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philml

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 17, 2014
4
4
Hi

I've been storing my iTunes files on a NAS for the last few months. I have the iTunes folder itself on the local hard drive, and the 'iTunes media' folder is on the NAS. Every now and again, presumably when the network connection fails, iTunes silently repoints this to the local hard drive. The fact that's silent is the problem--I then have to change it back and run 'organize' library.

I have the network folder in my login items, and I even have an applescript that runs every 15 minutes, making sure that the drives are mounted. Still, it's unreliable.

What do people here do?
1) Is there a disadvantage to having the whole 'iTunes' folder, not just 'iTunes media' on the NAS? At least that way, should it fail, I'll know easily.

2) Anyone got any other advice?

Many thanks

Phil
 
I've run iTunes with the library on my boot drive and media on my NAS for years with no issues. Your main issue is trying to figure out why you lose your NAS connection so often.
 
Hi

I've been storing my iTunes files on a NAS for the last few months. I have the iTunes folder itself on the local hard drive, and the 'iTunes media' folder is on the NAS. Every now and again, presumably when the network connection fails, iTunes silently repoints this to the local hard drive. The fact that's silent is the problem--I then have to change it back and run 'organize' library.

I have the network folder in my login items, and I even have an applescript that runs every 15 minutes, making sure that the drives are mounted. Still, it's unreliable.

I had the same problem and fixed it by making the library a symbolic link to the NAS so the folder is still on the HD and points to the NAS. That way, if iTunes fails to find it for any reason it simply stops playing media rater than recreating the library. I also have an Applescript run by a calendar event to remount the drive on a daily basis to fix any connectivity issues.
 
Thanks everyone, very helpful. Yes, first thing is why the NAS disconnects. Cheers.
 
When i used itunes with my NAS (synology) i had the itunes library locally and had it keep track of media on my NAS, drop files in a special folder and it would automatically get indexed and moved. But after 5 years or so i gave it up in a combination of itunes annoyances, apple seemingly working against me organizing my own files and itunes scalability problems.

good luck!
 
I do exactly this,,, run itunes content over network..

I can't see how iTunes would automatically point to any library while its still open as that's the user job.
if my NAS connection to my Mac goes down for any reason iTunes keeps throwing the error message, and Get info cannot be accesssed (well u can, but it's not editable) and u cannot play/listen to anything..

just bringing up connection is not enough... itunes must be re-started in most cases. It's convenient, but i gotta keep remembering (oh dam I shut decided to reboot NAS first without closing iTunes)...

An external drive with media on instead attached to computer would have solved this. I could run scripts or do some fancy auto-connect when connection does drop, but then u have to worry about weather the script will work all the time.. and too much hassle when it doesn't..

Best just to have it locally. I'll get round to that one day.

The only snag i wish Apple would fix, is connecting in Finder and connecting to network drive in iTunes are two different issues.. If u connect in Finder does not mean it will connect in iTunes when started.. unless u save password (which is a real pain in the bee-hind)

I did work around this by gong to "Add to library" clicked the folder so the eject symbol appeared, then closed the window..

But doing this each time connection came up got way out of hand :p too much effort for something. And something anyone would just assume, is a no brainier, as no one should have to same password it its only going to be a temp connection, or for security purposes.
 
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