iTunes/External Hard Drive

[Willie5566]

Not sure where else to put this so here goes.

My iTunes is on my pc laptop which is out of memory so much so that I can not even do updates or add additional apps. I am looking to transfer my iTunes over to an external HD. I am completely clueless on how to use one. I am sure it is not difficult but could use some guidance/advice.


1. What External HD do you recommend? Looking for one that is easy to use, dependable and reasonably priced. See #2

2. Since I would be transferring my iTunes to a portable HD is it possible that I could use it with both my pc laptop and my MBP? <-This may affect what HD you recommend.

3. Anyone have any good links for how to transfer iTunes library to an external HD?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[martinlird]

You will need to transfer all the original mp3's to the external HD, once thats done, wipe iTunes and then put all the songs back onto iTunes. This will mean that the filenames are configuered for the HD and not a filename on your computer. This does mean that you will have to plug in the HD every time you want to use iTunes.
Exactly the same with the MB.

Someone may be able to tell you a way cutting out a couple of steps, but thats from my experience.

Hope that helps.

 

[Avatar74]

I don't see why you'd need an external hard drive when you've got iCloud. Do you plan on listening to 37,000 songs in one sitting? I'm not trying to be smug... I'm actually curious if anyone does.

Now if you're just talking for around the house, what I've done is hooked up a Western Digital MyBook II to the AirPort Extreme base station's network disk USB port, and pointed all my computers' iTunes to the iTunes folder on that one drive. But when I'm out and about I use my iPhone 4S 64GB that's currently holding about 3000 songs, 50 music videos, 5 movies, apps, etc. and still has about 20 gigabytes to spare.

Just a thought.

 

[martinlird]

I don't see why you'd need an external hard drive when you've got iCloud. Do you plan on listening to 37,000 songs in one sitting? I'm not trying to be smug... I'm actually curious if anyone does.

Now if you're just talking for around the house, what I've done is hooked up a Western Digital MyBook II to the AirPort Extreme base station's network disk USB port, and pointed all my computers' iTunes to the iTunes folder on that one drive. But when I'm out and about I use my iPhone 4S 64GB that's currently holding about 3000 songs, 50 music videos, 5 movies, apps, etc. and still has about 20 gigabytes to spare.

Just a thought.

What if you don't have signal?

Edit: just seen the 'for around the house' statement, but still, if you don't have signal if you out, then it won't work

 

[Avatar74]

What if you don't have signal?

Edit: just seen the 'for around the house' statement, but still, if you don't have signal if you out, then it won't work

Then take your iPhone with you wherever you are going that has no signal. But my question is more like... where would you possibly spend inordinate amounts of time without signal that you would need to carry your entire library with you and be able to listen to every song on that library?

There are plenty of options... I just find it very cumbersome to take an extra drive anywhere for this sort of thing.

 

[firestarter]

You will need to transfer all the original mp3's to the external HD, once thats done, wipe iTunes and then put all the songs back onto iTunes. This will mean that the filenames are configuered for the HD and not a filename on your computer. This does mean that you will have to plug in the HD every time you want to use iTunes.
Exactly the same with the MB.

That's an awful way of doing it - because you loose all your play counts, ratings, playlists etc.

Put the new hard drive in, and create a folder for your tunes.

Go into iTunes Preferences->Advanced and move the iTunes Media folder location to a this folder on your external drive.

Now go to File->Library->Organise library. Select 'consolidate library' and then leave iTunes to it... what it does is to copy all the music files into the new location and update it's database. All settings, play counts etc. are kept intact.

Now delete/archive the location where your tunes used to be. Leave the rest of the iTunes home directory on your laptop where it is - because this is where the iTunes database still lives.

 

[Willie5566]

What HD do you recommend? Most are formatted for PC or Mac not both. So I would need something that works for both to be able to pull this off.

 

[firestarter]

What HD do you recommend? Most are formatted for PC or Mac not both. So I would need something that works for both to be able to pull this off.

Buy any hard drive and reformat it yourself. There are only a handful of manufacturers who make the hard drive internal mechanisms, so in reality they're all pretty similar.

What OS are you using on your PC?

If you're using Vista SP1 or above, the best idea would be to reformat the drive on your Mac to be exFAT. This format is compatible with both machines, and can handle large sized drives.

 

[marsmissions]

Any will work, you will need to reformat them to fat32 instead of ntfs of hfs+

iTunes from external is kind of slow at times though, be prepared for this.

Also, make sure you keep a backup, external portable hard drives are prone to failure from movement. You don't want to lose your entire music library to a trip from one machine to the other.