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External Hard Drives for iPhoto / iTunes

D

drober30

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 5, 2007
848
106
I was at the apple store ready to purchase an iMac and then was told that I could not use an external hard drive for iPhoto. I was told that iPhoto would only point to the internal hard drive. Is this true?

The other thing I was told was iTunes could use an external hard drive but Time Machine would back it up but not in a way that I could access the backups. I was told that I would have to bring the back up drive in to the store to be recovered. Is this true?

Just doesn't sound right but I know nothing about Macs and am looking to buy my first one. I'm very proficient with PC's.

Thanks!
 
I am using 10.4.11 with current iPhoto updates and have my photos on an external hd, no problems, as long as I remember to power it up before launching iPhoto. As far as iTunes, I had our music files on the external until we upgraded to a new iMac in January. Did not have problems except for an occasional slow down in playbacks. Now with a larger internal drive, I have the music back "inside".

Not sure about the Time Machine functioning with the external HD. Good question though.
 
Well first off, welcome to the mac community (hopefully, that is...)!! As for the answer to your question, you can definitely create iTunes and iPhoto libraries on external drives. Obviously, anything you put in them will only be accessible when the drive is connected, but that goes without saying.

I don't know why you were told you couldn't. Maybe the rep didn't know that you can create a new itunes/iphoto library by holding the "option" key when starting either program. That will easily do what you want it to...

As for the itunes question... time machine will back up an external drive (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/433073/) so you should be ok with that. There should be NO reason whatsoever that you cannot access a time machine backup from either an internal drive or an external drive; that would make no sense... If the same person told you that as did the other issue i wouldn't take what they say with a grain of salt.. But i'm guessing you'd be backing up to a different drive? I mean backing up data to the same drive it's on is kind of pointless...
 
Thanks for the replies and the welcome to the mac community!

The first guy I was talking with was probably new because every question I asked him he had to ask someone else for the answer.

The second guy seemed pretty confident and knowledgeable although that always does not mean much.

I'm glade to hear your responses and had I received them in the store I would be playing on my new iMac right now.

I was going to order online and upgrade the HD but then decided that 320 would be fine because I would rather use an external HD for a growing library that I could hook up to any machine in the future so I drove 50 miles to the Apple store to make the purchase. I think I was just sharing my initial thoughts on the 320GB HD and that's when the whole " cant point iPhoto to external HD" came up. He even went in the back to confirm his statement.

I couldn't imagine such a short coming from any OS/application that would not allow access to an external HD.

Thanks!
 
drober30 said:
I was at the apple store ready to purchase an iMac and then was told that I could not use an external hard drive for iPhoto. I was told that iPhoto would only point to the internal hard drive. Is this true?

The other thing I was told was iTunes could use an external hard drive but Time Machine would back it up but not in a way that I could access the backups. I was told that I would have to bring the back up drive in to the store to be recovered. Is this true?

Just doesn't sound right but I know nothing about Macs and am looking to buy my first one. I'm very proficient with PC's.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hi- I'm curious if this was an Apple employee or another customer in the store that you may have gotten into a discussion with (as I do almost every time I go into an Apple store! :D )?

Those answers are so far off (as has been pointed out above) that it just makes me wonder, as even new employees of Apple stores seem to normally be a lot more informed than that (courtesy of One Infinite Loop training)!
 
sickmacdoc said:
Hi- I'm curious if this was an Apple employee or another customer in the store that you may have gotten into a discussion with (as I do almost every time I go into an Apple store! :D )?

Those answers are so far off (as has been pointed out above) that it just makes me wonder, as even new employees of Apple stores seem to normally be a lot more informed than that (courtesy of One Infinite Loop training)!
Click to expand...

As I'm sure your aware of the overwhelming defection from Windows to Mac, as I am doing now myself, I think they are populating the Apple stores with more than Mac loyalist and probably people just looking for a job. The iPod was one thing but I think the iPhone really has shined the light on Apple. I hope you all like us new comers!

Anyways... the guy was an employee, clearly wearing an apple shirt and one of those Apple name tags around the neck.

They were all very nice for sure...

By the way, he explained it as the application would create a folder called iPhoto under the user account on the local drive and photos would need to be stored here. I figured I could change the path as I do in Windows to point the the external HD?
 
Well, I would not hesitate to say that we are all really glad you made the choice that you have! Good move!

As you have seen too, most Mac people are really willing to share their knowledge, so don't ever hesitate to ask other questions as they come up!

That is really surprising that it was an Apple employee, although he did give partially correct information! The default location for the iPhoto library is indeed on the boot drive (within the Users folder), but that can certainly be redefined as was pointed out above by holding the Option key when you startup iPhoto. You will be given an opportunity to change librarys (if you have multiple libs already- like one for vacations, one for family, etc.) or the option to create a new one. If you do this the first time iPhoto is started up you can just go ahead and create your library on the external drive- from that point on (or until you change libraries) that will be the default location for your iPhoto lib.

Anyhow- welcome aboard. I'm sure you will enjoy it when you get used to it all the way! :D
 
You can put iTunes on ext. drive: Go to iTunes Preferences >advanced tab>Change the location.. then just move the iTunes folder to that location..

I never had any music playing lag w/iTunes on ext. drives... :eek:



iPhoto library should be ideally on the 'same' drive as your 'boot' drive.. but who knows I ain't no :apple: genius ....
 
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