installed. In this case, your new SSD.

This is what I would do, if you were me:

1) Copy the entire "iTunes" folder under "Music" in OS X to a big enough USB stick, or, external drive

2) Copy any other personal files from your old HDD that you don't want deleted forever

3) reformat HDD; via Disk Utility (I guess you can do this now or later before installing OS X; or afterwards; your pick)

4) Install SSD and HDD into your laptop

5) Install OS X into the SSD; (this is also the time before installing OS X to format the HDD if you choose disk utility from the menu)

6) Install/update your apps; (I guess you can also format that HDD at this time, if, you haven't done so)

7) copy/drag the "iTunes" folder you copied into your HDD in the optical bay (you definitely need to format that HDD before doing this step; google how to format HDD in OS X if you don't know)

8) as powerslave mentioned, open iTunes by clicking it and holding the Option Key, wherein, it will ask you to choose a Library or create a new one. Click Choose Library, find the iTunes library you had just copied and you're done.

So now I am confused. I had already done the Hold Option step as Powerslave suggested and it worked without issue. However, I had used setup a clean Mavericks install on the SSD and then used migration assistant to move documents, applications, and settings(basically everything but photos and itunes media).

I have a bootable clone of my original HDD setup on an external drive as a backup. I did not reformat the hdd as you state above. So now I might have two OSX's running at the same time? If the SSD is the boot drive wouldn't the OSX boot only on that one? If I reformat the HDD and put my pictures and Itunes back on there wouldn't the drive have to have OSX on it for me to access from the SSD?

Please help me better understand this.

 

[namethisfile]

So now I am confused. I had already done the Hold Option step as Powerslave suggested and it worked without issue. However, I had used setup a clean Mavericks install on the SSD and then used migration assistant to move documents, applications, and settings(basically everything but photos and itunes media).

I have a bootable clone of my original HDD setup on an external drive as a backup. I did not reformat the hdd as you state above. So now I might have two OSX's running at the same time? If the SSD is the boot drive wouldn't the OSX boot only on that one? If I reformat the HDD and put my pictures and Itunes back on there wouldn't the drive have to have OSX on it for me to access from the SSD?

Please help me better understand this.

Well, there is only one way to find out. Restart your mac and press "C" during startup. It will then show you options of bootable disk connected to your mac. If you see two (your ssd and your old hdd) then you do, indeed, have two OS's running on the two drives.