(Somewhat) Complicated File Moving Problem

I have limited space on my mini's internal HD, and keep a backup of my music on a firewire external. I don't keep every single album I've ever owned on my internal, but I do on my external; I recently deleted a bunch of music off my internal to make way for boot camp, and kept all my music on the external.

So...I'd like to update the backup library, but there's an inherent problem now: I dragged the music over to the external and it brought up the dialog box that says "would you like to replace the items with the same name" and I said no because, since i've deleted some albums by some artists, those albums would be deleted if the files were replaced. However, if you don't replace, it won't add to anything inside the file.

It's hard to explain this...example: I have a bunch of DJ shadow samples that I don't listen to often but will definitely want sometime in the future; they're on the external, and not the internal. And I've recently picked up his new album, so it's on the internal but not the external. If I were to replace the DJ Shadow folder, then I'd lose the samples; If I don't replace, the new album wont get copied over.

(Sorry for the novel but it's hard to explain)

Does anyone have any ideas how to do anything with this? I have a ton of artist files with this same problem; it would take ages to do it all one-by-one.

Thanks for your help,

H

 

OK...so i backed up my music by making an exact copy of my itunes folder when i got this computer. It copied to my external firewire drive. Later, I had to delete some of the stuff I don't listen to as often from my internal HD, but kept it on my external. Since then, I have acquired a bunch more albums that I'd like to back up. The troubleI'm having now is exemplified in the second paragraph of my first post.

All I'm trying to do is keep a copy of all my music, new and old, on my external.