Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

CHSeifert

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Hey :)

I have an iMac with 2 internal drives - a 256 GB SSD, which currently have the entire Mac OSX Lion on it and a totally empty 2 TB HDD drive.

I need to move my Music, Movie and Picture folder to the 2 TB HDD drive.
How do I do that ?

I don't want to move the entire Home folder to the 2 TB HDD, only the 3 mentioned folders. This because I've heard installation of certain programs will crash if the entire home folder is not on the main OSX drive.

I need 1 TB of space for my 3 folders: Music, Movies and Pictures.
The rest of the folders don't take up that much space.

OS is: Mac OSx Lion newest edt. as of 12.25-2011

Thanks in advance :)
 
Where did you hear that?
This because I've heard installation of certain programs will crash if the entire home folder is not on the main OSX drive.
I ran Mac OS X 10.6 on one partition A, then Mac OS X 10.7 on another partition B, while both Mac OS X versions accessed my home directory being on a third partition C. I had no problems, even when installing multiple applications in 10.6 and 10.7.

But other than that, I can't help your with your query, as I don't use these folders.
I have my iTunes Library file on an external HDD while the music is on another HDD.
 
I need to move my Music, Movie and Picture folder to the 2 TB HDD drive.
How do I do that ?
Drag and drop while holding your Command key to move. Then make sure your settings in appropriate apps point to the new location.
I don't want to move the entire Home folder to the 2 TB HDD, only the 3 mentioned folders. This because I've heard installation of certain programs will crash if the entire home folder is not on the main OSX drive.
Not true.
 
Drag and drop while holding your Command key to move. Then make sure your settings in appropriate apps point to the new location.

Not true.

Thanks :)

But I know the OSx access the Home folder frequently and since I want most of the activity on the SSD to keep things quiet, I hope the best thing is to only move these 3 folders, which will only contain readable files and not programs of any kind.
 
For others that may look for solutions to this problem, I have the formula right here and it has been tested and it works flawlessly :)

Link:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

If your hard drive is nearly full after loading all your music and other media into iTunes, or if you just want to move all those music and media files to another hard drive on your system, here's a way to make the move while retaining all your playlists, ratings, and play history.

First make sure that the "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" option is selected in iTunes Preferences:

From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences.
In the resulting window, click the Advanced button.
Select the "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" checkbox.
Click OK.


Once you've done that, follow the next set of steps to change your iTunes Media folder location to the new drive and then consolidate your library to the new location. This not only copies your audio and media files over, it also retains your ratings and playlists. Note: If you move your music and media to an external hard drive, you will need to have that drive connected to access your files. No matter what, it's always a good idea to have a backup of the media you have in iTunes.

Open iTunes.
From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences.
Click the Advanced button in the Preferences window.
Click the Change button in the iTunes Media folder location pane.
In the Change Media Folder Location window that appears, navigate to the location where you would like your new iTunes Media folder to be created.
Note: By default, your iTunes Media folder is a folder named "iTunes Media" in ~/Music/iTunes/ where the tilde "~" represents your home directory.
Click the New Folder button in the Change Media Folder Location window.
In the New Folder window that appears, enter the name of the new iTunes Media folder.
Click Create.
Click Choose in the Change Media Folder Location window.
Click OK in the Advanced window.
From the File menu, choose Library and then Organize Library if using iTunes 9 or later. If you're using iTunes 7 or iTunes 8 for Mac, choose File > Library and then Consolidate Library.
In the Organize Library (or Consolidate Library) window, select Consolidate files.
Click OK. Important: This action copies all of your music and media files to the new location. There must be enough hard disk space available to copy all of your music and media files.
After the folder has been copied, locate your original iTunes Media folder, and drag it to the Trash. Important: Don't remove the iTunes Library files that may be in the same location as the iTunes Media folder. For more information about the iTunes Library files, see this article.
Quit iTunes and then open iTunes once more.
If you receive the alert "The folder containing "iTunes Library" cannot be found, and is required. Please choose or create a new iTunes library," you most likely moved the iTunes Library files. If this is the case, move them out of the Trash and back to where they were.
If you can open and close iTunes without encountering the above alert, empty the Trash.
 
For others that may look for solutions to this problem, I have the formula right here and it has been tested and it works flawlessly :)

I've been trying to follow these instructions to the letter but in iTunes 10 when I go to Library -> Organize and consolidate files, nothing happens.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.