smoving iTunes library to an external drive

[AeroBar]

Hi,

I am about to order a 1 TB external hard drive to store my photos and iTunes library on.

It will have Firewire 800, so will my iTunes access files on the external drive as fast if they were the internal drive? ( and will iPhoto do the same? )

Cheers.

 

[skybolt]

Will work perfectly! For iPhoto, go here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1229 and for iTunes, go here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449.

 

[InkMaster]

Hi,

I am about to order a 1 TB external hard drive to store my photos and iTunes library on.

It will have Firewire 800, so will my iTunes access files on the external drive as fast if they were the internal drive? ( and will iPhoto do the same? )

Cheers.

smoving... har har har well that gave me a good laugh

 

[Galley]

Hi,

I am about to order a 1 TB external hard drive to store my photos and iTunes library on.

It will have Firewire 800, so will my iTunes access files on the external drive as fast if they were the internal drive? ( and will iPhoto do the same? )

Cheers.

Make sure you use iTunes' Consolidate method.

 

[stevod]

Make sure you use iTunes' Consolidate method.

Can you move the files and keep all of the 'play count' info?

S

 

[Galley]

Can you move the files and keep all of the 'play count' info?

S

Absolutely. All you do is enter the location of the new library in iTunes' preferences, and then use the Consolidate function. I did it recently. 500GB copies in five hours.
Scroll down to "Consolidate Library: the Right Way" in this tutorial.

 

[AeroBar]

Thanks to everyone for info.

 

[alphaod]

Man I was about to ask this

A moment of truth… so I've verified a few dozen songs will play and videos work when I moved the original to the trash bin…

Safe to delete the original?

 

[pjarvi]

I would backup the original, rather than rely on a single storage location. With regards to storing the library on an external drive connected via firewire, this is exactly how mine is setup. You can stream from it as well. When streaming from something like an AppleTv, the only thing you might run into is a slight delay while the external drive spins up, since they usually go to sleep after a period of inactivity.

 

[AeroBar]

Hello Fellows,

Thanks for all the input.
Slight change though, my Mac isn't capable of firewire 800. It will have to be 400. Will I still be able access as fast as though it's on the internal drive?
Cheers.

 

[Galley]

Hello Fellows,

Thanks for all the input.
Slight change though, my Mac isn't capable of firewire 800. It will have to be 400. Will I still be able access as fast as though it's on the internal drive?
Cheers.

Speed isn't an issue. The only problem is that most external hard drives tend to go to sleep, so sometime it takes 5-10 seconds for them to wake up if you haven't used iTunes in awhile.