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iTunes library size limit?

S

Soundhound

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 29, 2006
614
4
I have a 500 gig library of music (don't ask) and have kind of a quirky setup to make it available on my home network. It works ok, but the problem is that the size of the library seems to freak out iTunes. It takes foverer to load, freezes temporarily sometimes, permanently sometimes, works really slugishly others. Is there a size limit to the library iTunes can access properly? Anyone else dealing with a huge itunes library/have any solutions for this?

Thanks!
 
Soundhound said:
I have a 500 gig library of music (don't ask) and have kind of a quirky setup to make it available on my home network. It works ok, but the problem is that the size of the library seems to freak out iTunes. It takes foverer to load, freezes temporarily sometimes, permanently sometimes, works really slugishly others. Is there a size limit to the library iTunes can access properly? Anyone else dealing with a huge itunes library/have any solutions for this?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I'm guessing that this is on an external drive maybe. Either way, i think iTunes has to catalog all that stuff occasionally. It basically is checking against a previous file that listed what you had, and updates it (this is assuming that it works anything like linux systems) basically so that finder knows where the file is, and your finder experience overall is faster.

I have a few external HDs that I use for movie storage, and when I disconnect, and reconnect them, it always takes a little longer to get frontrow (itunes pretty face) to get into the drive. I believe it is cataloging the stuff on the drive, in case of changes.

Now this is just a guess, but it's all I've got. So if it's correct, then 500 GB of music files, might take a while, and yeah could potentially lock up the machine if you are trying to do other things at the same time.

Good Luck,

Brian
 
Correctamundo. It is on an external. The thing is when I take my laptop to work, unconnected to the external, itunes still takes forever to load (it shows the dialog box saying loading library and that's what takes forever) and then sometimes it just crashes, others it acts very slowly and pokey. And this is all when not connected to the library either through the neetwork or directly.
drives me crazy. this morning I dumped the library on my laptop and have to rebuild all my playlists at some point. really a pain....


bmcgonag said:
I'm guessing that this is on an external drive maybe. Either way, i think iTunes has to catalog all that stuff occasionally. It basically is checking against a previous file that listed what you had, and updates it (this is assuming that it works anything like linux systems) basically so that finder knows where the file is, and your finder experience overall is faster.

I have a few external HDs that I use for movie storage, and when I disconnect, and reconnect them, it always takes a little longer to get frontrow (itunes pretty face) to get into the drive. I believe it is cataloging the stuff on the drive, in case of changes.

Now this is just a guess, but it's all I've got. So if it's correct, then 500 GB of music files, might take a while, and yeah could potentially lock up the machine if you are trying to do other things at the same time.

Good Luck,

Brian
Click to expand...
 
Soundhound said:
Correctamundo. It is on an external. The thing is when I take my laptop to work, unconnected to the external, itunes still takes forever to load (it shows the dialog box saying loading library and that's what takes forever) and then sometimes it just crashes, others it acts very slowly and pokey. And this is all when not connected to the library either through the neetwork or directly.
Click to expand...

iTunes doesn't access any files unless you play it, its all working from lists that are somewhere in the iTunes folder.
 
Soundhound said:
So the size of the library file itself it just too big for itunes to handle?
Click to expand...

It might be quicker if you tried to view it in different playlists. so what you could try is making playlists of all the artists start with A and then the B's etc.
 
that's an interesting idea. 26 playlists by alphabet. hmmmmmm.....

PYR0M310N said:
It might be quicker if you tried to view it in different playlists. so what you could try is making playlists of all the artists start with A and then the B's etc.
Click to expand...
 
My aforementioned 500GB is also on an external, and indeed is accessed wirelessly via AirDrive.

In addition to the 500GB of music, it probably has 300GB of iTunes controlled video content.

Again, with all of the above, no problems when loading my library, nor when connecting to it from AppleTV.
 
Airdrive? So do you have the newer 'n' Airport? If so, does iTunes provide software control for it?


netdog said:
My aforementioned 500GB is also on an external, and indeed is accessed wirelessly via AirDrive.

In addition to the 500GB of music, it probably has 300GB of iTunes controlled video content.

Again, with all of the above, no problems when loading my library, nor when connecting to it from AppleTV.
Click to expand...
 
I just gotta ask.

How does one get that much music without being rich? very rich?

lets see, .99 cents per song and about what 10,000 songs plus?

Thats a lot of dollars, or pounds, or an enormous amout of yen!

I have maybe 10 songs total? sheesh! :(
 
BilltheCat said:
I just gotta ask.

How does one get that much music without being rich? very rich?

lets see, .99 cents per song and about what 10,000 songs plus?

Thats a lot of dollars, or pounds, or an enormous amout of yen!

I have maybe 10 songs total? sheesh! :(
Click to expand...

Chances are he didn't pay $10,000 for his music, if you know what I mean.
 
Paging Netdog, over! I'm wondering if you have the new 'n' airport, and if there's support for it as a way to serve up itunes to an airport network without problems. I've been hoping that would be the case at some point. Thanks!

Soundhound said:
Airdrive? So do you have the newer 'n' Airport? If so, does iTunes provide software control for it?
Click to expand...
 
My library is around 180 g's

and it still moves fairly smooth..

was yours any better before iTunes 7? or before using it via airdrive?

on an airdrive side note, I plugged my nano into the usb port on the new extreme. It worked fine for about five minutes, then it froze everything, and I had to restart the extreme, and reformat the nano lol...won't do that again.
 
Soundhound said:
Correctamundo. It is on an external. The thing is when I take my laptop to work, unconnected to the external, itunes still takes forever to load (it shows the dialog box saying loading library and that's what takes forever) and then sometimes it just crashes, others it acts very slowly and pokey. And this is all when not connected to the library either through the neetwork or directly.
drives me crazy. this morning I dumped the library on my laptop and have to rebuild all my playlists at some point. really a pain....
Click to expand...

Considering that you use iTunes with the drive connected sometimes, and disconnected others, as I do with frontrow, I have to stay with my original assumption that your mac realizes the drive is missing, and creates a new list, this causes the sluggish startup. Then when it is reconnected, it goes through it all over again.

You might try the A, B, C, ....idea see if it helps.

Brian
 
Alright I'm gonna bite the bullet and go out and buy a new airport 'n' extreme and see if that helps!:eek:
 
It's actually a combination of several people's libraries. I'm just the latest to be added. I've never looked at how many songs are actually in there.

BSL4 Guy said:
By my calculations, at 256 kps, avg. 4 min per song, 50,000+ songs.
Click to expand...
 
Okay I bought a new 'n' airport and have all my expresses (except one, but it'll come around:rolleyes: ) showing up and able to play music. Now I'm wondering, how do I create the library on my powerbook? Do I drag all the files (500 gigs worth) from the airdrive, over the airport network to the itunes on my mac and let it churn all night? Should I connect the mac directly to the drive and build the itunes library on my mac that way? does it make a difference?
 
iTunes might have an easier time remembering the file pathways if you import from the end source.

even with your library size it shouldn't take more than two hrs or so to import (extrapolating from my library size on a USB 1 external). However, sound check and artwork may indeed take all night.
 
spliting libraries

I have the same problem. I have about 53,000 songs and itunes keeps freezing on me. Some songs I listen to more than others though, so I was thinking I could create two separate libraries: one with music I frequently listen to and one with the leftover stuff. I have a feeling this is going to take a while to manually re-organize such a large library. It also might be an issue of RAM. I only have 2 gigabytes on this imac, but maybe itunes will run better with 4?
 
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