Moving Itunes music folder to an external NAS

[acharris76]

Hi,
This is probably an old question but I'd really like an answer before I take the plunge!
I recently (and very geekily) completed the task of making sure all my music and tv/films has the right artwork! (All in all, 178GB worth).
Now I want to move the music folder to an external NAS but keep the artwork folders and the itunes library files on my macbook.
When I move the music folder I know it will then try and update the library file.
Will this undo all the hard work I have done correcting the artwork?
Thanks.
Anthony

 

[Ashims]

It might... if you have to recreate your library. Perhaps try a find & replace in the xml file changing all the current paths to the mounted network path. Then reopen itunes.

FYI, when the drive isn't mounted your library is still there, it just does the little x besides the file, so not mounting the drive when you open itunes wont damage your library file... Just a neat coinkidink that I discovered a couple of days ago when I switched my library to a NAS drive .

Other than your little problem itunes + nas works really well tho you'll be glad to hear. Good Luck

Cheers.
Ash.

 

[theBB]

It might... if you have to recreate your library. Perhaps try a find & replace in the xml file changing all the current paths to the mounted network path. Then reopen itunes.

I don't think that xml file is the master list. iTunes, on a Mac at least, uses a binary file to keep track of all its media. (If you delete that file iTunes would recreate it.) I think you have to import that xml file after opening iTunes before the new paths may take effect.

Why do you want to keep the artwork on your local disk?

 

[acharris76]

I'm sure I read somewhere that it is best to keep the itunes artwork folders and library files on your local hard drive and only use an external drive (either USB or NAS) to keep the music folder itself.
What I have done is copy the entire music folder (as in the OS X default location for everything itunes) to the NAS so in theory as long as it is a complete copy, all I need to do is open itunes, hold down the command key, and point itunes to the new library on the NAS which is a completely up to date copy of everything.
Does that sound about right?

 

[prostuff1]

I just moved my library to an external NAS. I also wanted to create more than one library and not have the "!" beside some of the songs. I used a program called Multitunes to set my multiple libraries up and it has been working great. I can have different playlist for each library and everything stays in sync. Just do some google searching on the subject and you should come up with some results on moving the iTunes Music folder to the external only.

If you really need detailed instructions on how i did it then feel free to ask but i don't feel like typing them all out right now.

 

[jackfrost123]

Why doesn't itunes append the artwork to the file, that would make sense, almost all other players I know of do that? What's the use in keeping a huge database file? Is there an option or an outside application that lets you append artwork to files, that would be super useful and you wouldn't get caught up in awkward situation such as the above user decribes.

 

[DarkHeraldMage]

Why doesn't itunes append the artwork to the file, that would make sense, almost all other players I know of do that? What's the use in keeping a huge database file? Is there an option or an outside application that lets you append artwork to files, that would be super useful and you wouldn't get caught up in awkward situation such as the above user decribes.

BAM! Or you can just use MetaX.

 

[jackfrost123]

Greeeaaattt!!!:d