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

iTunes to Mac, external drive, basic ?'s please

S

scooterguitar

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 7, 2008
227
0
if you'd be so kind...I've had my iMac for almost a year, but have yet to make the big switch totally.
I am getting an external drive today to store music, photos, etc. Simply enough to set them up and have items go directly to it instead of internal drive? I know it is, just want peace of mind;)

MY big ?...I have lots of music on itunes on my pc...can I take it off the pc and out onto the external to use with my imac? Still have to do two separate partitions, or?

Or, easier to get all my music onto ipod, then use Expod to download to the external?

Once it is all on the external, how do I call it up, easily? itunes automatically search to play music from it and save new music to the external or do I have set it up or assign things differently?
Thanks for any help.
 
scooterguitar said:
MY big ?...I have lots of music on itunes on my pc...can I take it off the pc and out onto the external to use with my imac? Still have to do two separate partitions, or?
Click to expand...
Yes, you can use your music on an external drive and share it between your Mac and PC. You don't need separate partitions, as long as the drive is formatted properly. NTFS is probably your best choice if you share the drive a lot with a PC.

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
  • Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
  • Maximum file size: 4GB.
  • Maximum volume size: 2TB
NTFS (Windows NT File System)
  • Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
  • Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
  • To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
  • Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
  • Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
  • Maximum file size: 16 TB
  • Maximum volume size: 256TB
HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)
  • Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
  • Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
  • To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
  • To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
  • Maximum file size: 8EiB
  • Maximum volume size: 8EiB
 
Thank you.

Got home with the drive...I have decided to not use the drive on the pc at all...so how to get my itunes music from pc to the mac's external HD then?
 
scooterguitar said:
Thank you.

Got home with the drive...I have decided to not use the drive on the pc at all...so how to get my itunes music from pc to the mac's external HD then?
Click to expand...
If you're only using the external with the Mac, format it as HFS+. Then you could network with the PC and use the Mac to drag and drop from the PC's drive to the external. You can also install MacDrive on the PC and drag the files directly to the HFS+ formatted drive. MacDrive has a free 7 day trial, so you can transfer the files without buying MacDrive.
 
Thanks GGJ, will give it a try later today! The free trial might be better...I have around 50gbs of mostly music I need to get onto it.
 
Not sure...
Downloaded macdrive to pc.
hooked up external hdd HFS+ formatted drive )came already formatted this way)
I didn't see how to copy over going through macdrive?
So, I just opened the external properties, drug and dropped my itunes folder (33 gbs) onto the external.
My plan is to just hook the external up to the mac.
Think this will work? I write this as I am waiting for the copying to complete, but I don't think it will.
 
So as long as the macdrive program is open, it works? I thought it had to be doen within the macdrive program?
 
scooterguitar said:
So as long as the macdrive program is open, it works? I thought it had to be doen within the macdrive program?
Click to expand...
MacDrive mounts the drive and enables Windows to read the HFS+ format, but you can still use Windows Explorer to view/copy/paste.
 
Ah ha, understood now. Thanks.

Ok, here we go round 2...
It worked! But...

I could view and play the files off of the external through my mac. I thought I reconfigured itunes to send automatically new music to the external. I think it is, but not sure if it did...forgot to look at internal drive space before consolidating itunes library. I powered off the external and rebooted itunes, all the music from the external is still there.

So, how can I check this?
Also, how to I set up the mac to automatically save music to the external itunes folder. While we're at it, set it up to automatically send garageband projects to it, as well as photos, movies, etc?

Whew, I'll make it!:eek::(
 
scooterguitar said:
I thought I reconfigured itunes to send automatically new music to the external. ... So, how can I check this?
Click to expand...
iTunes > Peferences > Advanced > iTunes Media folder location
scooterguitar said:
Also, how to I set up the mac to automatically save music to the external itunes folder.
Click to expand...
If you set a folder on the external drive as your iTunes Media folder (see above), iTunes will automatically save music to that location.
scooterguitar said:
While we're at it, set it up to automatically send garageband projects to it, as well as photos, movies, etc?
Click to expand...
Check Preferences for each app.
 
Wanted to thank you GG, your help and patience with all of this made everything go great! I'm sure I could have dug deeper into searching for the info, but your help really sped things up for me when many things were happening personally, in which your help my this transition painless;)

I have since reorganized and now have my complete itunes library.

I have one ?, not sure whether it is pertinent or not.....after everything was moved, I then setup itunes to go to yet a new folder on the external, working well. As I was deleting the old contents and folder from the external (through my various testing), I noticed a folder within that designated folder on the external, it is/was labeled "automatically add to itunes".
My question is, on the new and only folder designation, I don't see this "auto. add itunes" folder icon. Only artist album folder/icons appear. Am I missing a step or something?

I had redumped all of my music from the PC to the external into a folder. Hooked the external to the imac, then changed the itunes designated storage path to that folder that folder.
 
scooterguitar said:
Wanted to thank you GG, your help and patience with all of this made everything go great! I'm sure I could have dug deeper into searching for the info, but your help really sped things up for me when many things were happening personally, in which your help my this transition painless;)

I have since reorganized and now have my complete itunes library.

I have one ?, not sure whether it is pertinent or not.....after everything was moved, I then setup itunes to go to yet a new folder on the external, working well. As I was deleting the old contents and folder from the external (through my various testing), I noticed a folder within that designated folder on the external, it is/was labeled "automatically add to itunes".
My question is, on the new and only folder designation, I don't see this "auto. add itunes" folder icon. Only artist album folder/icons appear. Am I missing a step or something?

I had redumped all of my music from the PC to the external into a folder. Hooked the external to the imac, then changed the itunes designated storage path to that folder that folder.
Click to expand...
Odds are you're one folder too deep. Go up one level, and the Automatically Add to iTunes folder should be there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back