MacBook Air M1 External ITunes Storage

[Danorak81]

Hello,

I’m asking because I’m quite out of the loop!

I have a 2013 iMac, of which I have a WD external housing my iTunes Library.

My Dad has an M1 MB Air, and wants to put his music on an external device of some sort.

Now, I’m not stupid-but due to the age of my iMac, I’m a bit out of the loop. My Dad has approx. 60GB of Media, and I’m not entirely sure what ports he has in his MacBook (see the picture attached). With the marvel of modern technology, could he achieve the same as me, media stored externally, but on something like a thumb drive? Obv. he’d have to attach it each time he fired the Mac up, but that’s not a problem. Or, would he be better with an external SSD?

Any advice or recommendations on thumb drives or externals welcomed: see pictures below.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Bigwaff]

Media library is meant to be available at all times. While, yes, he can attach a USB-C external drive (SSD or HDD) and set the location of his Media library to the external drive, the MBA will expect the external drive to always be attached, just like your external drive is most likely always attached to your iMac.

For simplicity, he should just use the default location on the internal storage.

 

[Danorak81]

Appreciate the input-it won’t be an issue plugging a drive in before the laptop is opened, so it will always be there in that respect, plus, it’s how we used to run his older MacBook. However, we’re looking to move it externally because he’s running out of room.

 

[Shirasaki]

I suspect the USB-C power output given by this model of MacBook Pro is insufficient in a way that high power draw can cut out devices randomly. I’ve invested such solutions before, tho not for iTunes. Trust me, it is unstable af. Touching the cable? Chance to disconnect. Wiggling? Chance to disconnect. Wanna move your macbook anywhere else with drive attached? Chance to disconnect. And forget about thumb drives. While iTunes library is not meant to be written extensively, thumb drive write speed is always going to be bad compared to read, especially in small files, regardless of what manufacturers advertise.

My suggestion is to move out less used data from your dad’s Mac before considering external iTunes library. You don’t want your external ssd to be corrupted by macOS sometime down the line, worse when macOS has very minimal protection against data corruption in the event of unexpected disconnect.

 

[Danorak81]

Ok, cheers for the advice 👍

 

[xboxbml]

Ok, cheers for the advice 👍

That's why you size storage by how you're gonna use it before you actually buy it, but add even more than you think you'll need. I would always add as much storage and memory as can be afforded for the long haul. Not only does that help with space and speed, but storage life(TBW). I'm still debating on what to replace this 2015 MBA with...lol..

 

[Danorak81]

That's why you size storage by how you're gonna use it before you actually buy it, but add even more than you think you'll need. I would always add as much storage and memory as can be afforded for the long haul. Not only does that help with space and speed, but storage life(TBW). I'm still debating on what to replace this 2015 MBA with...lol..

I know.

It was my Dad who bought it-he had his music stored externally on his old MacBook and transferred it all to the new MacBook. But, he has added quite a bit of music since.

It’s alright saying buy more than you need, but you have to consider your finances too: and upspeccing the internal storage is expensive with Apple; I have a 1TB Fusion on my iMac, but I rely on external storage because I have so much music (I can’t begin to imagine how much an SSD would cost from Apple to fit my needs).

I’m currently considering a Mac Mini, but doing the same: 256GB SSD, and an external SSD to house my media. It’s a setup I’ve been running since around 2010 and works well.

 

[venom600]

I'd make another suggestion. The Cloud. He can sign up for iTunes Match for $25/yr and it will automatically match and upload all of his music so that he doesn't have to keep it all on his computer. Sure, he can keep the original files on a drive as a backup, but he doesn't have to plug something in every time he wants to listen to a song.

 

[Danorak81]

I'd make another suggestion. The Cloud. He can sign up for iTunes Match for $25/yr and it will automatically match and upload all of his music so that he doesn't have to keep it all on his computer. Sure, he can keep the original files on a drive as a backup, but he doesn't have to plug something in every time he wants to listen to a song.

Thats actually a really good shout: I’d not thought about that… Thank you 👍🏻

 

[venom600]

Before Apple Music was a thing I was using iTunes Match to have my own personal streaming service. The ability to listen to the music from any iTunes instance anywhere in the world at the quality you upload it at or higher (meaning if you upload lossless versions of songs that aren’t lossless from Apple you get the higher quality version) was a game changer.